I wasn't in the mood for sitcom or drama last night and I realized Comcast's free HBO offer should be over soon so I purposefully looked for good shows on HBO and came across one with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. At first I thought it might be just a cameo appearance but I couldn't be more wrong! The whole episode was about Wynton mentoring a group of young jazz musicians (some are only 18-19 yr old) as part of the YoungArts Masterclass Season 3.. Obviously all of them have the chops. The advices given by Wynton were way above technical level. He gave each of them one word. For example, the saxophonist needed relaxation because of his intensity. The bassist needed concentration to support everybody else. And the pianist needs to free his playing and takes some risks. It's kinda like watching American Idol (except all the comments was about musical art instead of manufactured crap) I can't believe a major network like HBO shows something this good (and niche)
The 2nd show I watched was Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Last time I watched gotta be long time ago (maybe in college when I had HBO) The hour long show talked about 4 stories in depth:
1) Concussions in NFL: NFL setup a fund of $765 Million to settle the lawsuit by former players. Man, it's a brutal sports. It's really sad to see the guys who played real hard are now having serious health issues like ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease)
2) Around-the-world sailing race: this is the ultimate tough-guy sport - Half of the participants couldn't finish the race! Basically the route takes ~3 months to complete. Each yacht is manned by just one sailor. He was all by himself for that 3 months battling dangerous water.
3) The Seattle Sounders-mania: Soccer (or football for the rest of the world) has never been that popular as a spectator sport in the States. I mean, lots of people played but not that many watched pro-teams play compared to baseball/football/basketball. Things have changed in the past few years though: per-game attendance of MLS (major league soccer) has passed NHL and NBA (which was actually "reasonable" because NHL and NBA teams play way more games per season) Still, it's hard to imagine one MLS team could have such loyal/crazy fanbase that rivals the top teams in Europe (think Liverpool, for example) That team is Seattle Sounders. The show kept comparing the sold-out crowd at the Sounders' game vs the many empty seats at the Mariners' game. Gotta give a lot of credits to the 2 owners of the Sounders. Both of them have a background in the Hollywood/show-biz and know how to generate buzz well.
4) The comeback of pitcher Steve Delabar: he was in minor league baseball for a while and his arm was injured really bad. Had a surgery but his baseball career was over. He worked as a substitute teacher at a school and also helped out their baseball team. He was introduced to a strength-training program. He wanted to try it out before the students did. And the program really worked for him. He was able to pitch well (velocity reached mid-90s) again and was noticed by some scouts. Next thing you know, he's back in pro-baseball, progressing thru the minor league and eventually made his major league debut! The next year he was traded to Toronto Blue Jays. Continued to play well as a closer and got chosen for the All-Star team. Couldn't his story be more Cinderella-like?
Thursday, October 31, 2013
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