.life happens

while the world was with their significant others, eating overrated chocolate, staring into each other’s eyes as if it were the first time, some of us were relegated to doing chores, errands, etc. 

i dont buy into valentine’s day; whether im single now or when i was dating someone last valentine’s day. just an excuse for shitty boyfriends/girlfriends to not be so shitty for one day, where everyone gets a pass as long as your provide the requisite chocolate covered strawberries and overpriced roses. 

saturday night after work, i came home to watch SNL on DVR. melissa mccarthy is funny, but i really wanted to see if Kanye did Kanye things. he was pretty baseline, except for his mini spazzout after his 2nd performance. but SNLs opening skit, “The Day Beyonce Turned Black” was one of their funniest skits in as long as i can remember. they absolutely destroyed that piece. there has been so much push back on “Formation” & Beyonce’s Super Bowl performance. if you’re Beyonce, how can you not making a statement when you have that kind of reach and audience during the highest rated tv spectacular of the year? 

anyways, SNL killed it.

so i woke up sunday in a pretty miserable mood bc i knew that social media would be flooded with overthought out lines about loved ones. [but thats who were are nowadays. if we dont say how much we love someone on social media, we dont love them at all]. i went and did my laundry, vacuumed the apartment, cleaned my room, etc. normal sunday bullshit.

there was about a 4 hour void i had to fill between cooking an early dinner and the debut of a highly anticipated night of tv, for me at least. Vinyl was debuting on HBO, John Oliver was back behind the desk, Billions is starting to really get good. and i cant forget Shameless. 

what i wasn’t ready for was the two hour series premiere from Vinyl. i was slightly skeptical because of all the big names attached. too many cooks in the kitchen theory. but nonetheless i was anxious to see what they did. and they did not disappoint. in those one hour and fifty some odd minutes, they developed a range of characters that make you feel as if the show has been on an entire season. Bobby Cannavalle as the lead was perfect casting. 

Vinyl does this balancing act of creating the character, Richie Finestra, giving his backstory of his drug habits, signing someone off of the street as he did with Lester Grimes [Ato Essandoh], creating a monster label and then the lows he has fell to where the episode ends. i feel like i know the character Richie at an in-depth level. 

my hopes for this show are sky high. 

then after Vinyl, i watched Billions. which has become maybe the most underrated show on tv. it doesn’t feel as if this show is getting its proper due. 

and finally i ended the night with the return of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. outside of Stephen Colbert, i think Oliver has the best news oriented show on tv. 

after investing almost three hours in tv to end my night, i had forgotten it was valentine’s day and i couldn’t have cared less at that point.

jan. 14. 11:39pm. 

the stank of the 2015 season still wafts under my nose. more so now than ever as the supposed successor to Andy Reid Chip Kelly, has been named without being named. Doug Pederson. 

when Lurie and his road dog Howie Roseman decided they wanted to revert to the way things were, the good ole days, and dispose of Kelly 5 days before the season finale, everyone in Philly knew the off season was going to stink of something fierce. there wasn’t a genuine excitement of who could be the next HC, as there was 3 years ago when Chip was brought in. the list of names the Eagles were set to interview inspired...nothing. Adam Gase, Ben McAdoo [though never reported by Eagles supposed “beat writers”], Duce Staley, Tom Coughlin and Pat Shurmur. 

let that list sink in. that was the extent of which Lurie and Roseman felt the need to cast their net. 

were things perfect with Chip? nope.

was Chip the best HC in the NFL? nope.

but there was something that he brought. excitement. good or bad, you knew things were going to be kept interesting. 

fans want to feel engaged. feel like they are really a part of something. 

Chip’s demeanor didn’t exude the inclusive feeling, no. but, for the most part, it was a team that you could rally around. [except Riley fucking Cooper. karma caught up to Chip there].

i was sure as hell following every whiff of news coming out of south philly though. i always felt as though, for whatever reason, if they could just string a few things together here, and tie up a few loose ends there, that the Eagles were a playoff team [if not a team that could win a playoff game]. 

maybe i am just a sucker. maybe its because i had originally touted Chip as the person who would revitalize the franchise. but he became punch drunk on power and seemed to have lost his way. 

i still believe that he was the right selection, for that team, at the time, in this city. 

but for a city with no Super Bowl wins, we have become power hungry. in the most undeserved of ways. we let Andy Reid stick around for 14 years, long after the love was gone.

did losing DeSean Jackson and Shady McCoy suck from a fans perspective? yupp. they were playmakers, in a league where offense is king, they were gone by the wayside. but i seem to remember not winning anything with them either. so i was all in, and ready to embrace the future, no matter the bumps in the road. 

in the twitter age of instant, hot takes for all, philly was the worst of the bunch.