The JB Random Report 3/18/10

NEWS & CURRENT EVENTS

President Obama will sign a 17.6 billion jobs bill that Republicans tried desperately to obstruct publicly, but someone must have voted for it because it passed 68-29 in the Senate. And the health care reform vote is just around the corner, but let’s talk about something important…
Obama had Murray State beating Vanderbilt in his bracket…how the Hell did he possibly get that one? I guess that’s why he’s the President, but Cornell upsetting Temple? Dude you have been in the Ivy League too long. Doesn’t he remember the ass-whoopin’ I gave him last year? Even though the President and I do have some of the same upsets in the first round, I think I can take him once again. However he has once again followed me in picking the National Champion, going with Kansas. He picked Kentucky to play in the final game. Now I think the Wildcats are a great team, John Wall is the player of the year as far as I’m concerned, but this is a young team whose players have never even been to the tournament, and even though young teams are Coach John Calapari’s specialty, ultimately they get overwhelmed. I don’t see them in the final game. Now, Kansas’ best players are all seniors, I pick them to win it all.

I actually wanna give props to the Texas Rangers, believe it or not. They would have been well within their rights to fire Ron Washington after testing positive for cocaine. Instead, they decided to give him a second chance, and I don’t think it was done simply to avoid a tirade by that fat, tax evading buffoon Al Sharpton. But I’m sure that they will be watching closely. Nolan Ryan is an old school Texan, and he won’t let the same dog bite him twice, y’all! I also love that this time, the time tested argument that “Sports figures can get away with anything as long as they win” also will not work in this situation. The Rangers were 87-75 and finished 10 games out in their division; Respectable, but hardly Miller Huggins territory. And it’s not just the team that handled this well, Washington himself did something very uncharacteristic of today’s self-entitled athletes, he stepped up like a man and told the truth before being tested. He didn’t get tested then make up a story like “Jose Canseco injected me while I wasn’t looking,” or some shit like that after it had come up positive. I won’t condone what he did, but I certainly agree with how it was handled by both sides, with as little drama as possible, which is probably why it wasn’t juicy enough to make the front page of any sports page in the era of Tiger Woods' laundry list of skanks.

MUSIC

Rolling Stones night on Idol was not what I expected, unless you count that I expected to criticize everyone for sucking so badly. To be fair, not everyone was terrible. I liked Crystal, but no one really blew me away or made a Stones song their own. I guess that’s an impossible task for a karaoke show. I was surprised that they booted that girl, I didn’t think she was so bad, but what’s up with singing whatever you want when you get booted? I thought you were supposed to sing your last song?

In really sad music news, while irrelevant pop drivel continues to pollute our airwaves, a true pioneer has died. Alex Chilton, founder of the incredibly influential group Big Star, died in New Orleans. One of my other all time favorite bands, The Replacements, wrote a song about him, you know. What The Velvet Underground was to New Wave, Big Star was to Power Pop, best illustrated in the phrase “Only 100 people bought ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico,’ but those 100 people went out and formed bands after listening to it.” How I really wish I had written that. Without Big Star there would be no Replacements, Jeff Buckley, Liz Phair, Cheap Trick...I really could go on and on. How missed he will be.