RIP Steve Albini, Bob Avellini, and ELO guy

I know a lot of rock'n'roll hipsters like to proclaim the greatness of producer/musician Steve Albini, and while I can appreciate a certain rawness in music, his style bordered on overly abrasive - in both production and commentary - for me. Even when I was younger and way more snarky, Albini's snark was too much for me. For years, I thought he probably held back Nirvana's In Utero from being as great an album that I thought it could have been.

In hindsight, he probably made that band's farewell as great as it was supposed to be. But I’ll never be totally sure about that. Albini, who passed away at age 61 this week from a heart attack, worked with some of my favorite bands, including Pixies, the Breeders, Urge Overkill, Slint, King Kong, Superchunk, the Cribs, and even Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. But his work for all those outfits was oddly and consistently among my least favorite stuff by them all.

But come on, what kind of person do you have to be to turn on a band that made your name - Nirvana - by calling it "R.E.M. with a fuzzbox." I'm not sure if he meant that as an insult, but it actually sounds like the second-best thing to R.E.M., which to me would be a high compliment. I think I never forgave him for saying that one of my favorite album's, The Replacements’ Let It Be, was "a sad, pathetic end to a long downhill slide." If Albini's bands like Big Black and Rapeman could hold a candle to the innumerable great bands he loved to trash, then I might have taken him and his artistry a little more seriously. 

Also lost too soon at the age of 70 from cancer was Bob Avellini, who I profess to having been too young to see much at all on TV. But I still own many of his football cards. His biggest claim to fame may be that his 75-yard pass to Walter Payton was the legendary running back's longest career touchdown.

Another notable death this week was Richard Tandy, who was hardly Jeff Lynne in terms of importance to Electric Light Orchestra. However, notable about Tandy, who passed away at age 76, was that he rocked the protagonist's voice in perhaps my favorite ELO tune "Mr. Blue Sky." His wild keyboard playing helped anchor that song and many others with the band's signature Beatles-meets-disco brilliance.

RIP (sorta) O.J. Simpson

I was just a little too young to watch O.J. Simpson during his prime Buffalo Bills era, although I still have some cards from when he was on that team. But from a very early age - while I might not have seen him running wild in his white, blue, and red uniform - I distinctly recall Simpson in his fancy suits flying through the airport walkways in his Hertz rental-car ads.

I did eventually see plenty of football highlights of "The Juice" and, wow, was he great. He also had an infectious personality later on as an NBC Sports game-time announcer and the detective who flies out of his wheelchair from the upper deck of a stadium in the first of three Naked Gun films in which he appeared.

But those were just the bright-side warmup to O.J.'s approaching dark-side pop-culture legacy. I can still remember being on vacation near the beach in Alabama when my eyes were glued to the TV on June 17, 1994 as that white Ford Bronco led the police on a chase across Los Angeles. It would be the beginning of the entire nation getting more O.J. than they had ever wanted. It took me a long time to finally see him as the cold-blooded murderer of his wife rather than the friendly-eyed TV personality I had grown to love.The drama took us all the way to the innocent verdict date of October 3, 1995 and way beyond. In fact, I can't believe the car chase and the trial took less than a year-and-a-half. It seemed like forever. Of course, Simpson was found liable in civil court in 1997 for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. 

O.J. Simpson has died of prostate cancer at the age of 76.

Some other interesting Simpson nuggets of note:

• He was born in a housing project in San Francisco.
• He blamed a lot of his later troubles on having an absent father after his parents separated when he was 5.
• When he was little, he had rickets and bowed legs that caused other kids to make fun of him.
• He won the Heisman trophy as college football's top player while at USC.
• Simpson was the first NFL player to surpass 2,000 yards rushing, which he did in 1973.
• He met Nicole Brown way back in 1977 at a Beverly Hills nightclub.
• He spent nine years in prison for trying in 2007 to steal O.J. Simpson memorabilia.
• He had clearly started to lose his mind in his last years with his rambling video posts on X but to his credit at least he mostly stuck to football commentary.

What a run he had!

RIP Dick Butkus

Dick Butkus, who died at 80 in Malibu this week, was exactly the kind of player that got me interested in NFL football when I was around 6 or 7 years old. We had the home-team St. Louis Cardinals and my older brother was into the Dallas Cowboys, but nothing about those teams made me tick. I eventually saw the Pittsburgh Steelers, with Jack Lambert's teeth knocked out, Swann and Stallworth acrobatically and elegantly catching Terry Bradshaw's textbook-beautiful tosses, and their intimidating black-and-gold uniforms.

If I would have been born a little earlier, I think something about the villanous Butkus could have just as easily turned me into a lifelong Chicago Bears fan. That never happened, but I've seen his highlight reels, and Butkus was every bit as iconically violent as Lambert, and Mean Joe Greene, and many other Steelers I could name. He was clearly a real football lover's football player.

And while it's easy and totally fair to say violence of Butkus's sort leads to awful brain injuries and ruined lives, its also fair to say that football is a form of choreographed war and if someone wants to play it, who is to say they can't?

I love the way USA Today started its obit for Butkus. It says it all:

Dick Butkus was brutal. He was fierce. He was mean. He would punch you in the face and when he played, punching someone in the face was illegal, but barely. He'd run you down, past the out of bounds line, and push you into the bench and wait for you to do something about it. You wouldn't. You'd be too scared. Dick Butkus was an enforcer in an age when enforcers ruled the Earth. This isn't to say he wasn't a superb athlete. He was.

RIP Russ Francis

I haven't cared a lick about the New England Patriots throughout the Tom Brady era, or even before that during the Drew Bledsoe one. It could be that I've always held a bit of a grudge for the team's design decision to forego the classic red uniforms with the ball-snapping patriot on the helmet for their hideous blue and silver look with some misguided futuristic-looking patriot on the helmet.

Regardless, I rememeber fondly looking forward as a little kid to the rare times the team would appear on Monday Night Football or another TV game of the week. Those uniforms seemed to enhance the abilities of already-great stars like quarterback Steve Grogan, running back Sam "The Bam" Cunningham, and arguably the greatest tight end during the era he played (1975-1988), Russ Francis.

Francis died in a plane crash this week in Lake Placid, New York at age 70. Growing up in Hawaii, Francis set a national record in high school in the javelin. Once settling on football as his primary sport, he became known as one of the first tight ends to be used as a primary receiver, helping change the way tight ends were used in the NFL.

After his years with the Pats, he went on to play for the San Francisco 49ers, winning one Super Bowl, then owning several businesses and even becoming a professional wrestler with the American Wrestling Association and National Wrestling Alliance.

And along with those TV games, I probably still have about 15 of this card. Something always to remind me of Russ. 

It's Lake of the Ozarks fantasy football draft time!!!

Every year at this time I go back to see many of my high school and college buddies in Osage Beach, Missouri, overlooking the country's largest man-made lake (with as many miles of coastline as California).

It's a highlight of my year. It would be an even bigger highlight of my year if I could win the league one of these years. We've been running it for 28 years and, while I've won a few lesser league awards over that time, I still have yet to win the big prize - the Fantasy Bowl.

Maybe this is the year. I better do my homework because the league is full of NFL sharks. What I can successfully manage is determining which of these throwback and new helmets that will be used by various teams this year look good or look like a mess.

I think the wacky Detroit Lions one is new and not a throwback. And the same for the Indianapolis Colts' one, although I think that one looks better. Can the Cleveland Browns' new Auburn-like white helmet finally bring them wins?

My favorites of the throwbacks are: 

• Tennessee Titans: But it seems a little nonsensical to have Tennessee use the classic Houston Oilers' look.
• Denver Broncos: The iconic D is way better than the terrible design the team has had for many years.
• Seattle Seahawks: It's a classic look, even if they almost literally never one when they had it.

But the clear winner has to be the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' helmet. The team is embracing their dark years that had nothing going for them except Lee Roy Selmon and those beautiful powdered oranges.

Toy movie mania hits Hollywood. What toy movies do you want to see?

OK, I got my Barbie tickets for a showing this upcoming Sunday. The whole family is going as an early birthday present for my daughter's 10th. And it's now being announced that there are a ton of other toy-based movies in the works.

I'm not a big car-chase movie person, but a J.J. Abrams-produced Hot Wheels flick sounds promising.

If I'm going to a Barbie movie, I may as well sign up early for the inevitable American Girl one.

I really can't wait to see what MGM has in the works for a View-Master film! Sounds like it could be tiring on the eyes, as too many hours with that toy always was.

Lena Dunham, the Girls mastermind, is working on a Polly Pocket movie. I think it has something to do with a girl who has another girl stashed in her pocket, but correct me if I'm spreading fake news there. :-)

I don't know how the planned Magic 8 Ball movie could possibly be any good.

Jason Bateman's film based on the dolls Chatty Cathy and Betsy Wetsy sounds like something I won't dare miss. Oscar contender anyone?

Masters of the Universe sounds cool. 

I don't know what Major Matt Mason is but there's a flick planned for it.

Ryan Reynolds is going to be in a new Clue movie. That is still one of my favorite board games.

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots is a pretty cool idea. It's got Vin Diesel onboard.

I can think of a few more movies that should be made. Tops on my list is Stretch Monster. I'm always partial to him over Stretch Armstrong. But lots more people seem to remember Armstrong, a blonde muscleman. The two stretchy gel playthings that would inevitably break and ooze jelly fluid could be great in a movie together, but if the producers insist on breaking it into two different movies, I wouldn't object.

Something football themed could be great. I collected those little plastic helmets of all the teams, and I also had the big electric football game. I don't know how either of those could make a movie, but Hollywood apparently has greenlit that View-Master movie, so anything's possible at this point. There's always paper football and the Mattel handheld football games if more ideas are needed.

The great possibilities really never end. All the figures (the Six-Million Dollar Man and Star Wars come to mind). Wuppets (which is what we called them while collecting every color imaginable, but the Internet seems to call them Weepuls). Atari. The Fisher Price castle and other toys. Simple Simon.

Those are my ideas for today. What ideas do you have? Post them in the comments.

TV Snide: May 2023

TV Show of the Month: The Bear - Season 1 (Hulu): A Chicagoland beef joint goes through growing pains as one brother dies, leading the way for brother Carmen to return from his tour working at top restaurants around the world. He has serious brother issues to work out, but finds a family in the restaurant’s co-workers. An incredibly special cast is led by Jeremy Allen White of Shameless fame and Ayo Edibiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and L-Boy. There are parts that take me way back to my college years working at IMO’s Pizza. And it’s a beautiful thing. 5 out of 5 stars 

The Sex Lives of College Girls - Season 1 (HBO Max): This was a surprise. I thought this might be something to see on a whim and give up after an episode or two. But several friends’ recommendations were not wrong. This is the modern version of Beverly Hills 90210, but, dare I say, funnier. The four roommates are all needles in the haystack. The casting directors should win awards. The story is that these girls are just trying to make it through the start of college, and it truly takes me back to my freshman year, in a way that no other show has ever done for me. 5 out of 5 stars

Concert of the Month: The New Pornographers at 9:30 Club in DC: The band, although without weirdo Dan Bejar, was firing on all cylinders with a greatest hits set that included some top-notch additions from their new release. The only song I wish they would have played was “Letter to an Occupant” from Mass Romantic. But adding to the excellence of the evening was the fact that friend Alexis beelined me, Kevin, his friend Mark, and Ruben up to near the stage, something I don’t do that often anymore, and the early start time was pretty nice for we old folks as well. 5 out of 5 stars.

Short Story of the Month: “Babylon Revisited,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1931): Charlie has returned to Paris two years after ending up in a sanitarium because of his wife’s death during the heyday of post-Depression cafe society. He is making the case to his sister-in-law and her husband that he is well enough now to take back custody of his young daughter Honoria. The plan appears to be that he will take her back to his home in Prague, but then two bad actors from his wild days resurface and put custody of his daughter back into question. A wonderful snippet of that time and place. Fitzgerald is obviously a true master of fiction. 5 out of 5 stars

Movie of the Month: The Blair Witch Project (Paramount Plus): The best thing about watching this for a first time, like my son just did, is going in cold and not knowing whether this is real or fiction. I remember back to when I first saw it and being pretty terrified about the creepy found footage from the Maryland woods. The pure unprofessionalism of it all is what makes it so oddly compelling. One of the top horror flicks of the 1990s. 5 out of 5 stars

The Natural (Showtime): I always thought I had already seen this 1984 classic, but I hadn’t, so it was extra special to watch with my 15-year-old son. Robert Redford plays the amiable and talented Roy Hobbs, who gets shot right as his pro baseball career is taking off. He makes a comeback for the New York Knights 16 years later and battles his way through crooked owners and lousy ladies to find a sweet path that includes childhood sweetheart Glenn Close. 5 out of 5 stars

“Pet Milk,” by Stuart Dybek is a romantic little read that seems perfectly of its 1984 time, and I also somehow feel I read it at some point long long ago. It oddly starts with an image of the narrator’s grandmother serving Pet milk as coffee creamer and then takes us through the 22-year-old on a date that ends with him making love to his girlfriend in the L back from downtown Chicago to her place in Evanston as other passengers look on from platforms they pass. 5 out of 5 stars

Only Murders in the Building - Season 2 (Hulu): Anyone who is a fan of Selena Gomez or Steve Martin or Martin Short will definitely like this mix of wacky humor and solid murder mystery. The gang tries to solve the killing of an elderly woman in the building, leading them through a raft of possible suspects, including Tina Fey. 4.5 out of 5 stars

30 for 30: Elway to Marino (ESPN): This is a great story of what was to be the first major NFL Draft event with fans attending in person and TV cameras capturing every move. When Pete Rozell calls John Elway’s name first overall to the Baltimore Colts, it sparks bidding wars throughout the league, as Elway refuses to play for Owner Robert Irsay and a management style under which he doesn’t think he’ll find success. Meanwhile, Dan Marino of the University of Pittsburgh doesn’t go until #23, which is particularly painful to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Coach Chuck Noll refused to grab him and, as fate would have it, Terry Bradshaw would suffer a career-ending elbow injury in the first game of the year and their pick Gabriel Rivera was paralyzed six weeks later in a car crash. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Wheaton AMC): This series is wildly entertaining to me, someone who doesn’t get too excited about most superhero movies. Star Lord and the gang are back to save Rocket Raccoon, who is the focus of this chapter. His backstory is revealed, which includes escaping from an animal experiment prison and going on to become a world-class pilot and member of the Guardians. Does the battling and destruction the gang faces in this one, including a major battle on an alternate Earth, mean the end of their nucleus? It sure seems like it. 4.5 out of 5 stars

“The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien (1986): This short story starts by exhaustively giving lists of what a troop of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam carry with them on their marches. It’s an interesting perspective of what war is like. Then it segues to following the sergeant, Jimmy Scott, in his metamorphosis from pining in love with a girl back home to burning her photos and letters so he can focus himself on leading his soldiers. 4 out of 5 stars.

Moonfall (HBO Max): Patrick Wilson and Halle Berry lead the cast in this creative 2022 sci-fi flick in which the moon tilts out of its axis and heads on a collision course with Earth. The lead actors are astronauts who need to save both the day and their family members. It’s a very big ask. But the effects and dialogue all work really well in an entertaining rollick. 4 out of 5 stars.

Pop Week: How a big event like the Super Bowl is so rare these days

This is a new column I've promised myself each week, to tie all the random TV, movies, magazine articles, books, and more that I've ingested each week into a loosely-tied-together glimpse on what the world might mean at that very moment. Call it an experiment. Here goes ...

--------------
The Super Bowl set up a pretty phenomenal pop-culture week, with its satisfying ending for anyone who loves high drama but its very unsatisfying ending for those who still retained a glimpse of hope that the Steelers would remain the greatest football franchise of all time instead of the Patriots.

It was the rare event that brings the nation together in a common conversation, like All in the Family and, to a lesser extent, Seinfeld, used to do.

My favorite magazine read of the week was "The Social Medium is the Message" in WIRED's special section of the 49 trends that will shape the very near future. It looked at how we need to seriously re-examine our Facebook and Twitter use. In a country still tragically lacking in media literacy (how we use and can understand media), Marshall McLuhan would have recognized Donald Trump's Twitter propaganda as eerily similar to how fascist leaders of the 1940s spoke to their citizens. Further, he would have recognized how our avalanche of information and misinformation (heavy thanks to social media) could foster fear and anger about the world.

Another example of how our society has gone from major to meta is Archie Andrews. Long ago, every kids read the comic-book in the newspaper or watched him on TV, but nowadays, he's just another of the many dozens of shows that premier each week. But man is Riverdale a good one, and it is my favorite TV show of the week. It takes Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and all the other players to deep, dark places in ways the comic books never did. It's like a new remake of 90210, but only much better than that recent semi-fiasco and much more suspenseful.

Ryan Reynolds continues to underwhelm me, after a promising early career. I know he's sort of like the Tom Brady of actors to many people and Deadpool is like the Superhero Super Bowl to some, and I appreciated it's yearning to be a different, more adult version of a superhero movie. But it's just too winking-nudge-nudge-hipster for my tastes. There are some fun scenes, but Deadpool is the most boring movie of the week. Cool-looking Spider Man-looking knock off though. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

For what very well may be the most boring (but important) article I wrote for the week, see
"New services are moving fast, and cities are looking to update procurement processes to keep up." It could definitely make the ears of government groupies pop up.

And finally, now that football is over, the world of college basketball is starting to seriously heat up. It continued to be a rough year using my season tickets to Georgetown games. In what often seems like a talented team with Coach John Thompson III not necessarily all there, the Hoyas at least had a little fight in losing at home in overtime to Seton Hall and then on the road to #2 Villanova. My teams completed the win-challenged week with North Carolina barely losing at Duke.

Friday Night Lights captures all that is America

Friday Night Lights isn't just a book, a movie, a TV series, and recently the focus of a captivating 25th-year anniversary article in Sports Illustrated (an excerpt from a full book) by author Buzz Bissinger.

It is an experience, an entire way of life. I think the reason it remains such a force in our culture is that just about everyone who grew up in the U.S. can identify, and it all forces us to reflect upon our high-school and post-high-school years, for better or worse.

Friday Night Lights isn't a story about high-school football. I mean, it is, but it's much more about friendships, youthful pettiness, leadership, love, race, alcoholism, hopelessness, hope, and the rare successful mix of comedy and drama.

In undergrad at Southern Illinois University, my sports-journalism professor, the formidable and legendary Bill Ward, assigned the book to us. And I loved it, even if I didn't realize at the time what a modern classic it would become. In fact, it still sells about 5,000 copies every month.

I certainly hyper-identified because these real-life kids (reality programming when it was still good) at Permian High in West Texas, like me, went to high school in the late 80s and experiencing growing up in the Midwest.

And it wasn't like I spent every Friday night at our football games. We had good teams, but to my mind, the soccer games (in which I was a player) under the lights on any night but Friday were every bit as entertaining, other than the fact that they didn't hold that Friday-night hope of an entire wild weekend ahead of us.

That's the feeling Friday Night Lights truly gives us. There was the excitement of the inevitable house-party that would happen over the weekend. Or one out on one of the big farms north of town. This after hanging out in McDonald's parking lot or cruising around for hours waiting to get the word of where everyone was that night.

There could be love or alcohol or fights or interesting conversations or dumb pranks or hiding something in a cabinet that the host's parents would eventually find and wonder about.

Everyone can identify with one of the main characters. Take the near-perfect TV series, which ran for five seasons and would clock in as my fifth-favorite show of all time, right behind Mad Men, Seinfeld, Saturday Night Live, and All in the Family.

With Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), the rebel drinker with hidden talents but more troubles than a kid can be expected to handle. With Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), the quiet quarterback who was idolized for his athleticism when he was probably just as talented at art, something not considered when it comes to high-school popularity. With Brian "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles) and Vince Howard (Michael B. Jordan), the black superstars who were golden gods on the field but had endless worries off-field living in a place with deep-seated racism and inescapably hopeless environs. With Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) and Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki), the worshipped, wealthy cheerleader and the restless but smart trailer-trash girl.

Then there's Coach Eric Taylor, played by Kyle Chandler, and his wife Tami (Connie Britton). Almost every line Coach says throughout the series is mesmerizing or flat-out hilarious. Armed with amazing scripts, Chandler gives a performance that is every bit as nuanced and worthy of respect as Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Carroll O'Connor (All in the Family), or Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad).

I now have the final piece of the Friday Night Lights puzzle queued up on my DVR to watch. It will be a miracle is Billy Bob Thornton's performance as the coach can compete with Chandler's.

Meanwhile, every time I encounter Friday Night Lights, I reflect on a different experience from high school. That is a powerful reminder of how pop culture mixes with and affects the way we make it through this weird and wonderful little amount of time we spend existing.

Clearance Sale: A Raft of Movies (Plus a Book) From the Past Few Months Gets Reviewed Here

I've seen a hodgepodge of movies lately. I'm not sure that any of them warrant their own blog posts at the moment so this compilation to help me remember what I've seen lately will have to do.

And as a side note, a book I recently skimmed was Arcadia by Lauren Groff. I was excited by this one because of all the praise it received, and I'm a sucker for anything about cults (see my articles on The Polyphonic Spree, the movie Martha Marcy May Marlene,  the Children of God-inspired band Girls, Charles Manson, and more. But this was flowery prose that had me bored 20 pages in, at which point I decided to read the starts and ends of chapters and a summary online. It's about a kid named Bit who is born into a cult at a place called Arcadia, which holds its members together in the beginning by some sort of vegan concept. Along the way, Bit grows to like the place less and less and it ends with technology and burnouts taking the place over. Criticize me for not deeply absorbing this whole book, but life is too short.
1.5 out of 5 stars.

Now transitioning to the movies but keeping in line with the blandness of Arcadia, Blended was the worst of the batch. The Wedding Singer was a true comedy classic and possibly Adam Sandler's best movie. He and Drew Barrymore killed it with chemistry. And they teamed up on 50 First Dates to nearly equal effect. But this mess of bad African stereotypes is so bad that I couldn't take my eyes off it. Like a nightmare Brady Bunch, it takes forever for the two stars to fall in love. Most jokes fall flat, but all the kids and the occasional moment that lands save this from being one of the worst movies of all time. It's so dumb, and it seems like a product of the Radical Right in that it's potty-talk free and kind of racist, but you know what, I ended up guiltily liking it.
2.5 out of 5 stars

J. Edgar
It's hard to go wrong with a fictional biopic in which the lead character is played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The focus on this one is mostly about his closet homosexuality that mostly expresses itself in asexuality.
3 out of 5 stars

Bill Murray's HBO Christmas Special
This hour-long special highlights Murray's most endearing traits, basically expanding his SNL lounge singer, laid-back, and kinda drunk-seeming guy. Highlights include a duet with Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, George Clooney popping out here and there from behind Christmas trees, Phoenix's catchy Beach Boys cover, and of course Paul Schaeffer's piano playing throughout.
3 out of 5 stars

John Dent
I'm not a big action-adventure guy, but I like Keanu Reeves a lot and this is a pretty perfect role for him, as a tortured assassin.
3 out of 5 stars

Deliverance
Burt Reynolds' brightest moment. And one of the best films ever (in fact, #15 on my list).
5 out of 5 stars

Happy Valley
This story about Jerry Sandusky and the corrupt Penn State football program is almost too sadly pathetic to truly recommend, but this story is told really well.
3.5 out of 5 stars

The Big Lebowsky
Some movies you just have to see again and again to like more each time (#13 on my all-time best list).
5 out of 5 stars

Glen Campbell - I'll Be Me
In the moments when it's not looking a little to uncomfortably like a reality TV family story or a little bit too much of an advertisement for fixing Alzheimer's, CNN's Glen Campbell documentary is good, down-home entertainment. And Campbell himself is such a great guy. His music, further, just makes any time spent at all with the country legend a joy.
4 out of 5 stars

NFL Kickoff: Ranking Football’s Most Accessible Stadiums

Republished from Mobility Lab

I love going to NFL football games.

Going to the Ravens' stadium to see my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers is something I do nearly every year. Getting there from anywhere in Baltimore is easy by transit, and the parking lots south of the stadium are located in a way that I can get right onto the interstate and drive back to DC without having to sit in any Baltimore traffic.

On the other hand, heading out to FedEx Field to see my also-beloved Washington Redskins is typically a very-long ordeal, including either a long walk to the stadium at the end of a long Metro ride or, much worse, a traffic jam on the Beltway to get to parking that is nowhere near a stadium that is built in the middle of nowhere.

But I digress, Sports Illustrated has published a really interesting ranking of stadium accessibility for all 32 pro-football teams. Not surprisingly, FedEx Field is ranked near the bottom, at #30, with Giants Stadium keeping the New York Giants and Jets at #31 and #32, respectively. M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Ravens, is ranked as the second most accessible. It must be really easy to get to Municipal Stadium, home of the Jacksonville Jaguars, which is the top ranked. SI's computations look pretty thorough and ask just the right questions:

• How would you rate the traffic to and from the stadium?
• How would you rate the availability and cost of parking at the stadium?
• How would you rate the public transportation options?

Respondents then gave an answer of either poor, below average, average, above average, or excellent. Denver, Green Bay, and Tennessee round out the top 5. Some other somewhat-surprising ranks include the #28 Dallas Cowboys, who have the league's premiere facility, which happens to have been located at complete odds with smart and current urban-design best practices, and the New Orleans Saints, way down at #18, which seems like it would be pretty accessible to anyone coming to the game from downtown or the French Quarter.

Check out the full NFL stadium accessibility rankings here.

Photo by Joe Slabotnik

Will the Pittsburgh Steelers Win the Super Bowl This Time?

It was a heartbreaking ending last year, losing to the Packers in a thrilling Super Bowl. But good things appear to be on the horizon for my Pittsburgh Steelers, who are picked as the team to beat by one of my favorite sports opinion blogs, ESPN's Grantland. It all starts in about 24 hours, with Game 1 against the fierce rival Baltimore Ravens.

You know, the team that always manages to be in the playoff hunt every year? Them? They're our favorites. The Steelers were 12-4 with a Pythagorean expectation of 12.1 wins despite missing Ben Roethlisberger for the first four games and an offensive line for the entire season. They made it to the Super Bowl with Troy Polamalu at 60 percent and even less of an offensive line, and while they got outplayed by the Packers, they were competitive in the process.

We can keep this very brief: If you want to know why they're our Super Bowl pick, look at the schedule that the gods have gifted these Pittsburgh Steelers. The Ravens will be a weaker team, so the division won't be as tough. They get four games against the NFC West and four more against the AFC South, which looks weaker by the day. (Peyton Manning might be back in time for their Week 3 matchup, but he certainly won't be 100 percent.) And while they have to play the Patriots at home, their other first-place matchup comes against the Chiefs. That has 13 wins written all over it, and if the Steelers win 13 games, they're going to have the no. 1 seed in the AFC. That gives them a better shot of making it to the Super Bowl than any other team in football. And that's why they're the favorites.

Steelers Shoot for Number 7 Today ... 6:30 P.M. Seems Like Days Away

I'm too superstitious to write anything other than ... Go Stillers!!!

And maybe post a roundup of past Pop Culture Lunch Box blogs about the best sports team in the world.

The history of the Pittsburgh Steelers and "mob football."

Roundup of the failed 2009-2010 season.

Steelers win record sixth Super Bowl!

A look back at why I'm a Steelers fan who grew up in St. Louis.

My favorite NFL teams, ranked 1 to 32.

Movies that take place in Pittsburgh.

The History of the Pittsburgh Steelers and "Mob Football"

My favorite NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, were purchased during the Depression for $2,500, money earned by Art Rooney's betting on horses and promotion of local prize fighters. They got their name because the "Steelers" was chosen by fans in a contest.

This was the beginning of many years of a hard-working but pathetic football team. One of many low-lights was when Johnny Unitas, who went on to become perhaps the greatest quarterback ever, was cut. But when "The Chief," long-time beloved owner Art Rooney (who sometimes treated the Steelers as an amusing hobby), stepped aside to let his son Dan take over in 1969, the team would slowly take a path to becoming the greatest football franchise.

Although Dan Rooney wanted to hire Joe Paterno of Penn State, Paterno wanted to stay in college. So the next choice was Chuck Noll, a former assistant at San Diego under West Coast Offense creator Sid Gillman and defensive assistant under Don Shula in Baltimore. Noll was a master of precision, detail, and studying the game.

This is one of the stories in a book I'm reading called The Ones Who Hit the Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, the '70s, and the Fight for America's Soul, by Chad Millman and Shawn Coyne. Another story is about how football is "as old as community." Villages in medieval times had bloody battles in which a pig's bladder served as the ball and with no rules beyond "no murder and no manslaughter." The game was called "Mob Football" and it evolved across Europe, with working men typically playing it on one of the few days off they had each year, on the day before Ash Wednesday.

In the mid-nineteenth century, "American football rose from this primal tradition and took hold at eastern college campuses." Then the first professional player took the field in November 1892, in Pittsburgh, of course.

The Blind Side Enters My List of Top 2009 Movies

Michael Oher went from nothing to making Old Miss's honor roll twice, graduating with a degree in criminal justice, and getting drafted in the first round of the 2009 NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens.

His story along the way is a touching one, and detailed in The Blind Side, based on a book by Michael Lewis of Moneyball fame. Sandra Bullock is said to be a front-runner for the Academy Award for best actress in her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy, the Republican socialite who took in young "Big Mike." This later results in NCAA investigations into whether Tuohy and her husband (played by a likable Tim McGraw) shaped Oher (played by an even more likable Quinton Aaron) into bringing glory to their beloved Old Miss team.

This movie has floated under the radar somewhat, but it's a quality addition to the best movies I've seen this year: Avatar, Inglourious Basterds, Julie and Julia, Drag Me to Hell, Up in the Air, Adventureland, Crazy Heart, Funny People, Bruno, Star Trek, Away We Go, and The Hangover (I still haven't seen Precious, A Single Man, Invictus, Where the Wild Things Are, Sherlock Holmes, Zombieland, The Informant!, Fantastic Mr. Fox, An Education, The Men Who Stare at Goats, State of Play, The Messenger, and The Hurt Locker).

**** out of ***** stars

Look for my own Academy Awards after the real ones are announced March 7.

Ranking My Favorite NFL Teams From 1 to 32

As the season winds down to a New Orleans-Indianapolis Super Bowl (this list tells you who I'm cheering for), it seems like a good time to departmentalize the NFL teams.

I love lists, and somehow I've never made one showing how much I love (the Steelers) versus how much I despise (the Cowboys and Pats) the NFL's 32 teams.

Teams That I Despise
32. Dallas Cowboys
31. New England Patriots
30. Cincinnati Bengals
29. Cleveland Browns
28. Indianapolis Colts
27. Denver Broncos
26. Oakland Raiders
25. Philadelphia Eagles
24. Tennessee Titans
23. Miami Dolphins

Teams That Have No Effect on Me Whatsoever and Should Be Removed from the League
22. Houston Texans
21. Jacksonville Jaguars
20. Atlanta Falcons
19. Detroit Lions
18. New York Giants
17. New York Jets
16. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
15. Buffalo Bills

Teams That I Respect But Despise
14. Chicago Bears
13. Seattle Seahawks
12. San Francisco 49ers
11. Baltimore Ravens
10. San Diego Chargers

Teams That I Kind of Like
09. Green Bay Packers
08. Minnesota Vikings
07. Kansas City Chiefs
06. New Orleans Saints
05. Carolina Panthers
04. Arizona Cardinals

My Teams
03. Washington Redskins
02. St. Louis Rams
01. Pittsburgh Steelers

Random I know, but this is how my mind works when determining which games I want to watch each Sunday. "My teams" versus teams I despise would be a can't-miss match-up. Teams I "kind of like" playing against each other would be worth watching in under an hour on the digital video recorder. I would probably let Neon Deion Sanders and the crew at NFL Network (the new number-one post-game analysis TV outlet) tell me in under 3 minutes about the games played by teams that have no effect on me.

Where do your teams rank?

Steelers Go From Super Bowl to See-Ya-Next-Year

I was going to write a season-ender on my Pittsburgh Steelers, who were eliminated from making the playoffs in the last week of the regular season. But since one of my favorite blogs, Steelers Gab, summed up the highs and lows so well, here it is in their words:

The Good:

Big Ben Goes Wild - Roethlisberger became one of the best QB’s in the NFL in 2009. He set a franchise record with 4328 yards, 26 TD’s and 12 picks.

Rookie Pass Catcher – Mike Wallace was the rookie of the year for the Steelers, with 39 catches for 756 yards and 6 touchdowns.

The Bad:

Going the Other Way on Defense - A Steelers defense that put together one of the best seasons in NFL history while winning the Super Bowl the year before, this season they allowed too many big plays, and a healthy Troy Polamalu and Aaron Smith will help in 2010.

Kick Coverage – It became routine to see a returner lick his chops coming to play the Steelers, usually because it meant a score was coming.

The Ugly:

Blowing Leads - It almost became funny how this team week in and week out would look great for three quarters, then become a totally different team in the fourth quarter.

A Bust? – It’s just two years, but the vibe seems to point to WR Limas Sweed being a wasted draft pick, with his Steeler career in serious doubt.

Rockin' in Love at the Theme Park Adventureland

Adventureland is one of the top indie comedies I've seen recently. It's directed in the Wet Hot American Summer style by the same person who directed Superbad and scores especially high marks from me for its tremendous soundtrack. The Cure, Lou Reed, and The Replacements are each used strongly, as are Whitesnake and Judas Priest.

While SNL stars Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig surprisingly have the weakest and least funny roles, Jesse Eisenberg (who was excellent in The Squid and the Whale) and Kristen Stewart are "cool and cute" as a couple with adolescent troubles at a theme park in 1987. Ryan Reynolds is also good as the bad-boy mechanic at the park who uses stories about once playing music with Lou Reed as a way to seduce a new crop of girls each summer.

And of all the Pittsburgh-based movies I've seen recently (for some reason), this one makes by far the best use of a Steelers' reference when a guy wearing a Jack Lambert jersey plays a game in the background.

**** out of ***** stars

Fantasy Football Arrives!

As I inevitably continue to get older, nothing seems nearly as routinely debaucherous as my annual sojourn to Osage Beach in the Lake of the Ozarks. It is there that I meet 11 old high-school/college buddies for one of my two Fantasy Football drafts each summer. They're all still living in the St. Louis area, while I come in from D.C. and Matt Wilson arrives from Salt Lake City.

This year's draft took place ridiculously early, as not a single preseason snap has occurred. That said, my team looks stronger on paper than recent years in this extremely competitive league. I got what looks to be a bevy of high-value picks. Agree? I was the 11th pick in the 12-team "snake draft" league.

1st round-Steve Slaton RB1
2-Frank Gore RB2
3-Phillip Rivers QB1
4-Terrell Owens WR1
5-Brandon Marshall WR2
6-DeSean Jackson WR3
7-Matt Cassell QB2
8-Chris Cooley TE1
9-John Carlson TE2
10-NY Jets D/ST1
11-Garrett Hartley K1
12-Cedric Benson RB3

Yeah, pretty sweet. But really, the whole point of this league is getting together with great friends once a year (that's Jeff Wahl and me in the photo). Sad it won't happen again for 12 months.

Steelers and Babies Are So Cute

Pretty clear why these are worth posting for posterity on my blog.