The BCS Bowl Championship football game was played last night, and Alabama won handily, especially after knocking Texas quarterback Colt McCoy out of the game with an injured shoulder early in the game. Several thoughts: first, why are there so many bowl games after January 1st? It used to be that the college season was over when the New Year dawned. Instead, we have to wait a week for the championship game, and in the interim, we got the GMAC Bowl between those 2 powerhouses: Central Michigan and Troy on the night before the championship? It turned out to be a good game, but at first, this looked like a waste of time.
The Orange Bowl on January 5th? The Fiesta Bowl was on January 4th? Why? Just for more television ratings? I know that money means power and clout, but shouldn’t these “student athletes” get some time with their families before school starts again? Or does anyone care? After all, the athletes are getting free school and room and board; they don’t get to share in the millions of dollars generated by the games they play in. And often, they don’t have to show up, just get grades good enough to play. What’s the problem? Well, I watched only a couple of minutes of last night’s game (mostly due to Indignant family obligations, but also to watch the Blackhawks stage a 5-goal onslaught at Boston after spotting them 2 goals), so they made little or no money off me.
Finally, this is the second national championship for Coach Nick Saban; his first coming while at LSU. With the slicked-back hair and his movement from the NFL to college, back to the NFL and then back to college, doesn’t this guy just seem like a used car salesman: good at what he does, but more than a little bit shady?

Hi Everybody.
I took a few days off to spend with the Indignant Family over the holidays, so I didn’t post anything, but lots happened, so let’s get to it…

I was in the car driving to work this morning when the news announcer said that former Daily Southtown sportswriter Bill Gleason had died over the weekend at the age of 87. Of course, I wrote for his signature television series “The Sportswriters on TV,” and Gleason was an original – gruff, opinionated, honest to a fault.
Gleason and I got along, but we were never as close as I am to Telander, Bill Jauss, or Lester Munson. He owned the show with producer John Roach, and he blocked me getting any remuneration for writing for the show. I also got into it with him because he admitted that he told young athletes not to come to Northwestern because the program was so bad. My argument was, sure, that may have been the case, but maybe it could have gotten better sooner with better recruits.
But he was a great writer; a legend; who pulled no punches. Many around here were appalled when Gleason, right after the Bulls had won one of their six NBA championships, asked Michael Jordan if, since the season was over, he had any comment on the slave labor conditions workers endured when making Air Jordan shoes. Many thought he ambushed Jordan, but it was pure Gleason. I laughed when I saw it and it didn’t surprise me one bit.
It also doesn’t surprise me that he won’t be having a funeral service. He wants to have a party in the spring where lots of people hoist beers in his memory. Bill, I’ll be there and I’ll drink at least two to your cantankerousness.

I got out of bed early on New Year’s Day, put on my 2010 Outback Bowl shirt. I was ready to watch and record the Outback Bowl game between Northwestern and Auburn and I was cautiously optimistic of NU winning its first bowl game in 61 years. The Indignant Family went down in the basement to watch kids shows while I sat in our chilly sun room to watch the game.
Well, as you all know, NU lost in overtime, making me once again glad I didn’t spend the large sums of money to attend the game in person, because I would have been angry. So, let’s get to my thoughts on the game…
There should have been no way that a team with a quarterback who throws 5 interceptions should been anywhere near winning a football game. But, at least the coaching staff admitted that the Cats couldn’t run the ball all season, so they went to the Don “Air” Coryell playbook and threw the ball almost 80 times. But Mike Kafka almost made the point moot with some very questionable decisions. Yes, the first pass was a little off the mark, hit the receiver, went up into the air and was picked off, but the three picks in the red zone, especially the one returned 101-yards for a touchdown was inexcusable.
But it was fortunate that we were playing Auburn. I know it’s a cliché about the “good ‘old boys” who never go to class, but these guys should have beaten us soundly and early, but the word dumb does not fully describe these guys. Turnovers, and penalties kept us in the game, especially when their star runner Ben Tate “dunked” the football over the crossbar after a touchdown. It would have been OK in the NFL (which is probably where Tate’s mind was), but in college, it is a celebration penalty, 15 yard penalty on the kickoff, and it allowed the ‘Cats a big return, good field position and allowing them to come back yet again. Tate is going to be drafted by the NFL and I don’t know if he’ll have any kind of a career there, but the rest of the team weren’t exactly mental giants either with all of the dumb penalties. If these guys don’t play pro football, I can’t imagine what they’ll do for a living.
I should say that there was one penalty that I would excuse if I were an Auburn fan – the 15 yard facemask penalty as one of the defensive linemen sacked Kafka. Here was a 300 pound man chasing a 215 pound quarterback who can run – the guy grabbed what he could and got the facemask. It was a penalty, but it wasn’t his fault.
Of course, Northwestern would have won the game if it weren’t for a horrible kicking game. Stephen Demos felt bad after the effort and the rest of the team was trying to buoy his sprits, but he DID have a horrible day. A missed extra point, a blocked field goal, a crucial missed field goal that would have won the game in regulation are bad enough. But Demos is also the punter and he shanked 2 punts off the side of his foot, one for a paltry 16 yards, and another that went out of bounds for a meager 6 yard net. He boots either of these kicks; gives the defense more area, and perhaps NU would have won.
Speaking of that, why did the ‘Cats only have 1 kicker anyway? Head coach Pat Fitzgerald should remember when the kicker on his Rose Bowl team got injured and it hurt the team the rest of the way. Which also brings up the sideways, rugby style punts that Demos did a lot during the year – they didn’t travel very far; and often it allowed the returner to catch the ball in stride, often for a big return. I never did understand that all season.
But I do credit Fitzgerald for going for it in the overtime. Instead of having the backup kicker try a field goal to set up a second overtime, he tried a fake. Unfortunately, Auburn expected that a fake was possible and stopped the play short of the end zone. My only question is: if you don’t have faith in your field goal kicker, why even try to fake – just leave Kafka out there and try to win outright? But Fitzgerald got it right when he said that people say he’s too conservative, so he went for it. I agree.
So, the streak of bowl losses continues. We are becoming the Chicago Cubs of college football, which is not a good place to be. I don’t know how next year’s team will be: Kafka’s gone as are the main receivers and most of the defensive secondary. Dan Persa appears to be the next QB, but even though he’s listed at 6’1” he seems to play smaller. I don’t know if he could be Doug Flutie, but we may be rolling out a great deal next year. And we need to develop a running game.
But the game was entertaining, if maddening and at least Fitzgerald has a similar attitude as I do (not as four mouthed, of course), but as a wrote in a note to former NU coach Francis Peay – “F@#K moral victories.”

It this the Wild West? That was my thought when I saw that police are investigating Washington Wizards’ stars Gilbert Arenas and teammate Javaris Crittenton allegedly drew guns on each other during a locker-room argument over a gambling debt.
The story at first was bad enough when it was reported that Arenas brought unloaded guns to the Verizon Center. The team said the firearms were unloaded and kept in a locked container with no ammunition, and Arenas himself has said he took his guns to the Verizon Center because he didn’t want them in his house after the birth of his latest child. OK, it’s not his first kid, so what did he do with the guns when they were born? And why would a multimillionaire basketball player; one I assume lives in a mansion in a good neighborhood, need with weapons? Yes, he could be followed home and robbed like other players have been over the past couple of years, but if I had that kind of money, I’d hire someone who knew what he was doing to act as bodyguard
What is more troubling is that you have 2 players arguing over gambling. Don’t these guys know that of all the vices, gambling is among the worst due to the potential impace on the perception of frigged games, an allegation that the NBA definitely does not need after the referee gambling scandal.
Now I understand that times are very hard, and money is tighter than ever before, leading to young, mostly black men ratcheting up the killing in inner city areas around the country. I also understand that many players in the NBA aren’t very far removed from these neighborhoods and mentalities, but what are these two lunkheads thinking? Bringing guns to arenas? Gambling, then reneging on debts leading to a “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” type scenario? What if other players had been shot? What about coaches, and ball boys and sportswriters? Should these guys have gunned it out behind the arena? Obviously not, but if you’re stupid enough to resort to violence when you don’t need to, perhaps that would have been best – at least there would have been a lower chance at innocent bystanders.
Washington D.C. has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country, so these two mental midgets face fines and that’s before the league steps in with more suspensions. They deserve it.

If it’s December, it must be time for critics to look back over the past year and opine on their favorites and worst lists of movies, CDs concerts, etc. Although I don’t see as many films per year in theaters as in past years, I will add my own list of best films of the year, based on what was released in 2009. I am limiting my list to the best 5 since I haven’t seen any of the late year fare that normally dominates year end lists. The list in descending order is:
5. Up – As noted by many of critics, Up was remarkable just for the flashback sequence of the marriage in just the first five minutes. The rest of the movie was another memorable Pixar experience. How do they keep this level of quality animation, storytelling and heart in film after film? And, more important, can others learn from their example?
4. Watchmen – Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune listed this as one of his worst films of the year, which shows that he either is too intellectually limited to have his job, or he just doesn’t get it. Considered unfilmable for over two decades, director Zach Snyder pulled it off, bringing the multi-layered, labyrinthine story to the screen with all of the energy, spirit, and intelligence intact. I know that he felt that put in one of the worst performances in film history, and she wasn’t great, but she didn’t detract from the story as much as Phillips says she did.
3. Inglorious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino’s homage to war films is as full of pop culture references as any of his other films, but QT rewrites history with a flare and panache that is unequalled. I’m not much of a Brad Pitt fan, be he was great, and I found myself wishing that his Aldo Raine had much more screen time. But Christoph Waltz’s Nazi was the true find. His interrogation of the farmer hiding Nazis at the beginning of the film was truly suspenseful. His every appearance in the film filled you with dread, but made you marvel at his investigative skills. It was nice to see a bad guy in a film not be stupid.
2. Star Trek – I’m a marginal Trekkie, and I feared that J.J. Abrams would dumb down the prequel story of Kirk, Spock, et.al., but instead, he pumped a much needed spark of life into the old franchise, at once grounding the story in enough of the story’s history to please old fans but retrofitting the origin story so that future installments are not handicapped by the old continuity. Chris Pine was good as Kirk, with all of William Shatner’s bravado without becoming an imitation or parody, and Zachary Quinto held his own as Spock while sharing the screen with Leonard Nimoy. As always, Simon Pegg was hilarious, this time as a reluctant Mr. Scott, and ‘s Uhura reminded me of how hot the character was in the 1960s.
1. City of Life and Death – Ordinarily, I probably wouldn’t pick a film from the Toronto International Film Festival because often these films take some time to reach American theaters, and this film, to my knowledge, not only hasn’t been shown in the U.S. yet, I don’t even know if it has a distributor, but it is a film that has stayed with me ever since I saw it last September.
As I wrote in this space after the festival, “City of Life and Death” or “Nanking! Nanking!” is a docudrama filmed in glorious black and white which lends a documentary feel to the film. The story is very controversial because it is the story of the Nanking Massacre of 1937 in which the Japanese army killed some 300,000 people and raped 20,000-80,000 women.
The film, directed by Chinese director Lu Chuan, focused on several characters, both Chinese and Japanese. The film is controversial because 1) the ongoing argument between the governments of Japan, China and South Korea over whether the slaughter actually happened, and if it did, how many people were involved/effected/raped/killed; 2) has actual Japanese actors playing the Japanese leads; and 3) has one sympathetic Japanese officer not participating in the massacre/rapes.
The film, 2½ hours in length, begins as the city, the capital of China at the time, falls to the Japanese army. The first part of the movie follows a Chinese unit fighting against the Japanese, and the Japanese officer fighting against the Chinese. Eventually, we meet German John Rabe, the “Oskar Schlindler” of the Nanking Free Zone, and his right hand man, who collaborates with the Japanese at first. We also meet his wife, her sister, and their young daughter.
We meet numerous other characters including a Japanese comfort woman, who the sympathetic Japanese officer falls in love with; a young boy who survives the slaughter of Chinese POWs; several of the women, who, after being raped, willing surrender themselves to the Japanese in return for provisions to the children and other refugees. Most of these women were raped to death.
But the film ends with a (relatively) happy ending with a couple of the characters released, then go picking flowers and laughing.
I haven’t seen a film with such scope, memorable characters on a large canvas, war, death, sadness, sacrifice, and ultimately survival. If it does ever get released in this country, it is well worth seeking out. But be warned, while it is not gory, nor does it explicitly show the brutality of the massacre and rape, the message comes through loud and clear. Powerful in every way.
Now, on the music side, it was a busy year in music, but since I don’t listen to hip-hop, haven’t found any young rock and roll bands that excite me; I once again find myself listening to CDs (yes, I like to have something tangible when I buy music) by people who have been around for a long time. Call me old fashioned, an old fogie, etc., but here’s my list and comments:
10. R.E.M. – “Live at the Olympia:” yes, it is a bit of a cop out to list a live CD with lots of songs from a band’s formative years/best days, but this is truly an excellent document of a band preparing for a world tour of new material but also dusting off some great songs that they haven’t played in a long time.
9. Marshall Crenshaw – “Jaggedland:” this marked the welcome return of the Detroit born power pop tunesmith. The CD finds him in good voice and provides another good selection of songs including the title instrumental, which is terrific
8. U2 – “No Line on the Horizon:” this didn’t really grab me until last week when I got a copy of the Rose Bowl live concert. The live versions amplified the strengths of the songs and made me want to listen to the CD. I can’t wait until they return to Chicago next summer.
7. Elvis Costello – “Sacred, Profane and Sugarcane:” EC returned to more of a roots music style with less positive results than 1986’s “King of America.” But I admit that I’m a huge Costello fan and with the exception of “North,” I always find him eminently interesting and listenable. However, personally, I’m getting a bit tired of everyone under the sun running to record with T-Bone Burnett ever since he got popular with the soundtrack from “O Brother Where Art Thou” and 2007’s Robert Plant/Alison Krauss multi-platinum Grammy winning “Raising Sand.” He’s becoming a brand name and I don’t think the ideas are as deep as the artists think they are. But since EC and TBB have been playing together since the 1980s, I’ll give him a pass.
6. Green Day – “21st Century Breakdown:” again, the power punk trio put together a “rock opera,” but unlike The Who’s “Quadrophenia” which, to my mind, was an improvement over the great “Tommy,” 21st tries to up the ante on 2004’s “American Idiot,” but with less consistent results. Still, a strong title.
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “It’s Blitz:” the third CD from this group is its strongest, in my opinion.
4. Bruce Springsteen – “Working On A Dream:” the Boss and the E-Street Band put out another collection of song stories about “common folk.” This would have ranked higher, but I didn’t get into the attempted opus “Outlaw Pete.”
3. Wilco – “Wilco (The Album):” well, not actually an “album,” this was a great improvement over “Sky Blue Sky.” The CD is not as adventurous as the awesome “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” or “A Ghost Is Born,” but better songs than “Sky.”
2. Morrissey – “Years of Refusal:” the former Smith’s front man gives us the best set of songs in a long time. The gloom and morose mood with the humorous lyrics are surrounded by strong melodies.
1. Pearl Jam – “Backspacer:” the first “self” release on it’s own label wasn’t hampered by the fact that it was exclusively sold at Target. A concise collection of rockers that hold together and was the CD that I played the most during the year. The band’s best total effort since “Ten.”
So, that’s it, my favorites of the year ending next week. Feel free to send me yours or complain about mine.

As you may know, I used to work for one of the federal banking regulators. I don’t want to go into which one because this will be a fairly inflammatory piece. Anyway, like most bureaucracies, it is headed by people whose sole ability has been to either hook themselves to a supervisor who likes them, or are able to stab people who get in their way in the back without getting caught with the dagger or blood on their hands. In the case of this particular organization, another way of getting to the top is to be so obviously married to the status quo that you are of no threat to anyone in power ever.
So, I have gotten word that one of the vice presidents in my old organization is retiring. Ordinarily, I would say “good riddance,” but some people are talking about this like it is a bad thing and looking to this woman’s “legacy.” Someone needs to put the record straight.
First, she was a former school teacher brought into the organization to proofread reports. She had so little knowledge of accounting terms that she changed the term “Treasury Stock” used correctly in a report into “stock of the Treasury.” The people in power obviously saw that this lack of accounting knowledge, and no bank examination experience would make this person perfect to lead examiners.
She had the small banks and cultivated a group of young, often naïve, kids just out of college and sent them out into the Midwest to examine shell, one bank holding companies and small banks. Armed with ignorance and ambition, she was promoted to join a singularly inept group of vice presidents who ran the organization poorly and what would have been called “into the ground” if the “company” had been a private one.
Turnover, restructurings, litigation, and an unwillingness to admit a very old mistake, got this person moved out of the supervision group and to human resources. As anyone can tell you, HR is often the most useless group in any business organization; the place where mistakes go to die. (You ever notice, no one goes to college to go into HR? People “find” their way there and never leave.)
Unfortunately, I ride the same commuter train in the morning to go to work, which means that I have to see this abject failure on a regular basis. First, we both go out of our way to avoid talking to one another, which is fine, but she just has this arrogant air, like she has had a successful career as a banking regulator, when in actuality, she found a cushy spot in a weak organization and used it to her advantage. I have so wanted to tell her how incompetent she was and is, but it wasn’t worth my time, and besides, self-awareness is not in the mental makeup of these type of people; otherwise, they would either never leave their houses in shame. But I don’t have to look this women in the face anymore, but she is going to go off, thinking that she had a successful professional career, deluded as usual. But the truth is much harsher.