Bandwagons. We all jump on or off them at one time or another. Today I thought I'd take stock of my current ridership status.
Entourage: On, but with a loosened seatbelt. This season was generally good, but several times in recent weeks I felt like I was watching a formula play out, with each character being put through his paces in exactly the way you'd expect. It took me out of the show and reminded me that I was watching TV (and yes, HBO, your old slogan aside, it's TV). Jeremy Piven, though a raging bag in real life, continues to shine in the role that has come to define his career. He and Kevin Connolly are by far the two best actors in the regular cast, and for that matter, two of the few good ones. Coincidentally or not, their characters are the two most interesting.
Chicago Bears: On. I ignored the preseason as usual, then I was out of town when they opened their season with an ugly loss at Green Bay. But I've caught the three games since (Comcast DVR remote that jumps ahead thirty seconds from the ref's whistle to the next snap of the ball: accept no substitutes), all entertaining victories including a nail-biter over the defending Super Bowl champs. Their savior, newly inked quarterback Jay Cutler, looks like the real deal, and the team features a bunch of talented young playmakers I'd never heard of a month ago. Speaking of which:
Johnny Knox: On. The rookie speedster is as cool as Johnny Knoxville, but younger and faster. He raised eyebrows with a passel of flashy plays in recent weeks, then ran back Sunday's second-half kickoff 102 yards for a touchdown. He's a humble Devin Hester.
Mad Men: Not on, but walking alongside.
Mad Men is a decent show and yet the most overrated show on television. Stylish, gorgeous to look at, sure, but wildly inconsistent. The writing is too frequently just OK for a show that many have anointed the chosen one. (It does have a nice pedigree. Creator Matthew Weiner first pitched it years ago as a relative unknown and couldn't get any takers, so he stuck it in a drawer and took a job writing for
The Sopranos. Five years later he was one of their top scribes and when he dusted off
Mad Men during Tony Soprano's final season the AMC network bought it immediately. Ah, credibility.) In short,
Mad Men is good enough to keep watching but doesn't deserve the mountains of hype it gets (
a local columnist feels the same way and
another chimes in here). However:
Jon Hamm: Enthusiastically on. He's Cary Grant for our generation, the ridiculously handsome star of the most lauded show on television, but it hasn't gone to his head. I met him at a party in New York City last winter and chatted with him for a while. As detached and mysterious as Don Draper is, Jon Hamm is engaging, bright and funny. He couldn't have been less impressed with himself, but I was plenty impressed. Then in July he appears in the celebrity softball game at the All-Star Game in his native St. Louis and, playing third base, cleanly backhands a hard smash and fires a strong throw across the diamond for the putout. How cool
is this guy?
Chicago Cubs: Off. The bandwagon derailed some time in May or June as injuries and inconsistent play from the expensive end of the roster ruined the 2009 campaign. Manager Lou Piniella's refusal to move the underperforming Alfonso Soriano down in (or out of) the batting order didn't help either. Derrek Lee hit every pitch over the wall in the last two months of the season and no one even noticed.
President Obama: On. I happen to like his politics, but leave that aside. I admire his leadership and he's got personality and coolth to burn. He remains impressively steadfast in the face of frequently inane criticism (don't speak to our schoolchildren directly? death squads?). As for results, it's only been eight months. Time will tell.
Northwestern Wildcats athletics: Hard to say there's a bandwagon at all, but if there is, I'm on it. Heck, I'll drive. I salute any serious research university that puts a good team on the field without sacrificing its rigorous academic standards (see also: Stanford, Duke). NU's young football coach Pat Fitzgerald has done so, increasing the win total in each year of his short tenure and leading the team to the Alamo Bowl last year. The 'Cats also frequently impress in non-revenue sports: the women's lacrosse team has won five straight NCAA championships, the softball team played in two recent Women's College World Series, and the tennis teams are usually tough.
Twitter: Off. I've never jumped aboard the Twitter Express as so many have. That's not to say it's not an effective way to share opinions, but to paraphrase a recent beer advertising campaign, I'll skip the microblogging site in favor of my good old macroblog.
Chicago 2016 Olympic bid: The bandwagon hit a wall last week, but I'd never jumped on board. There would have been pros to having the Olympics here, but significant cons. All told, I could never bring myself to feel more boosterish than about 55/45 against the bid, so I'm content to let South America get its overdue first bite at the apple.
2006 Volvo S60 T5 sedan: I am so on the bandwagon for this car that I think it is itself the bandwagon. I ended an eight-year bad relationship last week with my personal bête noire, a balky 1999 Cadillac Catera, replacing it with the insanely awesome T5. How Swede it is.