(1/1/11) This is not a “Best of” or “Worst of” list, just a review of entertainment I consumed in 2010 and my feelings surrounding them.  Part I includes sporting events, movies, TV and online entertainment, and follows below.  Part 2, when completed, will list many, many concerts and also some other random stuff.  Thank you for reading.  I hope you enjoy and feel free to post comments/questions.  So here we go:

Sporting events:   I have stubs from four White Sox games, though I feel like I went to at least one more.  Overall it was an off year for me going to White Sox games, which I usually attend 10-15 in an average season.  Also in an average season, I tend to see at least half of those games in April and May, but in 2010, the Sox got off to an awful start, and I never got into the groove of regularly attending games.

I attended one Cubs game in May for my friend’s bachelor party.  This was the first time I had been to Wrigley since the game when Jeff Gordon bungled “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and got booed by the upset Cubs crowd (I was booing him as a NASCAR fan).

I attended both NASCAR Sprint Cup Races at Michigan International Speedway.  The August race was the best stock car race I had ever seen at MIS since I started seeing NASCAR races there in 2005.  As a Dale Earnhardt Sr. fan, I am always happy to see Kevin Harvick win in the Intimidator’s old car.  

I skipped the Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway this year, but saw all the rest of the races.  The NASCAR Nationwide Series race in July was the best overall stock car race at Chicagoland I have seen there.  Kyle Busch, one of my favorite drivers, took the lead on the last lap on the front stretch just as several cars just behind him all started crashing.  My seat was in the 8th row, so I got a great view of the pass and crash.

The August NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race was another Kyle Busch show, which was fine by me.  It was also thrilling to see Tony Jackson Jr., who I saw race dirt Modifieds and Late Models at Lebanon (MO) I-44 Speedway when I lived in the Ozarks, race in NASCAR’s Minor League.  The ARCA race was boring, sorry.  I don’t even remember who won.

The IndyCar Series raced for perhaps the last time at Chicagoland Speedway for reasons I need not rehash here and are readily accessible with a Google search.  The race was poorly promoted, so that on top of the already present public disinterest in the IRL lead to a sparsely attended race, with not even 20K fans filling 80,000 available seats.  The 2010 Chicagoland Indy 300 had plenty of thrilling moments, though was not quite as thrilling as 2008’s race which featured countless edge-of-your-seat moments up to and including Helio Castroneves, Ryan Briscoe and Dan Wheldon racing 3-wide for the lead for three straight laps.  I am sad that International Speedway Corp. and the Indy Racing League could not reach an agreement for 2011 for Chicagoland and other ISC Speedways, but there is always hope for the future.

In addition to these major series auto races, I also attended a few races at area short tracks, including the 3rd Annual World of Outlaws Late Models Illini 100 at the Farmer City.  I also saw racing at the Kankakee (IL) County Speedway and the Plymouth (IN) Speedway.

I also attended a few misc sporting events, including a Windy City Rollers roller derby at a packed UIC Pavillion last January and a Windy City Professional Wrestling match that totally sucked and made me realize once and for all the watching any sort of pro wrestling is a stupid waste of time.

Movies: The only movie I saw at the cinema in 2010 that wasn’t a sequel was Clint Eastwood’s misunderstood and overlooked Hereafter.  It was also the best new movie I saw last year.  I also enjoyed Iron Man 2, Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Tron Legacy a lot more than many people did, and liked Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 more than I expected.  Predators was a missed opportunity and an utter disappointment.  I still want to see 127 Hours, True Grit, and The King’s Speech.

TV: I watched the final season of Lost and was disappointed by the resolutions offered in the finale, though I did enjoy the lead up to it.  I also enjoyed smatterings of new episodes of South Park, which is the best show on TV, and also the Simpsons and Family Guy.  I don’t really watch any other new shows.

Online Entertainment: www.redlettermedia.com has provided me endless hours of entertainment since I found out about Mr. Plinkett’s reviews at the end of 2009 with his 70-minute review of The Phantom Menace and his 90-minute thrashing of Attack of the Clones, which was uploaded early in 2010.  The nearly 2 hour review of Revenge of the Sith was uploaded yesterday I believe, and completed an epic series of YouTube nerd-rage movie reviews that, unlike Star Wars prequels themselves, are endlessly entertaining.

The big news in NASCAR Monday was that starting in 2011 the Chicagoland Speedway would host the first race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the 10 race “playoff” where the Top 12 drivers compete for the Championship.  This scheduling shift moves Chicagoland Speedway’s NASCAR race from the weekend after 4th of July to the third weekend of September, and puts the 400 mile race that had been held on Saturday night the last two years back on a Sunday afternoon.

I understand why NASCAR and Chicagoland Speedway made this move.  NASCAR wants to kick off their version of the playoffs in a major sports market, while the Chicagoland Speedway wants to inject some hype and interest into their NASCAR date for the track’s 10th anniversary, especially after seeing attendance fall off by about 20% the previous two years after consistently selling out the 75K seat facility since it opened in 2001.  I loved that they moved the race to Saturday night, however, the move has not translated into larger crowds, so the powers that be were compelled to make some changes.  

These changes, however, could be problematic and lead to even further drops in attendance, especially after the novelty of hosting the Chase opener wanes a few seasons down the road.  I’ve been reading complaints about this move from fans on Facebook and NASCAR beat reporters on Twitter.  Most represent legitimate concerns, especially regarding trying to sell race tickets to Chicago Bears fans (along with Packers, Colts, Lions, Vikings and Rams fans) and to garner local media attention during what will likely be Week 2 of the 2011 NFL Season.  Yes, this is a problem, but the fans/experts only have it party correct.   The biggest reason this is a problem is because a NASCAR/Bears fan like me might be willing to miss watching that week’s Bears game in order to attend a NASCAR Cup race, but I guarantee that I won’t be able to convince any of my friends to join me because they are casual race fans at best and would rather be watching the Bears game on TV at home or at sports bar rather than driving an hour to Joliet and shelling out $100 for a ticket.  Throw in the possibility that one or more of Chicago’s MLB teams may be in a pennant race next season, and this NASCAR event might not even register a blip on the collective Chicago sports media radar.

Also, let’s admit it, The Chase races are boring! Other than seeing who survives the random melee of Talladega or rooting for Jimmie Johnson’s wheels to fall off at Homestead, there’s not much to get excited about with the current Chase format. The Chase produces dull races where the Chasers are driving defensively for Top 5’s/10’s finishes while trying to avoid trouble rather than driving aggressively for wins, all while non-Chasers are literally yielding to the “playoff” drivers rather than fighting for track position, (though Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch have made things interesting in years where they played spoiler after missing the Chase).  I attended the 2007 Kansas Speedway NASCAR Cup race, which was the third race of the Chase, and there was no heightened sense of excitement.  Some Chasers had good days, others not so good.  Well, that’s racing!  The fact that it was part of the Chase did not bring any heightened sense of urgency to the race.  

The addition of Chicagoland also does not address the lack of diversity in tracks that make up the 10 race playoff schedule.  By moving Chicagoland’s NASCAR date to September (and mercifully eliminating one of the California Speedway’s dates), we now have 1.5 mile ovals making up half of the 10 race Chase schedule.  This won’t silence the critics who complain the Chase consists of too many “cookie cutter” tracks already, especially considering Chicagoland and Kansas Speedways are virtually identical in design and layout.  Yes, Chicagoland Speedway is a great facility and is perfectly capable of producing some thrilling stock car racing.  I’ve seen it in the past with the ARCA races, while this year’s Nationwide race was a hard-fought “checkers or wreckers” affair.  That being said, I doubt we’ll see anything like that in the first race of the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup, that is, unless NASCAR decides to radically alter their method for awarding points to Chase contenders.

The worst part about this deal is that Chicagoland Speedway already worked to correct this problem with their IndyCar Series weekend, which up until 2009 always fell on the opening Sunday of the NFL season.  In 2009, the IRL altered their schedule to allow Chicagoland Speedway to hold the race two weeks earlier and at night, and that resulted in a larger crowd for last year’s open-wheel spectacular.  IndyCar is not nearly the draw that NASCAR is, but it was still an issue.  So now after solving this problem with IndyCar, Chicagoland Speedway is inviting the exact same problem with NASCAR by potentially putting their race up against Da Bears.

While it is all fresh in my mind, I might as well get out my thoughts on Lollapalooza 2010.  I approached it with reservations following a generally unpleasant experience at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival which was caused by many factors, some which were completely out of the Pitchfork organizers’ control (oppressive heat) and some which which were clearly their faults (crowd control, congestion, lack of access to free water, long lines at beer and beverage tents, crap sound and a line-up that for the most part did nothing for me apart from great sets by Freddie Gibbs, LCD Soundsystem and Lightning Bolt).  Instead, I found Lollapalooza to be a fun & pleasant experience, thanks largely to decent weather, a mostly solid line-up & the expanded festival layout which allowed festival goers to walk north and south along a closed off Columbus Drive, easing the bottleneck of foot traffic around Buckingham Fountain that plagued previous years’ fests.

I’ll leave the detailed critiques to the rock music bloggers and just tell you who I saw and which amongst them were the best.  I’ll also confess the mistakes I made in choosing one act over another in a few cases.  Enjoy, and comment if you want.  If you want to see the fuzzy photos I took with my cell phone, there are links on my Twitter feed:  www.twitter.com/drewmcnaughton.  

So of the 130 or so bands playing at Lollapalooza, here’s who I actually saw perform full sets:  Friday — Mavis Staples, The New Pornographers and Dirty Projectors; Saturday — JP, Chrissie & The Fairground Boys and Cut Copy; and Sunday — Switchfoot, Erykah Badu, The Temper Trap and Arcade Fire.

 I also saw these acts perform for the durations specified: Friday — Los Amigos Invisbles (30 min.), Drive-By Truckers (20 min.), The Black Keys (20 min.), Hot Chip (10 min.), Chromeo (I heard most of their set, however I was sitting with friends who had staked out their spot for Lady Gaga), Lady Gaga (20 min.), 2ManyDJs (20 min.) and The Strokes (10 min.); Saturday — Gogol Bordello (15 min.), Social Distortion (30 min.), Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (30 min.), Phoenix (5 min.), Empire of the Sun (15 min.) and Green Day (25 min.); and Sunday — Nneka (40 min.; basically only missed first song); Mumford & Sons (40 min.), Hockey (40 min.) and X Japan (20 min.).

Of those artists, Mavis Staples, Nneka, The Temper Trap and Arcade Fire were the best of the fest, while Erykah Badu, Mumford & Sons, Cut Copy, Hockey, Dirty Projectors and The New Pornographers all put on memorable sets.  I also enjoyed Drive-By Truckers; Chromeo; Gogol Bordello; Social Distortion; JP, Chrissie & The Fairground Boys; and Switchfoot.  The only band I saw that I thought absolutely sucked was Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros mostly because they seemed to be sleepwalking through their set despite the fact that they were playing in front of a enthusiastic crowd that packed the side stage.

My two biggest mistakes of the fest were missing Jimmy Cliff and The Cribs.  The Cribs will be back, though.  I’m not sure about Jimmy Cliff.  Oh, and in case you were wondering about my plan to see Devo, I wound up going to their pre-Lollapalooza show on Thursday night.  They were terrific, though openers Dirty Projectors struggled to overcome the lousy acoustics of the Congress Theater.  I am glad I had a chance to see The New Pornographers instead of Devo Friday at Lollapalooza, and I am also glad I got to see the Dirty Projectors play a much more spirited set of largely the same material that same day.

So that’s my rambling Lollapalooza 2010 recap.  Simply put, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, so I wouldn’t rule out returning for at least one day next year.  

I saw full sets by Mavis Staples, The New Pornographers and Dirty Projectors, all of which were phenomenal.  I also caught parts (ranging from 5 to 30 min.) of sets by Los Amigos Invisibles, Drive-By Truckers, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Peanut Butter Wolf, The Black Keys, Hot Chip, Chromeo, Lady Gaga, 2ManyDJs and The Strokes. Highlights included “I’ll Take You There” with Mavis Staples, “Crash Here” with The New Pornographers and pretty much the entire set by Dirty Projectors, who essentially played the same set I saw last night at the Congress but this was 100x better.  Nothing else blew me away, however, it was a thoroughly enjoyable time due largely to pristine weather and a reconfigured festival spread that allowed for a freer flow of foot traffic between the north and south ends of the fest.  Also, the Lollapalooza staff were manning water stations that literally blasted cool tap water into your empty bottle.  Lines moved fast and nobody went thirsty.  

I present to you my personal plan for Lollapalooza 2010, which I am attending this  Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  I’ve divided each day into these categories:  ”Can’t miss”, “Of interest” (these are acts I will likely catch), “Regrets” (acts that I will not be able to see due to scheduling and/or geography), and “Avoid like the plague”.  I’ve tried to keep it (mostly) positive, so please don’t get upset if I don’t plan on seeing your favorite band.

Friday —

Can’t miss: Mavis Staples (2), Devo (4) and 2ManyDJs (8:30).

Of interest: B.o.B (11:30), Matt & Kim (5), Hot Chip (6), and Chromeo (7).

Regrets: Raphael Saadiq (2), The New Pornographers (4), Kidz in the Hall (4:15) and Jimmy Cliff (7:15).

Avoid like the plague:  None.

Notes:  Friday is the fest’s strongest day.  They could repeat the exact same line-up on Saturday and I’d go back to see an almost entirely different line-up.  As time travel is not an option yet, I will happily settle on Mavis Staples and Devo over Raphael Saadiq and The New Pornographers.  

***

Saturday —

Can’t miss:  Gogol Bordello (3:45) and Social Distortion (5:45).

Of interest:  Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (6:30), Cup Copy (7:30) and Empire of the Sun - Full Live Band (9).

Regrets:  None really, although if they weren’t playing opposite Gogol Bordello, I might have wanted to check out The xx (3:15) or Dawes (3:30).   

Avoiding like the plague: Blues Traveler (1:45).

Notes:  Saturday is the fest’s flimsiest day, although scheduled sets by Gogol Bordello and Social Distortion have kept me from deciding to skip it altogether, while my curiosity about Empire of the Sun will keep me from leaving after Soc D’s set, because I otherwise wouldn’t have stayed for either Phoenix or Green Day.  Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros will be a game time decision, as I will only be able to catch the latter half of their set.  I’ve also grown somewhat tired of their breakthrough single, “Home”, though from what I saw on YouTube they put on a good show, so I really don’t know.  They could be music’s next Arcade Fire, or the next Blues Traveler.  And speaking of which, who the hell listens to Blues Traveler anymore?  I never understood their appeal in the mid/late-90’s, let alone 2010!  They should be playing shows in the parking lot of Six Flags, not Lollapalooza.

***

Sunday —

Can’t miss:  Nneka (12:15), Erykah Badu (5), The Temper Trap (6:30) and Arcade Fire (8:30).  

Of interest: Blitzen Trapper (2), Mumford & Sons (3) and Hockey (3:30).

Regrets: Wolfmother (6).

Avoid like the plague:  Frightened Rabbit (5).

Notes:  Of my Sunday “Can’t Miss” bands, I’d only consider myself a big fan of Arcade Fire.  I discovered Nneka simply because I was researching the line-up.  She’s incredible.  Check out her stuff on YouTube, and you won’t want to miss her set either.  With The Temper Trap, I’ve enjoyed hearing their “Sweet Disposition” on the radio all summer, and I think when they perform it at Lollapalooza, it will be one of those sublime festival moments, not unlike when The Fleet Foxes’ harmonious set at the 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival caused 17,000 hipsters to stand silently in awe.  Lastly, a word of warning:  Apparently Frightened Rabbit is a different band than White Rabbit.  White Rabbit tore it up at last year’s Pitchfork with their cut “Percussion Gun”; Frightened Rabbit is a band that excels in what I like to call “wuss rock”.

(4/16/10) I planted my garden this week, and now I’m hoping it doesn’t frost in again in Chicago.  The temp is gonna drop to around 40 tonight.  I have gambled approximately $20 worth of seeds plus a few hours of my time that it won’t frost, and if that is the case, I’ll be harvesting veggies starting in early May.  If the weather turns bad one more time, then I’ll have to go back and purchase some more seeds, but at least I’ll have already prepped the soil for planting.

I have already planted the following (“**” indicates a plant I have never attempted to grow before; all from seed unless otherwise noted): Romaine lettuce, collard greens, parsley**, basil**, asparagus** (from a root), Roma tomatoes**, sweet corn**, jalapeños (transplants), red onions**, yellow onions**, green onions, radishes, carrots, celery**, cucumbers, and pole beans (utilizing seeds gathered from last year’s plants).  

I started gardening two springs ago when I got tired of looking at the weeds in the garden bed in the backyard of the house I’m renting from my friend’s parents.  His grandmother used to grow flowers back there.  After digging up the weeds and the remnants of the flower bed, I figured I would take a stab at growing some vegetables.  There is no point to growing a plant that you can’t eat, so no flowers for me.  I had initial success with radishes, Romaine lettuce and green beans.  I also wound up with sizable crops of carrots and cucumbers.  The next year, I grew my own collard greens, green onions, and Chinese cabbage.  This year, I decided to try out several new vegetables that I hadn’t tried growing before, and I’m hoping I have luck with at least half of them.  I’ve had trouble getting my jalapeño plants to grow, so I decided to go with transplants this year.  I have also attempted to grow pumpkins, watermelon, broccoli, and spinach to varying degrees of success.  

Today I built my bunny proof fence using chicken wire, metal tubes, twist-ties, and wood steaks with which one could kill a vampire.  As a result of all of this hard work in the garden, my hands are chewed up and my arms and legs are sore, so in other words, I feel fantastic!  I needed to build the fence because I have a bunny problem.  My house is right across the street from an open field where all the bunnies live.  I hate them.  I tell anyone who will listen to speed up if they see a rabbit while driving on my street.  I have tried several different methods to deter the bunnies, including scattering human hair and red pepper flakes in my garden, but to no avail.  The bunnies primarily go for the Romaine lettuce and spinach, though over the course of the growing season last year, they also developed a taste for collard greens.  They pretty much ate my entire fall crop of lettuce and greens last year, so I knew that for this season, it was time for the fence.

There is nothing I look forward to more than standing in my backyard and admiring my garden, especially once it starts to bust out with plant life.  I love watering my garden while listening to the White Sox game on the radio.  I’ve already started showing it off to my neighbors, and we are quite literally looking at dirt on the ground (See Photo).  

Speaking of my neighbors, they all love me.  Now, I’m a charming guy and don’t cause trouble, but endearing myself to them was made easier by having pounds of green beans and dozens of cucumbers on hand to give away to anyone who walked by my place.  One of my neighbors has her own vegetable garden and swaps tomatoes with me for whatever I have in abundance.  We have our own little neighborhood food co-op going on.  And this is all going on in the big bad city, not the quaint suburbs!  Granted, when I lived in Uptown or Lincoln Park, most of my neighbors wouldn’t even look me in the eye, so Bridgeport is arguably a friendlier neighborhood, especially in the part where I live.

So that’s all I got on my garden for right now.  I’m going to post a few photos here and on Twitter in a little while, so you can see my dirt.  Let’s all pray for no more frost, and then do the happy rain dance together!

My garden!

4/8/10 — I have neglected this blog since its inception, but I will start posting my deep thoughts here soon.  Forthcoming blog posts will include my opinions about the following:

1) Why did the IZOD IndyCar Series start their ‘10 season with three boring street races in a row?  I always thought the whole point of the IRL was to see two- and three-wide racing at 200+ MPH on ovals?  

2) The CTA.  I don’t know how anyone can live in Chicago unless they live near a CTA L station.  There is nothing I hate more than waiting for a bus, and I try to avoid them at all costs.  If you don’t take a bus, the recent CTA service cuts aren’t that bad.

3) Lost, the Final Season.  I am really loving the alternate parallel universe that so many fans think is stupid.  I might wind up hating the way it all gets wrapped up, but so far, I’m enjoying the ride.

4) My new Blackberry.  It has changed my life, and not always for the best.

5) Gardening!  I am going to plant my veggie garden in the next few weeks.

6) Fishing!  Why am I so bad at it, and yet why do I continue to try?  

7) Stupid summer movies….. I hope I’m wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Iron Man 2 and Toy Story 3 will both be letdowns.  The rest of the summer slate looks terrible.  

8) and more to come…..

If you can’t stand the wait, I post on Twitter many times a day @drewmcnaughton 

2-21-10:  What do you do to fall asleep?  I need some help.  My attempts at some lifestyle changes (diet, alcohol intake, etc.) have left me in the insomnia lurch.  In the past, I always figured if someone had trouble falling asleep, he clearly wasn’t very tired.  Well, that wasn’t the case this morning, when I finally fell asleep around 7AM after completely shutting down all media and stimuli a few hours before.  I don’t ever take sleeping pills because by the time it occurs to me to take one, the damage is done.  You ever try waking up from NyQuil or Benadryl with fewer than 6 hours of sleep?  It is worse than waking up with a booze hangover, because at least the hangover hurts and won’t let you fall back asleep!

Normally, I decide what DVD to fall asleep to, and I usually don’t make it out of the opening credits.  Last night, I was agonizing for hours over which episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to put on.  I had to pick an episode that I hadn’t seen recently, that won’t get aired anytime soon on the nightly reruns on Chicago’s Me Too TV (26.3 — I love DTV!), that is good enough to keep me entertained, but not one of the classic episodes that will intrigue me to stay up and watch more of the best Next Generation episodes.  I finally settled on “The Conundrum”, the one where Picard and the crew have their short term memories wiped out by this one jerk who then poses as a Starfleet Officer and tries to trick the Enterprise into waging war on a planet that wouldn’t be able to defend itself against a shuttlecraft, let alone the flagship of the Federation.  Of course, the crew’s morality wins the day and they realize they are being duped by the one guy, and decide at the last minute not to wage war on this weakling planet.  The day is saved, right?  BUT THEN I STILL COULDN’T FALL ASLEEP!

At this point, I shut it all down, and just lay in bed in silence, tossing and turning to the nth degree.  When I finally fell asleep, my phone rang because I was supposed to be at my folks’ house this morning at 8AM, but clearly that didn’t happen.  There is no greater sense of disorientation than getting woken up 45 minutes into your night’s sleep, even if it didn’t begin until 7AM.  So anyway, I missed the family breakfast gathering, got my five hours of sleep, and now I am ready for a big and busy rest of my day and weekend.  Wish my sleep deprived ass luck, ok?  I need all the help I can get.

Please feel free to post your COMMENTS below.  I’ve finally figured out how to get it to work.

Hi, I have a blog now.  I have no idea what I am going to do here.  I guess my real goal is so when you google “Andrew McNaughton”, you find me, and not this guy .  Is that shallow?  Perhaps.

I only set up this account about 30 minutes ago while ignoring the Bears@Lions season finale, so I don’t know if everything is configured the way I want it, but I hope to post here every so often, and to allow comments from whomever reads it.

By the way, if you don’t know me personally, that’s fine because I appreciate your interest, but I’d like to clarify one thing on the onset:  I prefer to go by “Andrew” or “Drew”, but NEVER “Andy”.  Since I was old enough to speak, I have been telling people to never call me “Andy”.  With all apologies to the Andys out there, but I think it is a childish name and nearly all Andys I’ve ever met are obnoxious.

If you’d prefer me in small doses, I have a twitter account, too.  Thanks for reading.

EDIT:  OK, I am brand new to tumblr, but I THINK this is how you comment if you want to, according to the website “Send your audience to http://mcnaughton.tumblr.com/submit or have them email mcnaughton@tumblr.com to submit posts into your submission queue for approval.”

I hope that makes sense.