Saturday, March 7, 2026

Blood sports satisfy primal male urges for violence


Some sports fans like to see athletes spill blood or suffer concussions and broken bones. That’s the only way to explain some emerging violent sports. We already have boxing and mixed martial arts, but apparently they aren’t extreme enough for some fans.
What follows is a look at some alternative brutal sports.

Run Nation Championship

Run Nation Championship is a highly controversial Australian full-contact sport where two athletes sprint at full speed and collide with each other like modern-day jousting. The object is to knock your opponent down or out cold. Critics say the new sport is reckless, dangerous and should be banned. It debuted in early 2026. SB Nation said the sport is dumber than Power Slap.
(See articles by Vice, Complex, Daily Mail and MMA Mania.)

Power Slap

Power Slap is a U.S. slap-fighting competition. Athletes stand face to face and slap each other as hard as they can. That’s pretty much it. The first event was held in 2023.

Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship

Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship is the first legal, sanctioned, and regulated bare-knuckle boxing event in the U.S. since 1889. Based in Philadelphia, BKFC says it is dedicated to preserving the historical legacy of bare-knuckle fighting. Its first event was held in 2018.

Photos from their respective organizations.

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Saturday, February 28, 2026

My 2026 picks for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame


The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation on Feb. 25 announced a list of 17 performer nominees to be considered for 2026 induction into the Rock Hall. And fan voting is now open.
Fans can choose up to seven artists for the eventual fan ballot. And like Chicago politics, people should vote early and vote often. But a warning: the voting website was down when I tried it today.
The inductees will be announced in late April.
Here are my seven picks for induction this year:
  • Phil Collins
  • INXS
  • Joy Division + New Order
  • Billy Idol
  • Mariah Carey
  • Melissa Etheridge
  • Iron Maiden
Some thoughts on my picks:
Phil Collins is currently leading the fan voting by a wide margin and for good reason. The beloved music icon has a fantastic solo catalog and deserves to be a double inductee like his Genesis bandmate Peter Gabriel. Shockingly, he's a first-time nominee this year. In fact, 10 of the 17 nominees are first-timers.
In my Jan. 27 blog post, I urged the Rock Hall to get back to basics and choose some true rockers this year. In that spirit, I am backing rockers Billy Idol, INXS, Iron Maiden and Melissa Etheridge.
I also hope this finally will be the year New Order (and its predecessor Joy Division) gets in. They're an amazingly influential electronic band with great music.
And finally, there's Mariah Carey. She's an extraordinarily successful pop singer and a legendary diva. She needs to get in the Rock Hall before fellow nominees and female singers Pink, Sade, Shakira and Lauryn Hill.

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Saturday, February 14, 2026

The Winter Olympics and fringe sports


The Winter Olympics are underway in Italy and with it the return of some fringe sports that most people only hear about every four years. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I find fringe sports interesting.
The Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games run from Feb. 6 through 22. They will feature such popular sports as alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating, speed skating and ice hockey.
This year’s Winter Olympics added its first new sport in over two decades – ski mountaineering, aka “skimo.” The last one added was skeleton in 2002. (See articles by NPR and Sherwood News.)
All told, the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy will feature 116 medal events across 16 different sports and disciplines.
Some seem like fringe sports that should be eliminated from the games but probably won’t for historical and other reasons. Chief among them is curling. Come on, that’s not a sport. It’s a pastime for people in the northern climes.
I also don’t get the appeal of bobsleigh, which comes in two-man and four-man varieties as well as two-woman and women’s monobob.
While luge is a legitimate sport in my mind, I don’t understand the reasoning behind doubles, which stacks a second person on the sled. It has been relentlessly ridiculed in memes this year, for good reason.

Photo: Luge women’s doubles at Winter Olympics 2026. (Olympics photo)




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Saturday, February 7, 2026

Newspapers I used to work for and what’s become of them


My professional career has been in two parts. The first was after I earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and worked for daily newspapers. The second was after I earned a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and then worked for trade and business media.
I don’t include the first part of my career on my LinkedIn profile. It was fun, educational and helped hone my stills in reporting, writing and editing, but it really doesn’t pertain to my current focus.
But lately I’ve been thinking about those print media days. I still have boxes of “clips” of articles from those years. I’ll probably just end up throwing them away at some point.
What spurred my nostalgia was recent headlines. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution just stopped printing a paper newspaper after 157 years and the Washington Post is slashing its staff amid a shrinking business.
It’s a tough time for print journalism after decades of business erosion due to the internet.
As an undergraduate student at U of I in the early 1980s, I worked at the Daily Illini student newspaper, which then published five days a week. Apparently it now only prints a weekly edition, called The DI, on Wednesday and is mostly focused on online news, which makes sense.
After college, I worked for the Small Newspaper Group, owned by the Small family out of Kankakee, Ill. I started at the Streator Times-Press in central Illinois. I worked there for two years (1984-86) before moving to the Daily Dispatch in Moline, Ill., and shortly thereafter the Rock Island Argus.
The Streator newspaper merged with its bigger sister newspaper in Ottawa, Ill., to serve the greater LaSalle County, Illinois, area, in September 2005.
In March 2018, Shaw Media bought the combined newspaper. (See articles by the AP, Streator Chamber of Commerce, and Dirks, Van Essen & Murray.)
I have fond memories of working in Streator, an industrial and farming community. One large factory there made glass bottles. There was a bar across the street for workers that I would go to. The bartenders would pour beer from bottles, which they would toss in a chute on the wall behind them. The bottles would smash as they fell into a container on the other side, presumably to be recycled to make new beer bottles.
When I moved to the Quad Cities to work for the Daily Dispatch and Rock Island Argus (1986-92), I lived in East Moline, Ill.
An industrial Midwest hub located on the Mississippi River dividing Illinois and Iowa, the Quad Cities are made up of Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, and Moline and Rock Island, Illinois. There are lots of great parks and restaurants there and it is home to agriculture giant John Deere.
The two sister newspapers eventually merged operations. And in June 2017, Lee Enterprises, publisher of the rival Quad-City Times in Davenport, bought out its cross-river competition from the Small family. (See articles by Our QC News, the Quad-City Times, KWQC and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.)

Photos: My profile of Jim’s Rib Haven from the April 28, 1991, edition of the Rock Island Argus. I was saddened to hear that Jim’s Rib Haven has since closed.


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Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Note to Rock Hall: Get back to basics


With the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame preparing nominations for this year’s induction ceremony, it is important that the body pick an exciting, back-to-basics slate of candidates.
I won’t quarrel with the hall’s recent choices, but I wish they rocked a little harder.
Next year will mark the 75th anniversary of what’s considered the first major rock concert, the Moondog Coronation Ball. It was held in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 21, 1952.
So, the voters should keep that milestone event in mind when picking acts from their embarrassingly large backlog of artists.
Rockers who have been previously nominated but not inducted include Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Motörhead, Steppenwolf and Thin Lizzy.
Some other rockers I’d like to see nominated include INXS, No Doubt, Phil Collins, Scorpions and Smashing Pumpkins.
Other people have suggested Boston, Mötley Crüe, Melissa Etheridge, Styx and REO Speedwagon.
Come on, Rock Hall, focus more on rock music this year.

Photo: No Doubt promotional art for their residency at the Las Vegas Sphere.

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Sunday, January 25, 2026

Music residencies make Las Vegas an entertainment destination


For older, established music artists, there’s no need to tour when fans can come to you. That’s the point behind music residencies in Las Vegas, which has become more a destination for entertainment and sports than gambling.
Earlier this month, I saw Jennifer Lopez perform at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace as part of her “Up All Night” residency. JLo put on a great show, singing and dancing to her pop hits and Broadway classics.
The Colosseum has hosted residencies for Adele, Celine Dion, Elton John and more. Aside from JLo, other current and upcoming residencies include Blake Shelton, Def Leppard, Cyndi Lauper, Rod Stewart and Kelly Clarkson.
Another site of Las Vegas residencies is the iconic Sphere arena. It’s hosted U2, the Eagles, Backstreet Boys and Phish. Upcoming shows include No Doubt and Kenny Chesney.
The Dolby Live theater at Park MGM has hosted residencies for Bruno Mars, Janet Jackson, Usher, Maroon 5 and Mariah Carey. Current and upcoming residencies include Zayn Malik and Mary J. Blige.
The Venetian Theatre has featured residencies by Foreigner and The B-52s. Current and upcoming residences include Styx, Collective Soul and Chicago.
Entertainment has become more important to Las Vegas as casino gambling has spread across the U.S. In the past, casinos were only legal in Nevada and New Jersey.
Sports is another tourist draw with the opening in July 2020 of Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders NFL football team.
Plus, the former Oakland Athletics are building a baseball stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. That ballpark for the Las Vegas A’s is due to open spring 2028.
There’s also the T-Mobile Arena, which hosts the Vegas Golden Knights NHL hockey team as well as Ultimate Fighting Championship matches, concerts and other events.

Related articles:

The top 5 greatest Las Vegas residencies of all time (TheStreet; Jan. 9, 2026)

Photo: Promotional photo for Jennifer Lopez residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.



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Saturday, January 24, 2026

‘The Wizard of Oz at Sphere’ was amazing. But what’s next?


The reimagined version of the classic MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz” at the Sphere in Las Vegas is an amazing experience. And it makes you wonder: What could the innovative surround-experience theater do with other old movies?
I watched, rather, experienced “The Wizard of Oz” at the Sphere earlier this month. The beloved 1939 film was digitally upgraded into an immersive movie that dazzles the senses. It fills your field of vision, allowing you to look up and around in the worlds of Oz and Kansas.
It also whips up the wind and blows leaves for the tornado sequence and drops foam apples when the angry apple trees are throwing fruit at Dorothy. Robotic butterflies and flying monkeys also cruise above the audience during their scenes. Plus, the seats rumble and there are other effects.
“The Wizard of Oz at Sphere” has sold 2 million tickets since it bowed on Aug. 28, 2025, raking in more than $260 million in ticket sales, the Hollywood Reporter said.
So what’s the next classic film to get the Sphere treatment? Some have suggested “Star Wars” or “Jurassic Park.”
But I think a good one would be the classic movie musical “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (1971). I’d pay to see that at the Sphere.
Meanwhile, Sphere Entertainment Co. on Jan. 18 announced its intent to build a second U.S. Sphere venue, using a smaller-scale design, at National Harbor in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It will have 6,000 seats vs. about 18,000 seats at the Las Vegas Sphere.
The company had earlier announced plans to build a Sphere arena in Abu Dhabi.

Photos: Promotional art for “The Wizard of Oz at Sphere” (top); artist's depiction of the Sphere at National Harbor.







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