Howdy all! My name is Jessi and I have been reviewing media and other things for over ten years now. I started writing for my school paper the Independent at Northeastern Il University and moved onto writing for a couple different blogs and websites. Now i am off on my own and seeing what the media world has to offer! I will be reviewing mainly video games, but also movies, conventions, events, and whatever else i can get! So check me out and get a chick’s spin on things! You might be surprised!!
It happened again this morning. It happens every morning. The ominous thuds on the doorstep. The whump whump of objects thrown against concrete. An engine revs then accelerates outside. Again the dreaded question: What the heck did I order this time?
To paraphrase a current game on social media, following are five items I may have ordered online during the pandemic. Please guess the one I did not order:
(1) One hundred pounds of bird seed and a squirrel gazebo
(2) Facial scrub the consistency of baby poop made of mud from France
(3) Four thousand individual paper towels originally intended for gas station restrooms
(4) An aluminum flying tiger
(5) Socks shaped like dinosaurs
I bet you guessed right! I bought everything. In my defense, I had to buy the facial scrub to qualify for a 2.2 ounce hand sanitizer from YikesWhatsThat.com. The gas station paper towels, four-thousand to a carton, were the only ones I could find. When not being used for hand sanitizing, they are good for Origami (I can fold and crease them into a life-sized Anthony Fauci in twenty seconds and he even looks realistically horrified). I can’t explain the flying tiger.
What stands between me and the endless trance of online consumerist mayhem? Only the perspective and wisdom of Chicago’s comedians. Profound thanks to the comedians who kindly give me their time, insight, humor, energy and strength as we make our way through these times.
Presenting with much gratitude the Second Convening of the growing COVID Council of Comedians: Denise Medina, Jan Slavin, Ray Chao, Pat Tomasulo, Kat Herskovic, Sean Flannery.
This week’s question: During the quarantine, did you buy or acquire anything that you wouldn’t have otherwise or that surprised you? (It could be a purchase, new talent, attitude, habit or anything!)
PAT TOMASULO: I bought podcast gear (watch for my new podcast sometime in June). I’ve also grown my hair to near afro-level length and volume. It’s like I’m a chubby 12 year old from Jersey all over again.
DENISE MEDINA: I can tell you the craziest thing I bought was not one, but TWO strawberry shortcake ice cream bars from the ice cream truck at $3.50 EACH when I could go to Meijer and buy a box of 6 for $4.19 !!!
Ugh, this went against my thrifty sensibilities and I love a great deal, but I figured this truck was a local small business and maybe my purchase is helping to support a family, or even an individual business owner. Months ago I would have been cursing these prices and this ice cream cartel!
More about Denise here. Denise was also kind enough to speak with me here.
JANSLAVIN: I’ve used my ukelele for years in my stand up and kids’ music classes, but never went beyond my 3 basic chords of C, F and G7. Yep, that’s all I’ve used. I somehow managed to fool people into thinking I was playing pretty well. Or maybe not. Anyway, it’s worked for me. But now I’ve got the time to try to play a little better and expand my repertoire.
I bought a book. A really big book with 365 songs, which implies a song a day but that’s not how I’m using it as some of the songs are really duds. I mean, I already know I’m not going to play “Go Down Moses” or “The Marines Hymn”. And I’m staying away from “It’s A Small World” because that’s an ear worm I don’t need while sheltering in place, god help me.
So I’ve made my way through the book a couple of times and now I have some favorites. “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” (can you ever forget Jason Robards playing that in “A Thousand Clowns”?), “Rainbow Connection” and “Imagine” are my current go-tos. Of course, I could always “play” these before with my fake chords but now I’m really getting more music out of them. Playing in different keys makes me feel really cool, like I know what I’m doing though basically I am just reading little chord charts.
I’m focusing on the chords and don’t give a shit about my strumming which would be annoying to professionals but screw ’em. I mean give an old lady a break. Is YOUR grandmother learning the ukelele??? No, I didn’t think so.
It’s really too bad I sliced the hell out of my left index finger last winter and had to have stitches. My fingertip didn’t heal properly and so I have no feeling in it. It’s an important finger. But this puts me in the arena with amazing, challenged musicians like Stevie Wonder (blind) and Beethoven (deaf), so yeah, I’m a hero.
So here I sit, in my pajamas, Skinny Pop bag at my side, playing some new tunes very, very slowly, and I feel pretty good about it. Some of the chords are real bitches and I will have to learn to cheat by singing over them but I got a peaceful, easy feeling.
Best of all, I’ve started to call it an “Ook” instead of a “Yuke” and that really puts me up there with the pros. I’ll continue with this until I can finally get back up on a stage because I’m not sure any of this will be retained. In the meantime, just call me “Israel Janakawiwo’ole”.
More about Jan here. Jan was also kind enough to speak with me here.
KAT HERSKOVIC: I’m actually very excited about my big quarantine purchase! When the lockdown began, I started doing hand embroidery as a way to de-stress and because I love the look of embroidered clothing. But it took sooooooo long to complete just a few simple projects from my growing list of things that I wanted to embroider. So I gathered as much stuff that I could possibly sell online and on Facebook marketplace and quickly came up with enough money to purchase an embroidery machine and I LOVE it! Not only can I make my son all the race car, excavator, and garbage truck t-shirts he wants, but I am also in the process of opening an online shop of upcycled clothing and accessories!
SEAN FLANNERY: Late last year, my wife signed us up for WHO GIVES A CRAP, which is a service that mails you eco-friendly bamboo toilet paper. It has a smaller carbon footprint and they donate a percentage of their profits to create modern toilets and plumbing in needful countries.
We get the first enormous, box from WHO GIVES A CRAP in February of this year and my wife explains what it is and what they stand for.
“What do you think?”, she asks.
“It sounds like a great way for rich people to buy toilet paper”.
My kids say I bring up that we are not rich about ten times a day. I told them my dad couldn’t finish a sentence without saying that, so this is generational progress.
A month after that first box was received, toilet paper sells for more than cocaine online and half the city is waiting overnight at the grocery story, like it’s Black Friday, for the right to buy one roll on shipment day and we get a letter from WHO GIVES A CRAP that basically says, “So, as you have prob noticed: things are crazy in the toilet paper world right now. But, no worries! We made a boat load of bamboo toilet paper and we are going to keep shipping all your toilet paper each month, on time and no price changes. After all, we are, WHO GIVES A CRAP!”
Without me realizing it, my wife essentially bought toilet paper futures and we are set for this pandemic. She is a genius. Sometimes it just takes me a month or two to catch up.
RAY CHAO: I want to publicly apologize to anyone that I ever said “change is good” in response to losing a job, breaking up with a partner, or getting evicted. I was lying. But I’ve changed.
Just a few short months ago, like most people, I hated change. Sure, I would smile meekly and tell someone “change is good,” when a friend suffered a set-back or disappointment. But I didn’t mean it. And I certainly didn’t believe it.
But now, I am a believer. Change is good.
Collectively, I, you, and the world, have undergone “unprecedented changes” and are adapting to a “new normal.” (BTW, I’ve always hated those terms. Some things never change). What I have come to realize is that change is not bad, per se; but the fear of change is what made me avoid change. Moreover, the fear of change increases as you get older and become more set your ways. That’s why I only take the turquoise Nyquil (even during the day) because I don’t trust the orange Nyquil. And Nyquil is supposed to make you drowsy or it doesn’t work.
Similarly, change is not “hard.” It’s actually pretty easy. Think of all the changes I (we) have made in the past few weeks. The world has changed in the blink of an eye. And we changed because we had to. Ironically, the changes we have made are not that scary in of themselves, but the real fear is what would happen if we did not change.
Up till now, I am the type of person that orders the same meal at my favorite restaurant. Every time. Why? Not so much because I really, really like that meal, but because I am afraid that if I order something new, I will hate it. That’s why I can’t wait for restaurants to open again so I can go to my favorite restaurant and read the entire menu and order something new. And I’m pretty sure it will be delicious.
Change is good.
More about Ray here. Ray was also kind enough to speak with me here. He recently wrote about legal issues related to pets on the PetsBest blog here.
I’ve been a comedy fan since age four when Moe Howard asked me, “What’s your name, lil’ goil?” Fortuitously somehow by way of Washington, D.C., Poughkeepsie and Jerusalem, I ended up in Chicago, the comedy Mecca of the world where comedians are kind enough to give me their time and where I was lucky enough to meet the great Dobie Maxwell who introduced me to the scene. You can reach me at: [email protected]. (Please remember the “w” there in the middle.)
I am often very reasonably asked, “How DO you pronounce that?” The spelling is Teme, but it’s pronounced Temmy.
NASA and SpaceX are launching the first crewed mission to the International Space Station aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket. The mission, a demo flight, is meant to validate the crew transport systems that were tested on the initial unmanned crew demo launch. Following a weather delay, NASA and SpaceX will attempt to launch again on Saturday, May 30th at 2:22 pm CDT.
NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will crew the SpaceX Demo-2 launch to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: Michael Galindo/Cosmic Chicago
Complete coverage of the launch will be provided by both NASA and SpaceX. NASA coverage begins at 10 am CDT on NASA TV, via livestream at NASA.gov, and on the agency’s YouTube channel. SpaceX coverage begins around 10:22 am CDT on the company’s website.
Nine minutes after launch, the first stage of the Falcon 9 will attempt a barge landing on SpaceX’s Of Course I Still Love You. Following the landing of the first stage, Crew Dragon will deploy from the second stage and the nosecone sequence will begin.
NASA coverage will continue after the launch as the crew reaches orbit and begins chasing the International Space Station for docking. During this 24 hour period, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will verify the spacecraft systems and monitor the autonomous docking system.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft sits atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center. Photo Credit: NASA
Crew Dragon will arrive at the International Space Station about 20 hours after launch. Docking, hatch opening, and a welcome ceremony for the crew will be broadcast on the agency’s media channel and online platforms on Sunday, May 31st beginning at 9:29 CDT.
I’m a tiny bit obsessed with space. I’m told it’s an acceptable obsession because I take what I learn and share it with others. If I’m not writing about space, among other things, I’m busy doing science with one of the many student orgs I volunteer with or, advocating to bring more STEM programs to underrepresented students. I miss working in a lab, so invite me out to see yours!
I was ten years old when the virtual world of The Sims was released. After popping the CD into my desktop computer in my parent’s basement, hours would easily pass by, whole lives would be lived. Reality moved fast in Sims time. Building my dream house, making my fake family (with the occasional murder by fire), and forcing everyone to “woohoo” are some of my fondest memories.
The Sims was released in 2000 which means I’ve been playing Sims for 20 years. This franchise, in all of its various expansion packs and releases, has been a constant source of entertainment for me to escape reality. You essentially play God in Sims as you instruct your avatars to use the bathroom, cook food, go to sleep, and find a job. Sims can catch on fire while cooking french toast, piss themselves, get robbed, and yell at you if things are in their way. It’s a tough job being God. Lizzy Dening writes on iNews, “The Baby Boomer-designed world of The Sims seemed to guarantee concepts such as a ‘career ladder’ and homeownership which, two decades later, seem quaint to the majority of millennials.”
In quarantine, we all seem to be reverting back to childhood hobbies or interests. Whether it’s puzzles, coloring books, crafting, painting, or video games, we have all unlocked an area of our brain that’s hunkering down, investing time in a project, and watching the hours pass by. For me, and for many other folks, video games were an obvious option to indulge in.
As a kid, I was never interested in boys. I had an Alanis Morissette poster on my wall because I wanted to have sex with her, not because I idolized her. On the other hand, my obsession with dudes like Gavin Rossdale were because I wanted to be the disheveled rockstar, I didn’t want to kiss him. I wanted to run around with my shirt off playing guitar, too! But at such a tender age, in the conservative south, I never considered acting on my queerness. My first kiss was, in fact, a girl. We brushed it off as just practicing. But then I kissed a few more girls. In Sims after school, I would move to third base with my neighborhood Sim love interest (closely modeled after a real-life crush). For those of you who don’t know, it’s called woohooing in Sims world, and in the earlier game version, it all happened on a heart-shaped vibrating bed. I was officially a gaymer. Making out with a same-sex character on Sims was revolutionary for my child-brain. Queer moments with girls my age brought on feelings of shame, guilt, and confusion. I never talked about it with any of them, it’s almost as if it never happened. Even now, I’m viewed as a totally straight girl to almost all of my peers, coworkers, family, and friends. On Sims, I could–and still can–live out my queer fantasies. There were no rules for me and my Sims. We could live happily, freely, and gayly.
Electronic Arts released its cover art for The Sims 4 last year which featured the first same-sex lesbian couple. This new release also includes gender-neutral bathrooms and Pride month options in build mode. In my newest game on Sims 4, my child (named Strudel after my IRL cat) has a rainbow flag hanging in her room. Recently, Russia added R18+ onto Sims 4 due to their law restricting same-sex relationships to minors. The history of queer evolution in Sims has been growing. During the game’s original creation, openly gay engineer Jamie Doornbos went into the game’s code–totally rogue and without consulting anyone–and programmed the game to allow same-sex relationships. In the 1999 E.A. Expo, a demo of the game premiered an unplanned wedding with two same-sex characters who had fallen in love. They passionately kissed in front of a live audience and essentially changed queer characters in gaming forever. In 2009, The Sims 3 allowed gay marriage, preceding the legalization of real-life marriage equality by six years. Essentially, every Sim is bisexual. They can marry, cohabitate, woohoo, and have kids together. All of this is to say that The Sims franchise was radical in video games as the early 2000s were still uneasy about queerness. But it’s a queer world, after all.
Being gay was safe in Sims. Making my same-sex Sims ignite a relationship gave me the same feeling that I got when looking at the connection between Xena and Gabrielle (for reference, in case you forgot). It was thrilling to explore my sexuality and also just live a normal-ass life on a video game. What I think is so special about the game is that all of this queer living is happening in a cookie-cutter landscape, a suburban domestic lifestyle where Sims are assigned jobs, make money, and then die.
In my newest quarantine endeavor, I’ve downloaded the Hoe it Up mod which allows my Sims to be sex workers and perform sexual acts for cash. I’ve performed oral sex on a same-sex ghost who keeps lurking around my house. I’ve received compliments on anal play. And I’ve pole danced with a plate of spaghetti in my hands. My sex-positive queer identity is totally being gratified in my Sims paradise.
As an adult, I do consider myself a queer cis-woman who happens to currently be in love with a cis-man. I’ve experienced real-life woohooing with women so making that magic happen in Sims doesn’t carry the same weight of excitement that it used to. But every now and then, I find a new avatar to kiss and I’m brought back to the early emotions in my sexual awakening.
Whether it’s Sims Medieval or Sims Get Famous, you can catch me making out with the new hottie next door and getting into a brawl with my lover (polyamory isn’t entirely accepted yet). Sims not only creates the queer utopia I’ve been searching for, it includes the drama I don’t want IRL. The game offers any identity to pursue whatever lifestyle, appearance, and relationship they desire. The digital sphere has always been a safe haven for millennial queers, and I have The Sims to thanks for my early introduction.
Bow love depwa, Sims (translation: I love you, Sims). v
The world of quarantine is paradoxical, with our immediate environments smaller and more constrained even as the big existential issues grow ever more ominous. What does it mean to live, to love, to dream in such circumstances?
A trifecta of plays I watched online recently, all with Chicago roots and all recorded from the Time Before Covid-19, address those questions in dramaturgically divergent but compelling ways. Collectively, they’ve probably affected me more than any of the other streaming work I’ve seen so far in quarantine, even if they don’t boast the slick recording quality of, say, the National Theatre.
Gentrification, William Blake, and Julia Child might not seem to have much in common. But Free Street Theater‘s Still/Here, Catastrophic Theatre of Houston’s There Is a Happiness That Morning Is (written by Chicago playwright and Theater Oobleck cofounder Mickle Maher), and TimeLine Theatre‘s To Master the Art all created an interesting conversation inside my head–which is where I, like too many of us, am spending entirely too much time lately.
Still/Here‘s subtitle–Manifestos for Joy and Survival–provides the roadmap for this 2019 show, filmed in August of last year and available for free through Vimeo. Created by the ensemble and directed by Free Street artistic director Coya Paz, the show is a series of vignettes raising evergreen questions about how segregation and discrimination have shaped Chicago’s history.
Just seeing a crowd of people gathering on a sunny day in West Town’s Walsh Park is enough to trigger nostalgia in a time of pandemic. But the show also begins with the cast giving a rapid-fire rundown of “everything we remember that we love about Chicago.” The list includes outdoor water parks, Chinatown, roller skating on the south side, SummerDance at Michigan and Balbo, the smell of chocolate downtown, and music. Music everywhere
The opening vignette’s premise is that we’re hearing “final logs” from a city on the brink of apocalypse. But for most of its hour-plus running time, Still/Here, as the name suggests, is about being in the present, even as the forces of gentrification push the ensemble around.
Literally. In one of the most engaging segments, the troupe enacts a game of musical chairs using a collection of milk crates representing public investment. As new “improvements” arrive–a school that is actually a cop academy, “affordable” housing that is anything but–the crates disappear one by one, and the people remaining are left to try to figure out how to all fit into the space that is left.
But somehow, this show from pre-COVID days hit me as an even more vibrant and vital call to action now. Can this pandemic help us begin to address historic inequities in Chicago and beyond in health care, housing, education, and criminal justice? “Fear is what gentrification looks like. Death is what erasure looks like,” one ensemble member tells us. With both death rates from the coronavirus and arrests for violating social distancing restrictions hitting communities of color harder than primarily white neighborhoods, that observation straddles the line between epigram and epitaph, even as the show (based on interviews with 400 residents from all over the city) straddles the line between documentary theater and agitprop, with warmhearted doses of personal anecdote tossed in.
I saw Maher’s play four separate times in three different productions with Theater Oobleck, beginning with its first production in 2011 at the now-gone Storefront Theater downtown. So it’s safe to say it’s one of my favorite pieces to emerge from Chicago in the last ten years. One of the upsides of being quarantined and watching streaming productions is that I can catch up with work from around the country and the world, and it was delightful to revisit Maher’s piece, available free through Catastrophic’s YouTube channel, in the hands of a company wholly unknown to me.
As has been the case with Maher’s work now for several years, through such shows as The Hunchback Variations and The Strangerer, There Is a Happiness That Morning Is uses a sterile institutional background environment (and one dedicated to carefully structured public discourse) as a way to explode that environment and expose the rotting beams holding it up.
Two academics and longtime lovers, Bernard and Ellen, are delivering intertwined lectures on William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience in the aftermath of having been caught in flagrante on the lawn of their small decaying liberal arts college. Their lectures are supposed to take the form of apology for having sex in public, on orders from the dean. But though Bernard, awash in midlife afterglow (“I happy am,” he burbles, quoting Blake’s “Infant Joy”) and fresh from a night in the woods, is more than willing to appease the powers that be to get things back to normal, Ellen is not.
We soon learn that she’s dying of an abdominal tumor, which makes her choice of poem for the day, “The Sick Rose,” even more achingly ironic. And of course, even more of a gutpunch for us now, as we try to hide from virulence. “The invisible worm, That flies in the night,” indeed. And while their escapade on the quad has reinvigorated Bernard, Ellen thinks the ensuing public humiliation finally killed her love for him.
Catastrophic’s production, recorded in May of 2013 and directed by Jason Nodler, marks the first time I’ve seen any Oobleck show performed by a different troupe. I feel in many ways as if I’ve grown up alongside this company. The first Oobleck show I ever saw was in the winter of 1988–Jeffrey Dorchen’s The Slow and Painful Death of Sam Shepard, written long before any of us had an inkling that the American playwright and poet of family tragedy on the plains would indeed have a slow death from ALS in 2017. I mourned with them last year as Oobleck founding member and my old friend Danny Thompson succumbed to a rare genetic disorder. If I have any yardstick for what truly original dramaturgy looks like, it began with Oobleck’s mash-up of the high- and lowbrow, the political and the personal, the epic and the ridiculous.
Happiness, written in rhyming couplets, arose out of what Maher described in a recent YouTube discussion with Catastrophic as “a real desire to write something with more humor and more sex in it.” And it is funny–at least, as funny as anything about death, love, and trying to find room for one last chance at honest self-revelation can be. In other words, it’s howlingly, horribly hilarious. And also bittersweet and wise. Amy Bruce and Troy Schulze as Ellen and Bernard bring out all the nuances of nostalgia, rage, and finally desperate need for connection driving the lovers, staring down the twin existential terrors of unemployment and death. That’s as relatable a set of circumstances as we’ll ever find these days.
“Hearts can’t say what’s in their now when dizzied by their future,” Ellen says late in the play. As we stay stuck in our now, dizzied and terrified by the future, the idea that perhaps salvation lies in choosing joy over fear, moment to moment and as best as we can, has never felt more noble.
TimeLine’s To Master the Art, now available on a ticketed paid basis for remote viewing through June 7, also celebrates the love of a couple of a certain age. Here, it’s Julia and Paul Child, as seen through the eyes of playwrights William Brown, who also directs, and Doug Frew, and endearingly embodied by Karen Janes Woditsch and Craig Spidle. Originally produced at TimeLine’s home space in Lakeview ten years ago, this recording is from the encore presentation in fall of 2013 at the Broadway Playhouse. I saw the first outing, but not this revival. But to my eyes, the proscenium staging loses little of the inaugural production’s intimacy in translation, and with the original cast all on board, it’s, well, a feast.
Woditsch’s Julia is initially an awkward fish-out-of-water in Paris, where Spidle’s Paul has been stationed, courtesy of the United States Information Agency, to bring the best of American culture to postwar Europe. If you’ve seen Julie & Julia, the story will be familiar, though Woditsch, like Meryl Streep, is far too gifted an actor to indulge in mere mimicry of Child’s famously flutey voice. But the play feels poignant now for different reasons, and not just because some of us (though not me, sadly) are using time at home to beef up our own culinary skills, or wondering how to reinvent ourselves in a strange new world.
Paul especially is hounded by the McCarthyites in the State Department who are bent on sniffing out the merest whiff of communism, and Spidle’s layered take as a man increasingly frustrated by the conflict between his high-minded aspirations and the dull-witted (if not outright malicious) limitations imposed by bureaucrats feels bang on the nose; it also paired nicely with Ellen and Bernard’s dean dilemma in Happiness. And like the Blake scholars, Julia and Paul also find salvation in their love for each other and other pleasures of the mind and palate.
“Here’s to mastering the art of living life to its fullest and enjoying every damn minute of it,” Spidle’s Paul proposes near the end of the enchanting TimeLine production. I didn’t cry the first time I heard that line onstage. But watching on my laptop at home, the tears sprang to my eyes. v
Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced today that Chicago may move into Phase 3 of Governor J.B. Pritzker’s plan to reopen Illinois on Wednesday, June 3.
When Pritzker announced that Illinois would be able to enter Phase 3 on June 1 just a few weeks ago, Lightfoot remained wary that Chicago would not be able to follow the rest of the state in reopening outdoor patio seating at some restaurants. An early June date was promised, but many Chicago restaurants were nervous how far into next month that could be.
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Due to mounting pressure from local establishments who are desperate to remain afloat, Lightfoot decided Chicago could open limited dine-in outdoor seating to the public on June 3. In the same breath, she reminded Chicagoans that this, in no way, signals the end of the crisis and everyone should still practice social distancing.
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Establishments will have staggered opening and closing times, according to the mayor, in an effort to limit contact between people as much as possible. And the warning remains that a surge in cases following the tentative reopening could cause a second shuttering.
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Phase 3 allows gatherings of up to 10 people to take place, as long as everyone is still social distancing and wearing a mask. But it’s impossible to wear a mask while you’re eating, which unearths a series of unique challenges that establishments must now overcome. Determining how to space their patio seating and how their guests will interact with servers, and servers with chefs, and so on, are just a few hurdles to overcome.
Parks and libraries will wait until June 8 to reopen, and it’s unclear if Chicago beaches will join for the summer. Salons and barbershops are reopening in Illinois in June, as well.
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At UrbanMatter, U Matter. And we think this matters.
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Tell us what you think matters in your neighborhood and what we should write about next in the comments below!
Chicago White Sox (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The Chicago White Sox are choosing to do the right thing.
Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf gets an awful lot of criticism, mostly for the frugality with which he has approached ownership of the White Sox and Chicago Bulls in recent years. Until this past offseason, the White Sox have been at or near the bottom of the league in payroll and free-agent spending. Similarly, until this year, the Bulls have chosen to skimp on front office spending, particularly in the area of their analytics department (or lack thereof).
In this regard, much of the criticism has been warranted. However, Reinsdorf and the organization are doing the right thing with their minor league baseball players as they continue to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Shortly after players were sent home from Spring Training, Major League Baseball announced it would continue to pay its minor leaguers $400 per week through the end of May. Now that the May 31st deadline is almost here, teams must decide how they will proceed. Will they do the right thing and take care of their players for a pittance, or will their greed rule the day?
The Chicago White Sox will continue to pay its minor leaguers.
Fortunately, the White Sox appear to be doing the right thing, announcing they will continue to pay their players, for the moment, through June. Hopefully, that decision will be revisited and extended if necessary. But for now, minor leaguers within the organization can at least count on continuing to receive that pay for another 30 days.
This seems like the obvious right decision, especially when you weigh the reputational cost associated with not doing it against the financial cost gained.
For example, consider Jeff Passan’s tweet highlighting just how little Oakland A’s owner John Fisher is “saving” by not paying his minor league players, a decision the team announced recently:
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Just some rough math. Say there are 200 players in a minor league system. Paying each $400/week for July, July and August is $5,200 per player. To pay every minor leaguer would have cost the Oakland A’s a hair over $1 million.
Owner John Fisher is worth an estimated $2 billion.
An owner worth $2 billion dollars chose to throw his own players under the bus for the equivalent of couch-cushion change for him. It’s an incredibly bad look for an owner who counts himself among a group who appears hell-bent on extracting as much money out of their players as possible while holding the 2020 season hostage in the process.
At least, in this one limited instance, for a limited period of time, Jerry Reinsdorf has committed to doing the right thing. Let’s just hope he continues to do so and doesn’t, like his peers, succumb to greed.
Whenever the NBA offseason finally opens, the Chicago Bulls should get aggressive in rebuilding the roster.
This has been an interesting time for sports fans. As of this moment, the NBA is preparing for a return around late July in some fashion. Will the Chicago Bulls be involved? That has yet to be determined.
The league may jump right into the playoffs, and if that’s the case, the Bulls are out and the offseason begins. But, as the NHL recently decided, maybe the NBA does some type of play-in for the bottom two or three seeds in each conference. If that happens, maybe somehow the Bulls matter — or maybe not. Like I said, right now, it’s still a little bit up in the air.
Regardless of when the offseason officially starts for the Bulls, fans can rest assured that this will be a different offseason than recent ones.
The team hired Arturas Karnisovas to be their Vice President of Basketball Operations, formerly and most recently with the Denver Nuggets. He comes in and replaces John Paxson as the one who makes basketball decisions and will have total control.
As a fan, I am hoping that Karnisovas decides to make some immediate moves in efforts to further the Bulls’ rebuild process. I have a hard time believing he won’t make some roster moves and maybe prolong the rebuild a bit longer — but this time, he’s going to do a much better job than Paxson and Gar Forman; at least that’s the hope.
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As it stands, I think the only players I would consider 100 percent unmovable are Zach LaVine, Coby White and Wendell Carter Jr. There are three key players I think the Bulls should try moving once the offseason kicks off later this year, though, and each one would present its own victory.
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The Chicago Bears have had their share of under-appreciated players.
The Chicago Bears are a historic franchise. Throughout its storied history, the organization has had so many all-time greats out on the orange and blue since its inception more than 100 years ago. Sometimes, though, when your ranks have been filled with the likes of Walter Payton, Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, etc., it can be easy to overlook others who had very productive but perhaps underappreciated careers.
Such is the case with Bears’ running back Neal Anderson. Anderson had the unenviable task of following one of the aforementioned legends in Walter Payton. Payton, who finished his illustrious Bears career in 1987 was followed by Anderson, who was drafted No. 27 overall in the 2006 NFL Draft.
Neal Anderson was underrated for the Chicago Bears.
It’s no easy feat following a living legend — especially one who was as beloved as Payton was. But Anderson was perhaps the perfect candidate to follow Sweetness. His calm, cool, and humble demeanor might have had a tendency to mask his competitive spirit and tenacity. Make no mistake, though, Anderson was a bulldog.
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He was so fluid between the tackles and was really good at changing directions. For his size (5-foot-11 and 210 pounds) he still had pretty good speed, with a 4.4 40-yard dash time coming into the league.
In his first four years replacing Payton (1988-1991), Anderson made the Pro Bowl. In that time he rushed for a total of 4,206 yards and 39 touchdowns. Over that same span, he averaged 45 receptions and 414 receiving yards per year.
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In his career, he finished in the top ten for rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, rushing yards per game and all-purpose yards three times each. Four times in his career he finished in the top-ten in touchdowns. He was even ranked No. 57 in the Chicago Tribune’s top-100 Bears of all time.
He was also fortunate enough to appear in the playoffs five separate times in his career, even if the results weren’t great.
For a child of the 80s and 90s, he was one of, if not, the biggest star on the offense from 1988 until his retirement in 1993. Since retiring, he has led a fairly quiet life away from the game, which may contribute to him falling out of Bears’ fans consciousness, but make no mistake about it — Anderson was not only one of the most underrated, but also underappreciated Bears of all time.
Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt recently hinted at playing for the Chicago Bears, but the scenario is much more realistic than you think.
By now, you may have seen the blurb floating around the web and social media regarding Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt and his love for the city of Chicago. Watt said he loved the city, the food and hinted at lining up on the same front seven as Khalil Mack and the Chicago Bears.
Before we find ourselves dreaming of what a scary sight that might be, or get all bent out of shape thinking this is just some ridiculous rumor, let’s look at the facts, shall we?
J.J. Watt has only played one full season in his last four years. In that year, he was an All Pro (2018). When healthy, he is an absolute monster. But, Watt is 31 years old and, by all accounts, on the down swing simply because of past injuries.
So, we’ve established the fact that even thinking about trading for Watt is a risk. But, what if Watt didn’t necessarily want to be in Houston much longer?
A recent report talks about a conference call Watt had with reporters. Essentially, Watt told them that he will not demand an extension at this point because he is well aware of “what has happened the last few years [likely pointing to injuries].”
He has two years remaining after the 2020 season, with both being non-guaranteed.
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“I think if I went back and asked for an extension or more money right now, I think that would be the wrong move.” -Watt
So, the Texans very well could let him go after the 2020 campaign and not owe him a dime. Watt seems to understand he’s not in any strong position to ask for an extension, probably because he’s well aware his body might not be worth it — and that would be an admirable stance.
The other end of the spectrum is that Watt might not want to be in Houston any longer. Let’s be honest: Bill O’Brien hasn’t exactly ran the tightest, most efficient of ships there as of late. Trading DeAndre Hopkins did not go over well with face of the franchise Deshaun Watson, and I wonder if Watt shares the same sentiments.
So, Watt could be released after this season. His body is nothing to be counted on at this stage. Houston has already made plenty of trades over the last year or two. O’Brien isn’t afraid of a controversial deal.
See where I’m going with this?
General manager Ryan Pace should absolutely monitor the Watt situation. Obviously, health is the number one part of the equation with Watt. But, with the ability to void the last two years of his deal, shouldn’t the Bears at least take a swing at acquiring the 3-time Defensive Player of the Year?
It seems like a no-brainer, assuming the price would be right. Heck, even if they paid a little more than Watt’s value, the potential reward is far greater than the risk. This is the part where you are allowed to fantasize.
Robert Quinn, Akiem Hicks, Danny Trevathan, Roquan Smith, Eddie Goldman, Mack and Watt — that starting front seven would be the scariest in all of football, hands down. If Pace is keeping tabs, he might want to consider picking up the phone and entertaining a deal.
