(Originally Published November 12, 2012)
I
started watching NFL Football in 1978 when I was 9 years old. At that
age, my bedtime was 9pm. We had two TVs in the house - the one in the
front room (or as I always though it was called - "the French Room")
that was connected to the antenna in the roof and a small TV on the back
porch that was not connected and got bad reception. My mom spent most
of her time watching the TV on the back porch - usually ironing or
sewing at the sewing machine or multitasking something else. My dad, of
course, was master of the front room TV.
When dad
watched football on Sundays, I generally was outside playing with
friends. But then there was Monday Night Football. I distinctly
remember lobbying my mom to stay up late on Mondays to watch the game.
Of course, I was usually doing something else during it - like sorting
through baseball or football cards - but dad had my back and suggested I
stay up way past 9. So, I became a fan of football mostly as a way to
stay up past my bedtime on Mondays.
A funny thing
happened with the Superbowl that year - the Dallas Cowboys played the
Pittsburgh Steelers, and my dad was rooting for the Steelers! Rooting
for a team other than the Bears was an odd concept to me at the time,
but my dad talked about Terry Bradshaw and John Stallworth and Mean Joe
Greene and how great they were.
By the time the 1979
season rolled around, I started to watch the Steelers when they were
on. Oh, sure, I was still a Bears fan - who would not be a Bears fan
with players like Mike Phipps, Rickey Watts, Brian Baschnagel and Len
Walterscheid on the team!
Oh, and also Sweetness.
The Steelers made it to their 4th Superbowl that year and it was the first year that I was REALLY excited for the game.
Of
course, the hiring of Mike Ditka as Bears Head Coach starting with the
1982 season revitalized the team and turned my attention primarily on
the Bears. The 1980's Mark Malone-Bubby Brister era was a tough one for
Steeler fans anyway. 1992 was the last season for Mike Ditka as head
coach of the Bears but also the first for Bill Cowher as head coach of
the Steelers. When the villainous Mike McCaskey made the bad decision
to fire Mike Ditka and hire the personality-challenged Dave Wannstedt, I
turned my back on the Bears. They lost their heart and soul (no, not
Ditka) and felt soft.
Meanwhile, Bill Cowher's Steelers
dominated from 1992-1997 with a smash-mouth style that Chicagoans
love. Sure, they continually fell short of the Superbowl, but Neil
O'Donnell and this exciting new guy Kordell Stewart were fun to watch. I
became such a big Kordell fan that starting in 1999 until 2003 I made
sure he was always on my Fantasy Football team - the Montana
Lizard-Men. Unfortunately, Kordell was exciting but just not good
enough to captain the Steelers to the 'Bowl. In 1999 Dick Jauron
replaced Dave Wannstedt as Bears head coach. While Wanny had no
personality, Jauron sucked the life out of the room. It was like
painting a beige room over with another, more horrible, shade of beige.
Thank you, no.
A couple of great things for the
Bears and Steelers happened during the 2004 season - first, the Bears
finally got a good head coach in Lovie Smith. Now I could start to
enjoy the team again. For the Steelers, their rookie QB Ben
Roethlisberger came off the bench for an injured Tommy Maddox and ripped
off 14 straight wins until losing in the AFC Championship game. I
couldn't get a Big Ben Steelers jersey fast enough.
The
successful Cowher-era (Superbowl win in 2005) led right into the
successful Mike Tomlin-era (Superbowl win in 2008) and even though Lovie
Smith had the Bears playing "Bears football" again, it's the Steelers
that have been #1 in my heart most of the time. I could not sell my Big
Ben jerseys fast enough a couple years ago after he failed to heed the
phrase "No Means No", but just because I don't respect the QB doesn't
mean I don't love the team.
Go STEELERS!
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
What's In A Name: John Kuczaj
(Originally published Nov 5, 2012)
My last name is "Kuczaj". It's Polish. It's pronounced "KOOCH-eye". It was the source of much grief when I was in High School.
One of the most celebrated traits of being an American is individuality.
One of the most lampooned traits of being an American is individuality.
Cynicism kicked in for me at a very young age once I started to realize that everyone is a hypocrite and most people just plain suck.
When I was a kid, going to St. Ferdinand grammar school on the Northwest side of Chicago, if there was a culture of teasing then I wasn't part of it. By the time you were in the 8th grade, you'd spent 7-8 years growing up with your classmates, and by then it was as if we were a family or sorts - in it together. I recall meeting some new kids in the neighborhood around 7th or 8th grade who thought my name to be funny and made fun of it. My reaction was puzzlement and indifference. I do recall thinking that they were strange and likely not too intelligent for thinking my name was a source of amusement.
Sadly, that entirely appropriate reaction and assessment would change over time.
High school for me was 4 years of agony. I hated almost every minute of it from day 1. At first I was excited to be going to St. Patrick High School - then the first day happened. The first class I had was gym class, where one of the gym teachers / coaches proceeded to call out all the Freshmen and explain to them that they were no longer "king of the hill" and were now at the bottom of the food chain.
No "Welcome to St. Pat's", instead we got "You are scum".
Swell.
2nd thru 4th period wasn't any better for me as every teacher insisted on horribly mispronouncing my name to the amusement of everyone in the class and then they had trouble with it AFTER I told them how it was pronounced. This was my lot for the next 4 years - constant ridicule of my name. In the 4th period class I was so frustrated and bewildered by then that when I called out the correct pronunciation, I yelled the first part too loud. The non-athlete bully of the Class of '87 seized upon that and decided that my name came from a Kung Fu movie sound effect. For the next four years I would frequently be greeted by people who would over-pronounce my name and make karate chop moves.
Swell.
Looking back on it, the verbal bullying was a defense mechanism and a way to curry favor with the majority of students. While at St. Ferdinand there were Jocks and Brains and Popular people, none of the groups shunned the others (well...some of the popular kids preferred their own) and there was a mutual respect and sense of community. At St. Pat's, the Freshman class was quickly beat down several pegs by the staff, so most felt the need to assert some kind of dominance over someone, hence the verbal bullying.
Swell.
The afternoon classes had more of the same, hitting a crescendo in Pre-Honors English, where the teacher - Mr. Horan - joined in the ridicule. It started out fine - when he got to my name he asked first. Scott, the non-athlete bully piped in with his karate routine, much to everyone's amusement. When the laughter diminished, I piped in with "KOOCH-eye". Horan then said "Oh, like, Koochy Kooch Eye?"
The class roared with laughter and began repeating it so much that the room sounded like the monkey cage at Lincoln Park Zoo. Horan, to my disdain, looked fairly pleased with his brilliant quip and half-halfheartedly got the class to calm down. It was my sincere hope that Mr. Horan would suffer a very painful, slow death.
My lot was set for 4 years at St. Patrick. Constant put-down based on whatever new name variation anyone can come up with. Any adult looking at it now might say - so what? It's stupid. Ignore it. Indeed, that was my original reaction a couple years prior. However, it was impossible to ignore because it was ubiquitous and it didn't REALLY matter WHAT was being ridiculed, did it? The message was "I am picking on you because you are weak / different / inferior". That message was received loud & clear.
I never experienced ridicule at Columbia College Chicago - not once. The message going into the school was clear to everyone: you are an adult now, act like one. Meantime, my goal was to break into the TV business and at Columbia that meant either doing technical things (editing, camera, control room) or being a reporter. I opted to try the reporting side. No instructor (most of them TV news professionals themselves) ever suggested I come up with a "viewer-friendly" name, but it was a thought I had for a few seconds.
Despite having a hard-to-pronounce and hard-to-spell last name, it was mine. It was my identity. To give a fake name would be whoring myself out, and to operate as a journalist with a made-up stage name would undermine my credibility and worst of all - it would be a lie.
So, John Kuczaj it was. Unique. Weird. Difficult to pronounce. Me.
So, when I started to record songs that I had written with the ultimate goal of releasing the final recordings, I had a decision to make. Would I release them as solo artist John Kuczaj, or with another name? Well, since my ultimate goal was to be in a band rather than be a solo artist, I decided that a catchy band name would be the best option - perhaps at some point I could recruit some band members and play live shows under the moniker. Also, it would be much easier for people to search the internet for info on a catchy band name than my name. My choice of band name was never in doubt. It was a name I had in the back of my mind for almost 20 years - but that is a story for another time. Until then:
John Kuczaj IS Atomic Shop
Atomic Shop IS John Kuczaj
My last name is "Kuczaj". It's Polish. It's pronounced "KOOCH-eye". It was the source of much grief when I was in High School.
One of the most celebrated traits of being an American is individuality.
One of the most lampooned traits of being an American is individuality.
Cynicism kicked in for me at a very young age once I started to realize that everyone is a hypocrite and most people just plain suck.
When I was a kid, going to St. Ferdinand grammar school on the Northwest side of Chicago, if there was a culture of teasing then I wasn't part of it. By the time you were in the 8th grade, you'd spent 7-8 years growing up with your classmates, and by then it was as if we were a family or sorts - in it together. I recall meeting some new kids in the neighborhood around 7th or 8th grade who thought my name to be funny and made fun of it. My reaction was puzzlement and indifference. I do recall thinking that they were strange and likely not too intelligent for thinking my name was a source of amusement.
Sadly, that entirely appropriate reaction and assessment would change over time.
High school for me was 4 years of agony. I hated almost every minute of it from day 1. At first I was excited to be going to St. Patrick High School - then the first day happened. The first class I had was gym class, where one of the gym teachers / coaches proceeded to call out all the Freshmen and explain to them that they were no longer "king of the hill" and were now at the bottom of the food chain.
No "Welcome to St. Pat's", instead we got "You are scum".
Swell.
2nd thru 4th period wasn't any better for me as every teacher insisted on horribly mispronouncing my name to the amusement of everyone in the class and then they had trouble with it AFTER I told them how it was pronounced. This was my lot for the next 4 years - constant ridicule of my name. In the 4th period class I was so frustrated and bewildered by then that when I called out the correct pronunciation, I yelled the first part too loud. The non-athlete bully of the Class of '87 seized upon that and decided that my name came from a Kung Fu movie sound effect. For the next four years I would frequently be greeted by people who would over-pronounce my name and make karate chop moves.
Swell.
Looking back on it, the verbal bullying was a defense mechanism and a way to curry favor with the majority of students. While at St. Ferdinand there were Jocks and Brains and Popular people, none of the groups shunned the others (well...some of the popular kids preferred their own) and there was a mutual respect and sense of community. At St. Pat's, the Freshman class was quickly beat down several pegs by the staff, so most felt the need to assert some kind of dominance over someone, hence the verbal bullying.
Swell.
The afternoon classes had more of the same, hitting a crescendo in Pre-Honors English, where the teacher - Mr. Horan - joined in the ridicule. It started out fine - when he got to my name he asked first. Scott, the non-athlete bully piped in with his karate routine, much to everyone's amusement. When the laughter diminished, I piped in with "KOOCH-eye". Horan then said "Oh, like, Koochy Kooch Eye?"
The class roared with laughter and began repeating it so much that the room sounded like the monkey cage at Lincoln Park Zoo. Horan, to my disdain, looked fairly pleased with his brilliant quip and half-halfheartedly got the class to calm down. It was my sincere hope that Mr. Horan would suffer a very painful, slow death.
My lot was set for 4 years at St. Patrick. Constant put-down based on whatever new name variation anyone can come up with. Any adult looking at it now might say - so what? It's stupid. Ignore it. Indeed, that was my original reaction a couple years prior. However, it was impossible to ignore because it was ubiquitous and it didn't REALLY matter WHAT was being ridiculed, did it? The message was "I am picking on you because you are weak / different / inferior". That message was received loud & clear.
I never experienced ridicule at Columbia College Chicago - not once. The message going into the school was clear to everyone: you are an adult now, act like one. Meantime, my goal was to break into the TV business and at Columbia that meant either doing technical things (editing, camera, control room) or being a reporter. I opted to try the reporting side. No instructor (most of them TV news professionals themselves) ever suggested I come up with a "viewer-friendly" name, but it was a thought I had for a few seconds.
Despite having a hard-to-pronounce and hard-to-spell last name, it was mine. It was my identity. To give a fake name would be whoring myself out, and to operate as a journalist with a made-up stage name would undermine my credibility and worst of all - it would be a lie.
So, John Kuczaj it was. Unique. Weird. Difficult to pronounce. Me.
So, when I started to record songs that I had written with the ultimate goal of releasing the final recordings, I had a decision to make. Would I release them as solo artist John Kuczaj, or with another name? Well, since my ultimate goal was to be in a band rather than be a solo artist, I decided that a catchy band name would be the best option - perhaps at some point I could recruit some band members and play live shows under the moniker. Also, it would be much easier for people to search the internet for info on a catchy band name than my name. My choice of band name was never in doubt. It was a name I had in the back of my mind for almost 20 years - but that is a story for another time. Until then:
John Kuczaj IS Atomic Shop
Atomic Shop IS John Kuczaj
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
In Search of Empathy and Compassion
On an atomic level, every human being is made up of at least
60 of the 94 naturally occurring chemical elements.
Eleven of those elements (oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,
calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium) are
necessary for life. The remaining 49 (or more) elements are trace elements.
On a molecular level, every human being is made up of water,
proteins, fats (lipids), carbohydrates, DNA, RNA, dissolved inorganic ions, gases,
many other small molecules (such as amino acids, fatty acids, nucleobases,
nucleosides, nucleotides, vitamins, cofactors) and free radicals.
On a body composition level, every human being is made up of
muscle, fat, bone and teeth, nervous tissue (Brain and nerves), hormones, connective
tissue, fluids (blood, lymph, urine), gases (including intestinal gas, air in
lungs), and Epithelial tissue.
Okay, so we’re all made up of the same material. How are we different? There’s the differences perceived by our three
of our senses such as Visual (body shape, size, hue, hair), Auditory (voice), and
Olfactory (you stink, not me).
Yet the ultimate way we are different has to do with the
development and use of our brains. Our intelligence and personality. Lessons learned
or ignored. Our use of logic and emotion. Decisions made and actions taken. Compassion
and empathy.
I’ve met celebrities and famous athletes. I’ve met Corporate CEOs and executives. I’ve met poor people and rich people. Once you meet and interact with people, it is
difficult to not conclude that the concept of anyone being “special” or better”
than anyone else is complete bullshit. The differences between people for the
most part have no intrinsic value except within a given social construct. Is a person who has deftly navigated their
way up the corporate ladder to middle management a better person than a sheepherder?
That business person may be considered “better” or more valuable within a free-market
economic social construct, but that same corporate hotshot is useless in rural
Mongolia, where the sheepherder is valued.
Having value and usefulness within a given social construct
is something we all attempt to attain, but what about having value and
usefulness for all of humanity? The more
I thought about the concept of someone being “better” than another, the more I
kept coming back to one universal trait that impacts in only positive ways for
all humans, yet is not valued highly among most social constructs on the
planet:
Compassion.
As much as I’d like to say that more people need to be more
compassionate, the realist in me knows that first, more people need to show
SOME compassion. It’s sad to see the lack of compassion in our society today – stunningly
so. I see a good amount of empathy, which
is fine, but empathy is a way of relating – it’s understanding how someone
feels, and trying to imagine how that might feel for you. Compassion is the next step - it’s being
empathic, and taking some kind of action.
Oh, I suppose there are some cases where there appears to be compassion
without empathy, but empathy is essential for true compassion.
Don’t get me wrong - there’s a lack of empathy in our
society too – I think we, as a society, need to make the full move to Empathy
and compassion in order to grow and better ourselves. I’m not sure how to achieve that goal, though…and
the idea that compassion is slipping away scares me.
Compassionate people are the best people. Period.
Compassionate people are the best people. Period.
Monday, May 14, 2018
WBEZ's New Schedule
WBEZ-FM is making some big revisions to their schedule
starting Monday.
As with most schedule changes, some things make sense,
some are head scratchers. Some changes are being made to save/maximize programming
costs – BBC World News, The World and Q go away in favor of a 2nd hour of Here and Now, a Marketplace
rerun, The Daily and a 1A 2nd run.
Since the NY Stock Exchange closes at 3pm, running
Marketplace as early as possible (4:30) makes sense to appeal to people with
financial market interest. All Things Considered gets big ratings,
so not cutting it down from 3½ hours makes sense. The
show is live from 3-5pm, then after that it is rerun on a loop with needed
updates inserted. So, all along the last 90 minutes of the show has been a
repeat anyway. But now with a 4:30 Marketplace pre-empting that last live 1/2 hour, people listening from 3pm have to wait until 6:30pm to hear the 1/2 hour they missed, which kinda sucks.I would have slotted Marketplace at 5pm because of this.
At 7pm, I loved The
World with Marco Werman, but I was apparently in the minority. Since the
show was not simply moved to a later time period (such as 10pm or 11pm), it
must have had low enough ratings that a later time slot made no cost sense.
The weekend changes are likely mostly due to ratings,
trying to establish better flow and compatibility, but there were a few notable
changes. Slotting It’s Been a Minute
between tent poles Wait Wait and This American Life will ensure a lot of
sampling. Two repeats of Sound Opinions
on the weekend seems a bit much, but if the audience it there, then splitting
them to Sat & Sun vs both on Saturday makes the most sense. The loss of the
Filmspotting repeat Saturday nights
is highly disappointing.
A third hour of Weekend
Edition Sunday is silly without the show running live 7-9am. Instead, WBEZ
runs the show 8-10, so the 10-11am hour (either a repeat of 7-8am or 8-9am) is
old. I would bet the cost to add the 3rd hour is minimal, and the
hope is the audience will stay – bolstered with the Wait Wait repeat moving to 11am. I am looking forward to Hidden Brain, but not at 8pm Sunday. The
2nd repeat of This American
Life is being used to draw people to the excellent Innovation Hub and the new Hidden
Brain, but Sunday night is a graveyard for radio, so good luck with that. I
would have slotted Hidden Brain at
2pm out of Freakonomics, followed by Innovation Hub for a 3-hour block of
Grey Matter stimuli.
I think several shows downgraded to Sunday late night are
now on cancellation watch when the next schedule change is made - The New Yorker Radio Hour, Radiolab and Snap Judgement. All are very
uneven (sometimes great, sometimes dull) shows
You can download a schedule grid here.
NEW WEEKDAYS: 1A, The Daily
GONE WEEKDAYS:
The Takeaway, The World, BBC Newshour, Q
NEW WEEKENDS:
It’s Been A Minute, The Takeaway, Q The Music, Hidden Brain
GONE WEEKENDS:
Le Show
WEEKDAYS
10am – 1A
From WAMU Washington DC, a talk show hosted by Joshua
Johnson. The show airs live 9-11am, so
WBEZ will either be airing hour 2 live or hour 1 on tape. https://the1a.org/about
Replaces The
Takeaway
2pm – Hear And Now
(hour 2)
From WBUR Boston, WBEZ now airs the full 2-hour show
(except Fridays when Science Friday will pre-empt the first hour). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_and_Now_(Boston)
Replaces BBC
NewsHour
4:30pm -
Marketplace
Kai Ryssdal and company move to 4:30pm. This show is spectacular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketplace_(radio_program)
7pm (Mon-Thu)-
Marketplace
Kai Ryssdal and company repeat themselves at 7pm.
Replaces The
World, Marco Werman’s spectacular show of global stories (I will miss The
World).
7:30pm (Mon-Thu) –
The Daily
From The New York Times, a podcast hosted by Michael Barbaro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_(podcast)
8pm (Mon-Thu) –
Fresh Air repeat
Did you miss the 11am Fresh Air? You get another chance at 8pm. Hosted by the worst interviewer in the history
of radio, Terri Gross, the show moves up from 10pm, where it was likely putting
people to sleep.
Replaces repeats of Snap
Judgement (M), TED Radio Hour (Tu), Radiolab (W), The Moth (Th)
9pm Mon – TED
Radio Hour repeat
9pm Tue – Snap
Judgement repeat
9pm Wed – On Being
repeat
9pm Thu – The Moth
repeat
Replaces repeats of New
Yorker Radio Hour (M), On Being (Tu), Re: Sound (W), Freakonomics Radio (Th)
10pm (Mon-Thu) – 1A
A one-hour “best-of” from the earlier 2-hour broadcast,
so not a true repeat since there should be some unaired new material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1A_(radio)
Replaces Fresh Air
repeats
11pm (Mon-Thu) –
BBC World Service
Overnight news from across the pond starts an hour
earlier.
Replaces Q
SATURDAYS
11am - It’s Been A
Minute
Sam Sanders’ weekly news recap gets a cushy timeslot
between Wait Wait & This American Life. https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510317/its-been-a-minute-with-sam-sanders
12n – This
American Life repeat
Moves from 11am
2pm – TED Radio
Hour
Moves from 12n
3pm – The Takeaway
A weekend edition of the show starts June 1 with Amy
Walter as host. Leads into the Saturday All
Things Considered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Takeaway
7pm – Sound
Opinions repeat
Moves from 2pm
8pm – Bullseye
with Jessie Thorn
Moves from 9pm
9pm – Live Wire
Radio!
Moves from 7pm
11pm – Fresh Air
weekend
Moves from 8pm
12n – Q The Music
The daily Q is gone, but here we get the best of the Q’s
music coverage from the past week. https://www.cbcmusic.ca/programs/qthemusic
SUNDAYS
10pm Weekend
Edition Sunday 3rd hour
WBEZ adds a repeat of the 1st hour of Weekend
Edition Sunday for some reason.
11pm – Wait Wait
Don’t Tell me repeat
Moves from 5pm
12n – On The Media
Moves from 10pm
1pm – Freakonomics
Radio
Moves from 11am
2pm – Sound Opinions
2nd repeat
Moves from 11pm Saturday
3pm – Reveal
Moves from 3pm Saturday.
Leads into the Sunday All Things
Considered
5pm – Innovation
Hub
Moves from 6pm
6pm – This
American Life repeat
Moves from 7pm
7pm – Re: Sound
Moves from 8pm, is still usually terrible.
8pm – Hidden Brain
Shankar Vedantam‘s show exploring human behavior and
life's unseen patterns. Should be aired in a block with The TED Radio Hour and
Freakonomics. Maybe someday… https://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/437264048/about-hidden-brain
9pm – New Yorker
Radio Hour
Moves from 1pm. Inexplicably uneven show (great
sometimes, not good sometimes) gets buried, will likely gone from the schedule by
the end of the year.
10pm – Radiolab
Moves from 12n. I
love Robert Krulwich, but of late this show bores the shit out of me. Buried on
Sunday night where I won’t be listening.
11pm - Snap
Judgement
Moves from 2pm. Sometimes I love this show, sometimes I
am confused as to what’s going on. Maybe I am old. Buried on Sunday night.
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