Hey Y’all,

NFL Free Agency is under way, meaning the football fans in your life are prone to randomly looking down at their phones and screaming in alarm. Don’t panic. Although, you might want to monitor them for possible foreshadowing of how your weekends will go this fall.

In other news, I had a breakfast sandwich yesterday on ciabatta and I’m convinced it’s THE worst bread out right now. Do the folks who invented ciabatta hate flavor? Quite appropriately, the name doesn’t roll off the tongue. I’d love to roll it right into my trash can though. Please keep this bread far away from me.

Also, the NBA is really good right now. Key players are coming back from injury. Teams are trying to get it together to make their playoffs push. What that means is there’s a lot of good basketball being played this month in the Association and at the collegiate level.

Now that we got my updates out of the way, let’s get to it!

Women’s Edit: My Year-In-Review

To borrow from LeBron James, “First of all…Happy Happy International Women’s Day!”

I hope you took time to celebrate yourselves and/or the women in your lives. Ladies, we appreciate you. We’re also in the middle of Women’s History Month. I’ll give you a pass if you weren’t aware, since a certain BigLetter Co. took it off the calendar. I thought it would be fun to go over some of my favorite performances by women in the last year.

• Bridge Over Troubled Water x Jacob Collier: You might be saying to yourself, “Oh, bless his heart.” And that would be fair because the original is a classic. I’m here to tell you that I once sat second-row for a Paul Simon concert and this song belongs to Tori Kelly. I think this recording might be some of the best singing of this century. It did win a Grammy for Best Arrangement (Instrumental or A Capella), but that doesn’t feel like enough. Jacob, John Legend, and Yebba each deserve major shouts for their own outstanding work on the song. However, it’s one-take Tori that stole the show. If you know Tori, you know she can run with the best of them. This hilariously-complex arrangement gave her a chance to showcase the talent that makes her, undeniably, one of the best in the game. Watch this video of the first time the group performed together recorded at The Greek in LA. “I wish I had a time machine….”

• Dance With a Stranger x Lake Street Dive - This is one of the songs holding my mental health together with duct tape right now. The bluesy vocals on this by Rachael Price and the funky bassline by Bridget Kearney combine to make something that is wonderfully funky. The Philadelphia Eagles introduced the world to the Exciting Whites. Well, I think I found a couple more. The band’s drummer, Mike Calabrese, said “We want it to sound like the Beatles and Motown had a party together.” I’m gonna say mission accomplished. 

• Abbott Elementary x Quinta Brunson: Honestly, is there anyone that’s not watching this show? If so, are they ok? My favorite part about Abbott is that it’s so clearly a show only Quinta Brunson could make. Of course, there’s the Philly of it all. Are you using ‘jawn’ yet? But this show is so clearly a labor of love. Quinta based the show on the experiences of her mother who was a kindergarten teacher in Philadelphia public schools. Abbott Elementary is hilariously realistic, perhaps even alarmingly so at times. As the child of an educator, it’s also very relatable. I think it was a brilliant move to take the workplace-comedy model and ground it in a universal experience like school. My favorite moment of the season has been the PTA meeting in Ringworm (4x02). If one of you gets bored, I’d appreciate it if someone would make a compilation video of all of Abbott's cold opens. They are second to none.

• Say It x Maggie Rogers (Live): Ok, this one isn’t fair because you can’t go consume this. You’re just going to have to take my word for it when I tell you that you should go see Maggie Rogers live if you get the chance. I saw her do this one in Chicago. Unlike the studio and previous live versions, Maggie slowed it down. She also peeled away some of the production so it was just her voice and a synth. I was lost for words when she finished. Suffice to say, anyone who gets picked out of a crowd at Tisch for their class project is pretty dang good. Fun fact: I also got to see the legendary Mavis Staples perform that night. She and Maggie have developed a friendship, and Maggie brought her out to perform I’ll Take You There.

Is Your Life a Truman Stream?

If I’m being honest, my "To-Watch" list is long and goes way, way back. Please keep this in mind before giving me something else that I “need” to watch. It might be a fat minute. That said, I just got around to The Truman Show. And, honestly? I'm kicking myself for waiting so long.

People love to talk about how Idiocracy predicted the future. Spot on, no arguments there. But why isn't The Truman Show getting the same kind of love? They clocked 2025 pretty accurately for June of ‘98 (when legends are born by the way).

First of all, Truman's entire life is a product, owned by a corporation. Sound familiar? We live in a very online time in history. I’ve accepted that “privacy” the way most people conceive of it doesn’t exist, or at least requires turning off several hidden default settings. And our attention is currency, just like Truman's life.

Then there's the whole "Sea Haven is the way the world should be" idea. It's chilling. Sea Haven is the ultimate curated reality, a perfect fiction. You know, like the one we create for ourselves online? Filtered feeds, echo chambers, and the illusion of autonomy… Oh my!

"What distresses you, caller, is that Truman prefers his cell." I had to pause the movie after this one. That was some gangster stuff. Again, it spoke directly to our reality. 

Elite mind games.

Somehow, there was still another level.  "I watched you lose your first tooth, take your first step…" The director's words to Truman. "I know you better than you know yourself." This isn’t limited to dystopian thrillers. Big Tech companies actually know us better than we know ourselves. Search histories, shopping habits, location data—it's all there, fastidiously cataloged and analyzed.

Here's the kicker: when the show ends, the world moves on immediately. A few seconds of "What's next?" and then, "You want another slice? Let’s see what else is on." Not too much on my attention span, sheesh. Views and likes are fleeting. Even the richest content, in every sense of the word, has become disposable.

Maybe, this movie is a warning. It reflects our ultra-connected, highly-surveilled reality. The Truman Show is a reminder to remain grounded in reality and question who’s watching. It underscores the power we have to take control of our lives at any time we choose.

What thinkest thou? Is The Truman Show more relevant than ever? Are we all living in bubbles of our own creation? Hit reply and tell me what you think!

No Hope for the Hopeless

There’s a lot of buzz around the NBA right now as new teams are energized coming off the trade deadline. AD for Luka remains the trade heard around the world. You know what I noticed? Things are still looking bleak in Chicago. The Bulls aren’t going anywhere. Well, maybe to Mexico.

We might, might, squeeze into the Play-In Tournament only to lose in the first round. That’s Play-In NOT Play-Offs. 

I was talking with my boy the other day about what it would take to be serious contenders and the only scenarios I could come up with were Candyland trades that would never happen. They’d never happen because the Bulls don’t have a ton to offer another team and Chicago’s owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, is the King of Just Enough.

He’s on the record stating, essentially, that while winning is preferable, his primary focus is maintaining a watchable product sufficient to fill the United Center. Watchable. Sufficient. That’s where we’re at now.

So yeah, it’s probably not going to get better any time soon. I started wondering why it’s the case though. Why not at least sell the team and release us from these chains? The team has appreciated quite nicely from the price Jerry Reinsdorf paid ($9.2M) in 1985 for a controlling stake.

Ah yes, there are two things you can’t hide from in life: death and taxes. Except, I’m betting Jerry thinks he can avoid the latter.

Allow me to nerd out for a second. The $9.2 million plus whatever additional money Jerry paid to consolidate control over the team is called basis. This is the amount (minus some exclusions and exemptions) that the IRS would give him credit for when calculating the Capital Gains Tax owed. Basically, this is the amount of money Jerry would not have to pay taxes on. 

Recent valuations estimate the Bulls franchise is worth approximately $5.8 billion. Doing some very rough math, that’s about $5,799,800,000 in taxable income.

Not even a billionaire wants to see that tax bill.

However, the government cares about people holding onto their assets for the long haul and passing wealth on to their children. The Internal Revenue Code provides that if Jerry were to die owning the team and his kids inherited it, they would get a stepped-up basis. 

Translation: Jerry would have to pay capital gains tax on that huge number, but his kids wouldn’t.

The most economical decision for the Reinsdorf family seems to be to hold onto the team until Jerry passes. Then, and only then, would it make sense to explore exit moves or a different strategy.

So, unless Jerry, or his son Michael (Chicago Bulls President & CEO), has a Road to Damascus moment, it seems like Chicago fans will have to resign themselves to mediocrity for the foreseeable future.

Who knows? Maybe a star from one of the smaller Midwestern markets will decide they want to play in the Windy City. Ant? Giannis? 

…Tyrese? Can you hear me?

[Note: The above should not be construed as legal advice. I am not an attorney and cannot give you advice, legal or otherwise.]

The Last Word

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