Rush, rush
Penelope, Penelope
Wouldn't wanna be you
Wouldn't wanna be me
I take that back. There is now a face to at least one of the three or four of you. And it is Carole Terry. She teaches young adults with developmental disabilities at the Hammond Area Career Center. I've visited Carole's classes before, once attending a lunch with her students. We had a lotta fun. It seems that a lotta people with developmental disabilities, if you play the right music, love to dance. So we danced.
Carole made - or had one of her students make - a button that says: "I am one of the three or four of you." She came up to me at the crowded Civic Center smiling.
"Look. Look at the button I made for you."
And I looked at it and read it and then looked at it and read it again... and then laughed like hell.
"You mean there really is a three or four of you?"
On Sunday, Alexis and I went to Chicago and spent the night at the Kinzie Hotel for $119 per night. We ate dinner at Joe's Cold Stone Crab, splitting an entree, and on Monday morning went on an 8-mile walk around Michigan Avenue and Navy Pier. I walked it in dress shoes, so my feet still ache. In front of the WGN studios, I wrote this poem.
Radio, radio
Higher calling
Why does it sound, then,
Like you're always balling?
The light must have been just right, for some of the pictures are stunning. I spent a good two hours uploading them to my smugmug photos site, which you can access by hitting "photos" on the front page of JED.tv. Even Navy Pier looked cool in winter light. We ate lunch like tourists at Bubba Gump's and on the way back to the car I took more pictures. There's about 20 new high-rises that someone built since I left working in the city in 2004. And they're all freaking awesome.
Split, split
purple tile
Rub my back, plz,
for a little while.
Monday was supposed to be my day off, but you know how that goes. When we got back from the city, I took nephew Al to Crown Point for his baseball practice with Bobby Morris. On the way back, I stopped at the 62nd Sportsmanship Dinner. Now I know what you're thinking - how could I show up at a dinner that I've criticized on the air? But by asking that question, you're missing the point, which is this - I care a whole lot about Indiana high school basketball.
The Sportsmanship Dinner started in 1954 after unruly fans rumbled outside the Civic Center following a sectional basketball game. An old-time businessmen named Mike Nau and some others said - "Screw that. This is not gonna happen on our watch." So they organized a dinner for all the kids playing in the sectionals and that dinner is still going on today, with like 900 people coming to it now.
The problem is, the Sportsmanship Committee lost its way. Last year, after Griffith and Hammond basketball teams got in their own brand of a rumble - during a game - the Sportsmanship Committee did not invite them to the dinner. I thought that was wrong. Mike Nau would have thought that was wrong. I've said so on the air. That led to more than just a few cold shoulders at the dinner.
But that's not the point. IHSAA commissioner Bobby Cox was scheduled to attend the Sportsmanship Dinner. So I waited with Steve Hanlon of the Times and Mike Hutton of the Post-Tribune near the front door so Cox couldn't meander away from us... and avoid answering why a year later he's still hounding Griffith and Hammond in court. Listen to the podcast of the interview that Hanlon and Hutton and I did with Mr. Cox. You can find it by clicking "podcasts" on the front page of JED.tv.
Basketball, basketball
high, high
I have to admit, it's
why, why
I also interviewed Butler head basketball coach Chris Holtmann. We talked about Ty Wideman, who went to Lake Central and now plays at Butler. This was a good interview, but if you click "podcasts" on the front page of JED.tv, you'll notice that I didn't know Chris's first name. Or last name for that matter. Butler used to have Brad Stevens. I interviewed him before and remembered his name that time after a Valpo U game. As a matter of fact, Stevens laid into me after I asked a question about how his big men could be so outplayed by smaller VU forwards. That was a little embarrassing only in that my wife came with me. She thought Brad Stevens was making me look bad, when if you ask me, it was the other way around.
Anyways, Butler had Brad Stevens. And then Brandon Miller. And now Holtmann. Hard to keep up.
Indy, Indy
Chicago, Chicago
If you wanna visit either,
Trivago, Trivago
Are the three or four of you still with me? I've committed to telling you what My American, Radio Life is like, and you and Carole have committed to taking it in, so sometimes we're just gonna get bogged down in the details of driving around the Region looking for cool stuff to talk about on the radio. And I found just that on the way home from the Sportsmanship Dinner.
At the suggestion of my producer, Ryan Walsh, I stopped at the Munster Town Council meeting. And am I glad for that. I'm not gonna lay it out too thoroughly - you'll have to watch the video - except to say that one day someone's gonna make a movie or write a book about Amy Sandler, the reluctant warrioress. Her wife died and now she's raising two kids alone in a town that at first wouldn't accept her. At Monday night's council meeting, she found acceptance. I hope that's enough of a tease to get you to click on "Youtube" on the front page of JED.tv to watch the video I did on this "historic event."
Lesbians, lesbians
unwind, unwind
Whatever you do,
be kind, be kind
So let's see... photos of 219 Day... photos of downtown Chicago... interviews with Bobby Cox and Chris Holtmann... a six-minute video about Amy Sandler's victory.. and photos and notes and podcasts from my normal radio show. It's a lot, even by My American, Radio Life standards.
But none of this, in my mind, will be the most lasting thing that I created in the past few days. That honor belongs to JEDgolfvinyl.
As you and Carole know, I play JEDgolf. I also love to play vinyl on the radio. So web designer Jean Keslin and I have been working to put the two together - JEDgolf and vinyl - into a continuous video stream on the front page of, you guessed it, JED.tv. That's what I've been working on the most, and it's my roundabout excuse for why I haven't blogged in nearly a week. That's not acceptable, I know that.
But please, if you can find the time, click on "JEDgolfvinyl" on the front page of JED.tv and see if you like it. I JEDgolfed in a blizzard today. That should suffice as a tease.
Oh, I almost forgot, Alexis and I also went to see a play on Sunday called "Another Word for Beauty." It was about a beauty pageant held in a Columbian prison. Lots of hot Latinas dancing around and singing... but also some horrific stories of rape and incest and drug abuse and prostitution. The play - or is it a musical - held my interest. Time to go to bed. Good night, Carole. Good night the rest of you.