Super Stupor, and Other Business News

The Schloss-Blog watched the Super Bowl and...

...wonders how the NFL allows a great rap performer like Kendrick Lamer to express his personal distaste for another artist through his halftime show, the NFL's biggest stage.

And if you're wondering how Serena Williams' husband, Alexis Ohanian, feels about her crip-dance cameo appearance trolling Drake, her 'ex.' Well, he thought it was a "Super halftime show," or so he said on social media.

Or so he said.

Don't know about you, but I don't ever expect to see my wife crip-dancing on the reputation of an 'ex' of hers at the Super Bowl, let alone at a Super Bowl party. Maybe in private at a girls night out, but that's about it.

Nah.

Anyway, guys, how many of you expect to see your wives crip-dancing on the reputations of an 'ex?'

Yeah, that's what I thought.

***

Just thinking that I'm not expecting to see the NFL have Morgan Wallen as its Super Bowl halftime entertainer next year.

The pregame performers this year were all terrific though, as was Jon Batiste doing the National Anthem.

The ads - Harrison Ford for Jeep, the all-star lineup of female athletes doing "So, win" for Nike and the Stella Artois ad with David Beckham and Matt Damon all killed it.

***

Switching gears now, according to Ilyce Glink, one of the best sources for business news I know of ...

"Since the pandemic, inflation has hit hard. The typical new car costs more than $40,000. Housing has had an unrelenting upward trajectory and is extremely expensive for renters and home buyers. Mortgage rates are arond 7%, which means a home buyer’s dollar doesn’t stretch nearly as far. The level of consumer debt is back to an all-time high. Buyers at all ends of the home-buying spectrum (except the super-rich?) are having trouble finding homes they can afford that meet their needs."

In other words, strap in - inflation isn't letting go.

Anytime soon.

***

Why is it that every time Duke basketball is on TV, it's a home game?

And they kick ass.

How about a Duke road game, please, where the other team has a chance.

***

The penny is dead. Long live the penny.

That and all the personnel cuts Elon Musk is making will add up to about - what? - one-tenth of 1% of the federal budget.

Great work, President Musk, great work.

***

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Grinnelville 11.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.

Overlap, Not Overtime, Is A Killer

The Schloss-Blog, like Mad Dog Russo, is mad about ...

...games on TV that start on time but you can't see 'em.

Don't you hate it when you tune in to ESPN to watch a certain basketball game or to CBS to watch a big golf tournament, and the message scrolling across the bottom of the screen, while you're looking at a basketball game in which you have no interest, says, "the game you tuned in to watch is airing on ESPN News, the ESPN App or ESPN.com."

WTF is ESPN News on my cable or satellile or streaming service directory?

Why don't these networks and leagues appropriate the proper amount of time for these games so they don't overlap? The Schloss-Blog is not happy that by the time the game I want to watch comes on the score is already 21-18 and the first half is half over.

And I could care less about the game they forced me to watch before they switched over.

By the way - you ever see this happen to an NFL game? If a college basketball game overlaps into an NFL game, you know it's the college basketball game that will be switched to ESPN News while the NFL game gets underway on the principle network.

The NFL wouldn't tolerate such treatment from any network and would be on the phone to network management, probably to the president, if that happened. These NFL guys are bastards to work with; trust me, I've had to work with them on a book project on which they gave me a hard time about permission to use a photo of theirs.

I said "F_ck you," literally, to the obnoxious NFL rep I was talking to and used it anyway and now, more than 30 years later, they never did come back at me, but they were effing nasty.

Thank goodness I didn't overlap a telecast of theirs. Or maybe I would've liked to. So the score though, after all these years, is still Schloss-Blog 1, NFL 0.

***

Can't wait to go on vacation at "The Riviera of the Middle East." I hear the tunnel transportation is top notch, aside from the dead bodies on the tracks.

***

After today's Super Bowl, it still persists and you saw some of it today as well - defensive players miss tackles, or they just can't tackle.

Know why?

They try to tackle with their heads down and y'know what happens when you try to tackle with your head down?

If you can't see it, you can't hit it.

I will always - ALWAYS - remember the late, great Buffalo Grove High Football Coach, Grant Blaney, telling me after a big state playoff game that I covered, that he reminded his defensive coaches to remind their defensive players to tackle with their heads up in a game against a school with a stud running back.

And it worked. BG shut him down after he burned them on an opening drive and Blaney's team moved on to the next round of the playoffs.

Can't see it? Can't hit it. NFL players have to learn that. 

Quickly. Can't believe defensive coaches still tolerate it.

***

Good luck, Ohio State football.

We'll see if your team is as good next year without masterminds Chip Kelly and Jim Knowles.

The latter defensive coordinator moved on to rival Penn State and the former offensive coordinator has move on to the NFL's Las Vegas Raiders.

As Tony Kornheiser would say on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, "Happy Trails."

***

Jimmy Butler, by all accounts, wanted to end up in Phoenix.

He didn't.

Kevin Durant didn't want to go to Golden State.

He didn't.

Bottom line: Butler got the two-year extension he wanted at Golden State, which was the one he wanted to get in Phoenix.

Kevin Durant, meanwhile, is on a team with two other superstars but the team - the Suns - sucks. They're a team with a dynamic trio as good as anybody else's "BigThree." even the Lakers.

What's wrong with the Suns? All that talent. Why aren't they winning? Maybe it's the third coach in three years.

No, definitely, it is.

***

If you think Chicago sports is hurting (Cubs, Sox, Blackhawks, Bulls, Bears), you should move to Phoenix (Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Suns, Coyotes ... no, wait, they moved to Salt Lake without a whisper and no one cared enough to build them a new stadium; nobody wanted to keep them around). 

If you split your time betwen Chicago and Phoenix, like so many snowbirds (like me) do, it's difficult to find a winner to get behind (OK, Arizona State football, for now, that is).

Yet, hope springs eternal. "Pitchers and catchers report."

Oh boy.

***

Put Eli Manning in the Hall of Fame, please. He deserved first-ballot approval. He'll get in eventually. Just not this time.

Just ask Tom Brady about him.

***

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Grinnellville 11.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.

  

Josh Allen, Bears' Offensive Coordinators, Lots In Common (And A Stampede in India)

The Schloss-Blog has noticed that Josh Allen and Bears Offensive Coordinators have some things in common, and they're not pretty.

***

More on Allen and the Bears in a moment, meanwhile, in India, there was a disastrous mob stampede at a religious ceremony that took at least 30 lives and injured many more people.

Yes, a rush of people attending the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in northern India wound up killing that many people and injuring so many more. This festival often involves as many as 100 million, so perhaps it's a minor miracle that only 30 were killed.

But it immediately stirred memories of the killed and injured at a Who concert in Cincinnati, a football game in Madison, Wisconsin, and a soccer game in Britain that also get people to act irrationally and endanger themselves and others unnecesssarily.

The crush to get into a general-admission, open-seating Who concert in Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum killed 11 people in 1979 as people rushed for upfront seats.

Also, no one was killed but 79 were injured, 6 critically, following a postgame rush to the field at a University of Wisconsin football game in 1993, when the Badgers upset Michigan. Fans were crsushed against fences at the field level designed to keep them out.

And the Hillsborough Stadium disaster in 1989 killed 97 and hospitalized 162 at a British soccer game, when fans wanting to get in, without tickets, rushed the gates and overwhelmed security.

Emotions, at a soccer game, a concert, a football upset win and a religious ceremony, get the best of us and cause us to do things that put others and ourselves at risk.

Why?

***

It's called DeepSeek.

And it has U.S. markets and investors turned inside out. Tech stocks slipped 9.2% last Monday when news that the Chinese-born AI application was a less-expensive alternative to all the fancy U.S.-based  applications that were humming along so handsomely.

Oh, but the markets are so fickle. All China has to do is sneeze and stocks suffer a near-wipeout daily tumble.

They all came back in part during the week.

But wait, China is developing it's next great, displacing app - a snack that can read your astrological forecast.

It's called - a fortune cookie.

***

Trump's "inflation" tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China are here.

Hold onto your wallets.

As if that's not bad enough for the abnormal president, he's blaming DEI and Democrats for the disastrous plane-helicopter crash in D.C.

Subsequently, the Eagles and Chiefs have already turned down invitations to the White House. The NFL says it will send Aaron Rodgers instead. Just Aaron Rodgers, not the Jets.

***

OK, back to the news we started with - what do Josh Allen and Bears offensive coordinators have in common?

Four, that's what.

Allen is 0-4 against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the playoffs. The Bears, meanwhile, had four offensive coordinators through the rookie year of  quarterback Caleb Williams through this past season.

Five if you count the hiring of Declan Doyle for new head coach Ben Johnson. But kinda' think he's gonna' design and call all the offensive plays anyway.

Now then, about the offensive line, Ben...

***

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, John Calipari (nice win at Kentucky).

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show (and get over to shop.radiofreephoenix.com and buy a T-shirt, mug or poster - guys, buy the black T-shirt with the white lettering and wear it out to a bar on a Friday night and I promise you that an interesting woman will start up a conversation with you).

 

OMG! Bannon, Musk and Hot Hosts on ESPN

The Schloss-Blog wants to know ... where does ESPN find all those hottie blonde anchors on Sports Center?

And most of them dress like they're going to or coming from a hot night out at New York's finest clubs. I mean, a lot of them don't dress appropirately for national TV news (Run away with me, Nicole Briscoe). Seriously, they almost look a little too "red carpet" (Kelsey Riggs, I love you). I mean, I think about changing the channel when one of them is anchoring (You and me, Shae Cornette, forever). 

Just kidding.

Or am I?

***

On a lighter note, the inauguration of the 47th president has to be moved indoors due to the extreme cold weather in D.C.

Shucks, that cancels any chance of a record-breaking crowd, but you know '47' will say it was anyway.

***

OK, OK, Elle Duncan - I know you're not blonde but you make my "hot Sports Center anchors" list anyway, OK. 

And don't call again to complain.

***

Have heard - Steve Bannon is out to stop Elon Musk, who he calls "truly evil."

Really, never though I'd see the day Bannon would start tossing around generous compoliments like that.

***

Been watching TGL - The Golf League? It's the Tiger Woods/Rory McIlroy-inspired indoor game of teams playing on a high-tech wonder of a wild golf course in a studio arena transformed into the most insane simulated golf course ever.

So far ... meh.

While the technology is incredibly impressive and the players among the world's best, I'll be more into it when Tiger and Rory make it available to the masses at an affordable "greens fee."

That means the masses, as in 'me.' Hey Tiger, Rory, get some of those built around the country. Please.

I would love, during winter in Chicagoland, to go to Tigerland (OK, Rory/Tigerland) and hit a few balls, play a 'round of golf' and have a few cold ones with my buds.

Of course, it doesn't have a hottie cart girl driving around with snacks and cold ones, it doesn't have real water traps (although it does have sand, real sand) and it doesn't have other bad golfers like yourself hitting into you, no, literally, into you.

But really, the only thing missing is ... Elle Duncan.

***

Inflation isn't the only thing down in Phoenix lately (1.6% the last 12 months). Check out the murder rate, down 28% in 2024, year over year.

Donald Trump had us believe crime is rampant in America, but the only thing rampant is his wild tendency to lie obsessively.

***

America's soon-to-be Secretary of Death, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tried to have vaccinations halted for COVID during 2021, when we needed it most.

He's going to try to kill us America, or die trying.

***

I always get stoppers for my drinks at Starbucks, to keep them from splashing inadvertently. 

Ask for stoppers at a Starbucks in New York though and guess what? They ain't got none.

It's a New York thing, my wife tells me.

So is a $9-and-up 'congestion' fee for driving your car into Manhattan south of 60th Street. For New Yorkers, if they have to or want to come into the city, they'll pay the various fees and not even blink, even if it costs them as much as $2,000 a year.

A New York thing? It's called money.

***

Notre Dame versus Ohio State on Monday night.

I despise both.

But Ohio State will win, and for my Cleveland-native wife, they better.

***

Speed limit in Chicago is going to be reduced from 30 to 25 on city streets.

They must have heard I was back in town this week.

However, the move got blocked in the Ciy Council for the time being.

I'll take as many MPH as I can get.

***

Yes, the Sports Center anchors are professionals, broadcasdt predigrees with poise, sophistication and fluidity on air.

Who often dress like it's girls night out at the NY clubs, or maybe a bachelor-ette night out. I'm sorry, but they do.

***

Good night Mrs. Calabash. Heres' to you, Jordan Grinnell.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.

Fact-Checkless and Loving It: The Impact of the Mercator Effect On Ohio State's Win Over Texas (jk)

The Schloss-Blog is noticing, angrily, that Facebook is going Fact Checkless - just what we need; another social media app with no gatekeepers and a lot of crap. Thanks, Zuck. In addition...

***

...Jean Marie Le Pen is dead, the right-wing politician in France who rose to a high profile in good part through antisemitic comments and other conspiratorial lying.

He was deemed a fascist and a racist by a great number of people in France, many of whom took to the streets in celebration upon his death. A far-leftwinger in France called him "an enemy of the republic." 

His daughter attempted to soften the image of the party Jean Marie established to try to help it regain some political prominence.

Jean Marie Le Pen was 96.

***

So far, no one from Mark Zuckerberg's office has attempted to take this down since I posted it on 
Faceless, but we'll see what happens.

It's up on LinkedIn too.

***

Ever hear of the Mercator Effect?

It's the process by which, on a globe or map, things further from the Equator appear to be much bigger than they are because of the way such a projection appears on the surface.

Thus, Greenland, our far northeast neighbor which Trump wants to buy (with U.S. funds which we don't have) appears to be much bigger than it actually is, as does Antarctica, for that matter. (Trump is determined to push our national debt up over $50 trillion or so.)

Anyway, the United States' esisting military base on Greenland would seem to counter why Trump wants to buy it (for security reasons, whaa..?). 

And so, Greenland, which Trump wants to make the 52nd state (after Canada at 51), would become our frozen wasteland to the north - but it is melting and has lost a good deal of its land mass. Greenland looks twice the size of the United States but is actually about half the size of the U.S. and it's melting fast.

Trump wants to build a hotel there. Go ahead, loser, go ahead.

Canadians, by the way, told BuzzFeed they have no interest in becoming the 51st state.

Trump says he'll invade our neighbor to the north and Elon Musk will apparently lead the armed forces into battle.

The Maple Syrup War - can't wait

***

If you watched, as I did, the CFP semifinal games this week between Penn State and Notre Dame and then Ohio State and Texas, you saw some pretty good football and some questionable officiating.

In particular, in Ohio State's win over Texas, as the Longhorns drove toward a prospective game-tying touchdown, they got a key gain on a pass to their tight end, which would've left them just outside the Red Zone.

But a taunting violation (it wasn't) was called an Unsportsmanlike Penalty, which, after the play, moved Texas back 15.

It was key because the next play, as some have pointed out, a completion to star wide receiver Matthew Golden, would've been a touchdown. Instead, it put Texas in the Red Zone and you know the rest - scoop and score for a game-clinching Ohio State touchdown.

Not saying Texas would've won, but the game should've been tied at that point and then ... who knows?

To their credit, on ESPN2, Pat McAfee, Booger McFarland and Tim Tebow all noted, in no uncertain terms, that the flag was uncalled for and inappropriate.

On the main broadcast, with Chris Fowler and Buckeye alum Kirk Herbstreit, didn't hear a word to that effect.

That wasn't heard on SportsCenter later either, with Scott Van Pelt and expert Dusty Dvoracek, who I really like and respect for his careful, precise analyses.

ESPN, you should be ashamed.

***

Speaking of the Penn State-Notre Dame game, Nittany Lions quarterback Drew Allar took a beating on social media for the interception that allowed for Notre Dame's game-winning field goal.

What was he thinking? He said later he "just didn't execute."

Oh yes he did, his own execution, on social media.

***

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Keith Corbin, great to reconnect.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.

Kids, Bowl Games, Gas Prices, Curses and Can Anybody Tackle Anymore?

The Schloss-Blog is noticing trends and they're making us  ... upset, disappointed, angry? Yes, yes and yes. 

***

Florida, where no one has awoken in years, has banned kids 14 and under from using social media and is requiring parental permission for kids 14 and 15 to use it. Do they really think this is going to work?

In a related story, parents are going to need kids' permission to go to DisneyWorld in Orlando. In addition, parents without such permission can only be "awokened" by the kiss of a frog.

Yes, for Christmas, Florida has been "DeSantis-claused."

***

Hey, sports fans, I'm sure you noticed that all four teams with a bye in the College Football Playoff are out.

Out.

All four started slowly, had terrible first-half performances and are now proving to the "committee" that did the seeding that the committee got it all wrong.

Ohio State-Notre Dame championship game? Yeah, sounds good.

***

Uh, gas prices are low right now, really low.

Like under $3 a gallon, national average.

Did Donald Trump do this? No, the Biden Administration did this. But Trump will take credit. 

They've been dropping for a while though, so how come Harris never talked about it during the campaign, as part of what is and has been a robust economy for quite some time?

Never!

I've said all through 2024; Democrats' messaging was awful.

***

Speaking of college bowl games, they've sucked, except for ASU-Texas, and even that had a targeting infraction that the refs did not call.

And that's because Texas is needed going forward for TV ratings, while ASU is not. That means it just might have been fixed.

Meanwhile, the not-CFP bowl games have sucked. Too many good players opting out for NFL draft prep or having already transferred because the transfer portal is open on Dec. 9 (closed Dec. 28) and the their bowl games aren't played until mid-to-late December or early Janaury.

That sucks. 

Hey college football, time to move the transfer portal to a later time slot, a lot later. Except that would overlap with actual school semester times. Hmmm...

***

So it seems the CFP bye teams all fell to the curse of the bye - they all lost.

Just like pro teams did in the early days of Monday Night Football, with one less day to prepare for their next games. The curse of MNF, and it's been revived by a spate of injuries in MNF games of late.

***

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that defensive players can't tackle anymore? Because they can't.

I once had a very smart high school football coach tell me before a big playoff game against a team with an all-state running back that the best way, the only way to stop him was for his defensive players  to tackle with their heads up.

"If you can't see it, you can't hit it," he told his defensive players before winning that game on the way to a state runner-up finish.

That was 46 years ago. And he was right.

Don't get carried away though ... I keep seeing defensive players falling for hard snap counts and jumping offside unnecessarily. 

And then missing tackles.

It ain't just me.

***

I said this during the week:

**SEC teams overrated;

**SEC coaching overrated;

**Georgia sucks.

**So does Alabama.

Enjoy the Notre Dame-Ohio State CFP Championship Game.

***

The Knicks. My Knicks. Go Knicks. And Stevenson High's Jalen Brunson.

***

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Jack Stroupe, my late father-in-law. You lived a long and vibrant life.

More Sunday Night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.

Net Flick This, At the Gaetz of Hell

The Schloss-Blog has noticed something about what's trending in sportscasting and it means he might get mad about having to buy all kinds of different streaming services. And "Brain Rot" is the word of year, per Oxford University Press. Really? Meanwhile, we drop in again on our occasional look at the differences between men and women, and take a look at the traffic at the Gaetz of Hell...

***

Matt Gaetz not only took himself out of considerataion for Attorney General, another disaster nomination by Donald Frump, Gaetz wound up having that report he so dreaded released about his activities around sex with minors, drugs, prospective sex-trafficking, et. al.

Sex with a 17-year-old girl, use of Illicit drugs, paying for sex; Gaetz has denied everything, but so did Donld Frump when the Select Committee issued its report on his activities regarding his attempts to overturn the election in 2020.

Unfortunately, Attorney General Merrick Garland didn't believe it either and failed to investigate and prosecute immediately upon taking office or Frump would've been convicted and maybe jailed long before the 2024 election.

Garland sealed his legacy as the worst Atorney General ever with that failure because he became subsequently responsible for Frump having the opportunity to get elected again. Now, the Department of Justice he once headed will likely investigate and prosecute him for investigating and prosecuting Frump as part of the revenge tour that Frump has promised in his return to office.

Oh boy, can't wait for Trump's next turn in office - lots of revenge prosecutions, tariffs, taxes and inflation.

***

Meanwhile, with sports trending toward being broadcast live more and more on streaming services, I'm about to become the dinosaur who still subscribes to cable.

Or am I?

My cable services are offering streaming service opportunity tie-ins to my packages for about $10 or so per month, per service, or so I've noticed.

This past week, on Christmas Day, two NFL games were broadcast exclusively on Netflix, which, along with the prior Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson boxing match, is trending toward live sports.

Although I woudn't call Jake Paul versus 58-year-old Mike Tyson "live" sports worth watching, somehow, 65 million Netflix subscribers tuned in.

Sixty-five million!

And that Christmas Day NFL doubleheader drew an average of more than 24 million viewers each for two dogfood games that turned out to be not that competitive.

But, with a playoff game slated for amazon prime this year, after last year's on Peacock, the trend is already there,

Amazon Prime is reportedly paying $120 million for this year's Wild Card game rights while Peacock reportedly paid more than $100 million for the privilege last year. Peacock also reportedly gained 2.8 million new subscribers for that Miami-Kansas City game in the frozen Midwest wasteland, while 23 million of their existing subscribers watched that game.

The NFL, yes, is that compelling, apparently.

And shows no signs of weakening.

OK Peacock, Hulu, Netflix, here I come.

***

In this column's ongoing examination of the differences between men and women, we bring you this year-end edition:

**When a man has hair down to his neckline, to his shoulders it's considered long hair.

When a woman, however, has hair down to her neckline, to her shoulders, it's considered ... her hair.

(Yes, I've been letting my hair grow - my grandson, my daughter and most importantly, my wife, all like it, especially as long as I pull it back in a ponytail.)

**Anyway, as this column has noted before, men wear jeans.

Women, however, wear jeans that fit, that really hug their buns.

Which is why I've been wearing comfortable jeans from The Perfect Jeans for a while now (snug and comfortably stretchy), but I recently purchased a pair of Lucky Brand jeans that really fit well - it's a freakin' miracle, from Nordstrom in their semi-annual sale.

**Rolling right along, men like to drive and sing to the tunes on the car radio, whether it's Sirius/XM or just plain old FM, be it classic rock or even hip hop.

Women, however, know the words.

**Similarly, men like to dance (just turn me loose at a wedding, bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah).

Women, however, know how to dance. Just watch 'em on the dance floor at a formal event. It's kind of obvious.

**Finally, men say they're dieting, trying to stay healthy or be trendy and lose weight.

Women, however, make diets work and look good a few months or even just weeks into them.

(Yes, I'm on one - you wanna' make something of it?).

***

Noticed at some NFL games fans sticking around at the amazon prime or ESPN psotgame shows and chanting "Sell the team" after a pathetic performance by the home team (hello, Chicago Bears). 

Know what happens to owners, GMs or coaches who listen to the fans? Yeah, they end up sitting with them.

Well, not the owners.

***

Joe Burrow was down on this TD pass - I don't call what the expert analysts say, or the NFL. It should have been called a sack.

You agree? 

Didn't matter: they won that game and Saturday night against Denver, just the way the NFL wanted them to, in order to keep more suspense in more games next weekend.

***

BRAIN ROT is the word (words?) of the year, per Oxford University Press. What? You agree? Got your own idea?

***

My New Year's resolution is the same one I always make but never keep: return Christie Brinkley's phone calls already.

***

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Jordan Grinnell.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show. And tune in to radiofeephoenix.com on Tuesday, New Year's Eve, at 10 p.m. Arizona time (midnight Eastern) for a rebroadcast of a great concert by Valley legend Jerry Riopelle. Join in anytime - it's a 3-hour show.