Sometimes It Makes Me Wonder

• Random Pop Culture:
• Went to the AT&T National today to see Tiger Woods take down the tournament. I could say a lot about the aura of greatness that's obvious as Tiger walks around the course or about how I get the red shirt thing now (it was a brighter red than anyone else's shirt; you could always tell where he was by that red), but I'll stick to my biggest question about Tiger. Why do we so often root for underdogs, yet we root for Tiger? Is it because of the way the sport is or is there something more?
• Weeds was a lot better this week, a lot funnier. Hopefully that will keep up.
• Eastbound & Down is back on HBO On Demand. I had only seen the pilot episode, so I'm going to try to catch up.
• Random Hatred and/or Love:
• I think I'm going to look for a new job in three years, so I'm going to quit my job now and do nothing until it's time to go for the new one. I'm sure the people making the hiring decision won't bat an eye.
• F*** it, why be so coy? She's a damn lunatic!
• Random Music Video
• In the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, they play music throughout the museum from the artists honored within. A lot of Crosby, Still, & Nash; a lot of Elton John; a lot of Rolling Stones. Surprisingly, they also played the biggest song from one of their two rap inductees a number of times, one of the handful of most influential rap songs, "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (the other rap inductee is Run DMC). Based on "The Message", here's "Close Edge" by Mos Def in my favorite performance from Chappelle's Show.

So Proudly We Hailed

You know how everyone remembers Whitney Houston's National Anthem before Super Bowl XXV as the greatest performance ever of the song? From the 1983 All-Star Game, here's Marvin Gaye. Top this.

Book Recommendation

I've been reading a lot more lately than I had been, but more slowly than in the past. It's often taken me close to a month to finish a book because there are always other things to do or with which to distract myself. Therefore, the highest praise I can give for Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day is that I read it in one day. I just couldn't put it down. If you liked the chapter he co-authored in Freakonomics or if you're interested at all in anything about the American experience that we middle- to upper-middle-class people don't get to see, you must read it. I also found it to be an interesting companion piece to The Wire. Whereas The Wire deals with inner-city gang life -- and life in the projects in the first three seasons -- from the police and government perspective, this book deals with it from the gang and tenant perspective. This book ends as the projects are being demolished, The Wire continued on past demolition for its more surreal fourth and fifth seasons. If The Wire is the best drama ever produced -- and it most certainly is -- then you can see how highly I think of this book that it belongs in the same company.

Atmosphere

Walk out of the mall into Public Square, where the Cleveland Orchestra is playing a free concert for the holiday. It's easy to forgive a city its many faults when, as cold as it is outside, you walk out into this kind of atmosphere. The buildings are lit up and Battle Hymn of the Republic is being played. Cool stuff.

Off My Feet

I'm in a mall, waiting to get into a restaurant that is currently serving a party of seventy-five. There's a woman in the food court who is singing songs with a microphone and music behind her. She's currently singing "The Way You Make Me Feel". Britney was better in that video I posted two days ago.

Update: Now she's singing "We Are The World". Oh. My. God.

Hey, Kids, Rock And Roll

iTunes stupidity aside, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a fantastic museum. It's open from 10AM to 5:30PM; we got there at 11AM and, a forty-minute break from lunch aside, we rushed through the huge Springsteen exhibit and the gift shop in order to get out before closing. The small-in-space-but-packed-with-stuff memorabilia exhibit took us around three hours. If you're a fan of music, it's worth a short trip or stopover in Cleveland just for the museum. $22 to get in and not a rip-off in any way.

The Land That Taste Forgot

Left the museum for a quick second to grab lunch at a nearby mall. Outside of McDonald's, there is no Coca-Cola in this city. None. A Pepsi town? As if you needed no other reason to not live here.