How is everyone’s weekend going? It’s back to being hot in July, the way it should be.
A quick anecdote about the labor shortage we keep reading about…I went into Sports Clips Saturday morning for a haircut. I was one of the first people there. Got in, got out in 15 minutes.
On my way out, I looked at the monitor in the salon listing incoming reservations. The wait? Two hours.
The nice hairdresser whom had just given me my cut said, “it’s just me and one other girl today. No one wants to work.’
This was on a Saturday, when haircuts are in high demand. I’m sure many of you reading have experienced a similar situation at a restaurant or retail store.
When our government is incentivizing people enough not to work, it’s a problem. Those in charge don’t seem to think so.
Today’s Six includes articles on the new face of the NBA, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Chicago’s climate problem, the film disaster that changed Hollywood forever and…rattlesnakes!
Let’s proceed with the Six.
Meet Giannis, The Most Beloved Superstar In The World.
The NBA has made so many missteps in the past year or so, nothing more so than its decision to embrace identity politics and continue to lift up LeBron James as a paragon on virtue (he’s not.) But the league got lucky this summer when the Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA title. It allowed the country to fully adopt Giannis Antetokounmpo as a sports hero. Whether he’s ordering chicken nuggets at a drive through the day after winning the championship, or just doing his job, playing basketball, there is something authentic and genuine about Giannis. He’s worthy of our culture’s attention and hope he becomes the face not just of the NBA, but of professional team sports.
A Battle Between A Great City And a Great Lake.
This is an excellent in-depth piece from the NY Times on the city of Chicago and the three-century conflict between climate change and the city’s water levels. A passage from the article: “…Chicago is built on a shaky prospect — the idea that the swamp that was drained will stay tamed and that Lake Michigan’s shoreline will remain in essentially the same place it’s been for the past 300 years. The lake may have other plans.” This is the kind of article the Chicago Tribune should be doing…but we know what’s happened to that once-great newspaper of late.
Made a trip to Indiana this past week by car and got an up close experience of the state highways in both Illinois and Indiana. As I shouted multiple times to myself while stuck between two semi-trailers, ’is there any road in these states not under construction?!’ It made me think of this article from Texas Monthly magazine, which reports on the how the Texas Department of Transportation is planning on spending $25 billion to widen highways in Texas cities. Unless…as the author writes, “If traffic can expand, it can also contract. Advocates in Texas are at the epicenter of a national movement asking: What if, instead of building our aging roads back wider and higher—doubling down on the displacement that began in the 1950s and the climate consequences unfolding now—we removed those highways altogether? What if we restored the scarred, paved-over land they inhabit and gave it back to the communities it was taken from?” This is obviously not a question being pondered in Illinois or Indiana but an interesting premise for a magazine article.
I enjoy these rise to fame, crashing back down to earth stories of vanity and hubris. This one from Boston Magazine features a shoe executive whom threw lavish parties, flew on private planes and hobnobbed with the rich and famous. Then the other shoe dropped (pun intended) and predictably, all of it was gone. A compelling and entertaining read about the addictive nature of celebrity.
When Hollywood Changed Forever.
Keeping with the theme of hubris and conceit, in the late 1970’s, Hollywood directors holding those two personality traits were all the rage. Then, a studio green lit a movie called “Heaven’s Gate.” The writer-director, Michael Cimino, drunk on power, spent years shooting the movie, alienated everyone involved and when it was released in 1980, was a complete flop. No more would directors be given so much control with studio finances. The Ringer is excellent at these types of historical cultural epitaphs.
Don’t know where Oak Mountain State Park was until someone sent me this clip (it’s in Alabama) but man, if I had been hiking there the other day, this scene would have freaked me out. A massive rattlesnake crosses the road. Lead story on local television that night, I’m sure.
Have a great rest of your weekend everybody. Thanks for reading as always.
Have a suggestion for the Sunday Six? Send email to jon@jonjkerr.com.