Virtual Memories

Yesterday was the anniversary of the shooting death of Jam Master Jay. And there I was, wondering why I heard My Adidas on three different stations during the day.

I’m back from Utah. I called Ian and Jess out in San Diego, and they’re not in any danger from the fires. And the NBA season has started, so my life can now stop for a few months.

One thing, though: For some reason, many (but not all) home teams are now wearing their dark uniforms, rather than their whites. Most of you readers likely aren’t big sports fans, but this is a subtly disturbing phenomenon. See, normally, you know which team is playing at home when you glance at the screen and see the white uniforms. So it’s kinda odd when the team in dark unis hits a basket, and the crowd cheers.

It’s nothing I’d lodge a protest over (as opposed to the truly freakish, Hefty-bag-esque uniforms the Dallas Mavericks unveiled for their first game).

Went out last night to a hospitality event thrown by one of our advertisers. We went to the Olympic Oval, a training facility for the 2002 skaters. We went curling and shooting hockey pucks. Pictures to come, unfortunately.

Many thanks to Ian for turning me on to Gorillaz and Thievery Corporation! I have discovered many new beats during this trip! Let’s all hope that Ian and his True Love, who live in San Diego, remain safe from the fires.

The iPod holds up! A rambling hike yields some great photos! Salt Lake City on a Sunday is like 28 Days Later, but without the zombies!

The Gil Roth “King of the Road” Tour continues, as I head out to Salt Lake City for the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) annual meeting. Last week was Phoenix and San Diego, combining business & pleasure. After Utah, I’m back for 10 days before heading off to Atlanta for 3 days for the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) annual meeting. Then I’m back for another 10 days before taking The Big Vacation. All told, 2003 will involve 25 takeoffs & landings. As long as none of them match my Takeoff of Horror last Wednesday from Newark, I’ll be a happy man.

Which is to say, as long as I have the iPod, I should be okay.

According to my webstats, at 4:45am this morning, someone came to this blog by Googling the following:

Red Sox fan commits suicide

Over at Slate, Jack Shafer and Mickey Kaus both have pretty good takes on the debacle of Easterbrook’s strange Kill Bill blog. Kaus also links to about 10 million other blogs that discuss (or mindlessly rant about) Easterbrook’s entry and subsequent apology.

Funnily enough, Shafer actually had the exact same reaction I did when he read the column last Monday. He writes:

The moral posturing and witless embrace of loathsome cultural stereotypes found in these 84 words seemed so un-Easterbrook that I hoped that someone would e-mail me the news that somebody had hacked Gregg’s blog and inserted this bogus copy.

I’m glad that people who are close to Easterbrook have defended him as a person, even as they’ve criticized his work in this instance. It’s much better than reading, “Y’know, he told me he was collecting that Nazi memorabilia for a special project, but I never thought…”

Anyway, it seems that this rant of his got out of hand, such was his indignation at Tarantino’s film (which I’m now dying to see, admittedly). It’s not like he’d be the first blogger to misstep; it’s more a sign of his gravitas that such comments were taken so seriously (though I still contend they’re more muddled than anti-semitic). Anyone who’s read this blog in the past 8 months knows that essay-like entries can really go off the rails sometimes.

One other disturbing thing: It completely slipped my mind when I was writing the first entry, but ESPN (where TMQ was published each week) is actually owned by Disney. See, I thought TMQ’s quick hook was a post-Limbaugh response by ESPN. But now, it raises a more sinister question: Did a high-up at Disney (Eisner or Weinstein, perhaps) call for Easterbrook’s firing? Media consolidation sucks.

I hope that Tuesday Morning Quarterback resurfaces somewhere like Slate (where the column originated).

Or at Virtual Memories! Why, I’m pretty unconsolidated, by Big Media terms (well, I do run a publishing company by night, edit a pharmaceutical magazine by day, and watch NFL Direct Ticket on Sundays)!

So let it be known that I am now offering Gregg Easterbrook a place to post his Tuesday Morning Quarterback columns. I can’t promise that my server won’t collapse under the weight of the new traffic, but I can offer an absoluete minimum of editorial interference (after all, I am used to running a trade magazine)!