How's Your Bracket?

I first published a version of this in March of 2021 for my column, Unpacking the Backpack. I've revised and updated it a bit.

“How’s your bracket?”

Every March that phrase replaces the standard “how are you, how’s it going, what’s up,” and it honestly leads to more authentic conversations than those other meaningless queries ever could. The coming of spring also brings about the NCAA basketball tournament where 64 college teams (or actually 68 with the advent of the play-in games - still a bit controversial in terms of seeing) try to dance their way to a national championship. But it’s more than a tournament, more than an athletic competition. It’s a nationwide interactive shared communal experience known as March Madness. And the password to join the party is “How’s your bracket?”

Filling out the bracket offers so much more than just a chance to predict basketball games and perhaps win the office pool. The bracket becomes an opportunity for personal connection, for it seems like March Madness is the one time a year everyone becomes a college hoops fan, much like everyone watches football on Super Bowl Sunday. The brackets are all about competition, but in the least divisive form you’ll ever find. The brackets and the NCAA tournament offer a chance for all people, even strangers in line at the coffee shop or in the ice cream aisle, to engage in a shared community experience.

Everyone is qualified to fill out brackets, and there are many systems for picking winners. My teenage daughter filled hers out by considering which college she’d be more likely to attend. In the college application game it was a fun way to explore places we’ve never considered. Drexel, for example, is a great business school in Philly, Gonzaga is a liberal arts mecca in beautiful Spokane, and Mizzou is the spot for journalism, including sports broadcasting. And who knew there were so many colleges in Pennsylvania? One year, former NBA star and TNT analyst Charles Barkley may have known, but he also openly admitted he didn’t have the slightest idea where Colgate is, which became a great source of good-natured ribbing from his broadcasting crew. This year everyone is asking what High Point University is, and where. It's in North Carolina, by the way. And it has quite an interesting story.

While anyone can win their pool, the chance of a perfect bracket is an astronomical one in 9.2 quintillion. From a sporting standpoint, the NCAA bracket of sixty-four teams and a win-or-go-home mentality is the ultimate equalizer and meritocracy. The tourney provides every school an equal chance to win, and the filling out of a bracket gives everyone a reason to care in a way casual fans aren’t always able. Bracketology is actually a thing - it’s the “science” of choosing your teams. The idea of the bracket has even expanded beyond the NCAA basketball championship, and there are now brackets for everything from Oscar-winning films to the best taco restaurants in Denver.

March Madness is a wonderful time of Cinderellas and bracket-busters, of Davids shocking Goliaths, and a time when hope springs eternal. Like spring training in baseball, March Madness is uplifting, a much needed feeling after our year of pandemic despair. And there are endless stories of life changing tournament moments. For example, 2008 found future NBA All-Star Steph Curry leading his underdog Davidson Wildcats to the Elite Eight and opening the door to one of the greatest NBA careers ever. Tiny Butler in Indiana became a national phenomenon because of its tournament prowess. And, few people had ever heard of Valparaiso University until the father-son team of Homer and Bryce Drew danced their way to the Sweet Sixteen in 1998.

Obviously, it's just a basketball tournament, but filling out a bracket seems more special. Common experiences are the essence of community, and our traditions are what Yuval Levin, scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, worries are fading from the American fabric. In his recent book A Time To Build about the importance of “recommitting to our institutions,” Levin describes the “durable forms of our common life” that maintain social connectivity. Among these are traditions and shared experiences that remind us we are more alike than different, and we can always find common ground, even if that place is simply in a gym cheering exuberantly for an obscure college from some far-flung part of the country to make a Cinderella run and crash the Big Dance.

So, how’s your bracket?

Flea, bassist for the Chili Peppers, releases jazz album

For a Gen Xer like me who reveled in 90s era rock, Flea is one of, if not the, greatest bass players of the age. It wasn't just a bass line - it was funk, punk, jazz, soul, blues, rock, R&B, and more that grounded one of the most distinct and exciting bands in the post-punk, alternative rock scene that made the time so special. And the band has had a staying power that is nothing short of impressive.

Because I am a bit of a music geek - and music writer - I tend to learn about the stories "behind the music," and so I knew of Flea's jazz background even in the early days. Flea's first musical love was jazz, fostered by his dad, and his first musical instrument was the trumpet. Despite an incredible run in alternative rock, Flea has never lost or given up his love of the trumpet and the genre of jazz. And that's why it's so exciting for music fans to learn Flea is about to release his first solo album - a primarily instrumental jazz collection with a fun string of collaborators.

The album drops at the end of the month, but the New York Times has a feature previewing and spotlighting his work -  "How Did Flea Make a Jazz Album? Practice, Practice, Practice."

For two years, the musician known as Flea led a double life.

From 2022 through 2024, he spent his nights headlining stadiums on five continents with his band the Red Hot Chili Peppers, thrilling tens of thousands of fans at each gig with his funk-meets-punk bass playing and hyperactive performances. Back in the hotel rooms, though, he filled his mornings with a more private pursuit: religious daily practice on the trumpet, an instrument he first picked up as a child.

“I just felt really lucky to have that time,” he said in a video interview last month from his Los Angeles home, a rack of basses visible behind him. He recalled relishing the struggle inherent in the process, feeling “frustrated on the days when I felt like I wasn’t getting any better, really excited on the days where I felt like I got a modicum, [using an expletive of exasperation] centimeter, millimeter better.”

The Staggering Problems of Online Sports Betting

When the state of Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, I was fairly certain it was a bad idea that would have far reaching residual effects that few proponents or voters expected. While I understood some of the reasoning behind the law, I thought decriminalizing weed would have been better and was likely as far as governments should go. In terms of vice, laws of prohibition are never quite as effective as they are hoped or touted to be, and they also have unforeseen residual effects that extend or exacerbate a problem rather than resolve it.

Legalized sports betting seemed to be less of a red flag when the Supreme Court paved the way by ending the ban in 2018. While I'm not a big gambler, I have certainly wagered on sports, participating in Super Bowl prop bets and, of course, March Madness with the ubiquitous world of "bracketology." And, even when I first started noticing ads for Draft Kings and Fan Duel, I had no serious unease about the legalization, as I did with weed. 

Alas, the gambling vice might be just as bad. 

Last week, writer McKay Coppins dropped a bombshell of an investigative report in The Atlantic with his article "Sucker: My Year as a Degenerate Sports Gambler."

Since 2018, Americans have wagered more than half a trillion dollars on sports, and roughly half of men ages 18 to 49 have an active account with an online sportsbook. Throughout most of America’s history, gambling was heavily regulated and generally discouraged. In 1631, Puritans banned games of chance in Plymouth Colony “under pain of punishment.” In 1794, a Pennsylvania law prohibited “cockfighting, cards, dice, billiards, bowling, shuffleboard, horse racing, or any other type of gambling.”

Laws varied by state and century, but the practice always came with a healthy social stigma, one rooted in millennia of accumulated wisdom. To humanity’s great thinkers and leaders, gambling was an impediment to an ethical life (Aristotle), an invention of the devil (Saint Augustine), and a tax on the ignorant (Warren Buffett). It fostered selfishness and a something-for-nothing ethos that was poisonous to the soul. George Washington went so far as to warn that “every possible evil” could be tied to gambling: “It is the child of avarice, the brother of inequity, and the father of mischief.” As a result, gambling was largely contained to certain disreputable corners of society, such as riverboats, red‑light districts, and Nevada. For a time, it was the near‑exclusive province of leg‑breaking bookies and pin-striped criminals. Later, Native American reservations and offshore bookmakers got in on the action.

But professional sports leagues remained determined to keep gambling at a distance. High-profile scandals—the White Sox World Series fix in 1919, the Mafia-instigated point-shaving scheme at Boston College in 1978—had convinced commissioners that betting posed an existential threat to organized sports. In June 1990, officials from the major U.S. leagues testified before the Senate. Paul Tagliabue, then the NFL commissioner, captured their shared assessment: “Nothing has done more to despoil the games Americans play and watch than widespread gambling on them.”

And, I fear Tagliabue is correct.

It's Pi Day!

What is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, and also a delicious dessert?
It's Pi - 3.14159 ...

March 14 is Pi Day, and being the father of a rather math-y kid while also working as a school administrator and sponsor of a positive school culture leadership group, I spent many years organizing a "Pi Recitation Contest" where I worked. It's such a simple, fun, and unique challenge. The winner won a pie, with second and third place receiving a half-pie and mini-pie respectively. 

My own son could rattle off several hundred digits - I think the 600 range was his best - and the school record when I was there was nearly 1,700 digits. That is mind blowing to many people, but not those in the world of mathletes and GT brainiacs. And if you really want your mind blown, get this:  the world record is 70,000 digits.

So, this year, I did it again at my new school, and while it was certainly not the same experience I had at a school filled with mathletes, it was fun. And two of the top three students were a couple boys that no one would ever guess would try the challenge, much less win it. 

How many digits can you recite?

Battle of the Books, March Madness-style

Bracketology takes over every March with the event the NCAA Basketball Tournament. And the idea of bracket competition extends far beyond the world of basketball, from the Grammys to the Oscars to the best tacos in town and more. This year, the world of EdTomorrow brings us a "Battle of the Books" with a bracket-style competition for the best in children's literature.

What would you choose in a contest between the contemporary blockbuster of Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone in a head-to-head read-off with the legendary Little House on the Prairie?

Is the NBA becoming the NBE?

The National Basketball Entertainment league -- that's what it kind of feels like these days.

Bam Adebayo's "record-setting" 83-point game the other night is just one more example of a league that is increasingly criticized for spectacle and flash over substance and standards. Traveling seems to no longer be a rule at all, carrying the ball has replaced the dribble, "load management" is standard practice for taking a night or week off, hand checking by the defense is still a no-no while star players can push and shove defenders with their free hand, and the theatrical flopping by some of the biggest stars has reached a level that puts European soccer to shame. 

For basketball fans who remember earlier eras like the 90s with Jordan, Barkley, Ewing, Olajuwon, Malone and more, the 80s with Magic and Kareem battling Bird and Parrish with the Pistons playing the bad boys, and 70s with the legendary Dr. J, the current loose game and lax standards for the fundamentals of roundball just feels like a superficial, over-commercialized video game in real life. Granted, it's always the case that the older generation criticizes the younger one as "not as good as it used to be." And that may certainly be a subjective reality. Yet it's difficult to argue today's game isn't different. 

Personally, the record by Bam holds little weight with me because it seemed so contrived. A center tossing up 22 three-point shots is absurd, as is that same player going to the line for 43 foul shots. The Wizards are a team that is clearly tanking a season, so the competitive edge was lax at best. And fans can literally see Miami Coach Erik Spoelstra laughing on the sidelines toward the end, leaving a player in as his team blatantly fouls to extend the game time. While Bam is certainly a solid NBA player and even an All-Star selection, he is nowhere near the caliber of talent and impact of the legendary Kobe Bryant, whose record he supposedly just surpassed. 

So, for this NBA fan, that NBA record is certainly one with an asterisk, as are many of LeBron's longevity awards. The game is what it is, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver, as well as the players association clearly want it that way. They'll continue to make their billions, and I will still watch the game. But I am less than impressed.

The Return of the Mall Rat, Gen-Z style

The mall is not dead. In fact, it's not only not dead - the mall is back!

As a 56-year-old Generation X male, I grew up at the mall in the heyday of the mall. Even in my small town of Alton, outside St. Louis, the Alton Square Mall was a vibing place with numerous options for tweens and teens to hang out. Playing Defender at Tilt, browsing concert posters and somewhat racy items at Spencer Gifts, flipping through record/cassette/CD collections at Record Bar and Musicland, trying on endless pairs of sneakers at Foot Locker ... there was no shortage of crass commercial consumerist indulgences. It was the 80s, and honestly the classic mall film Fast Times at Ridgemont High captured the spirit quite well. 

Alas, we've all noticed, noted, and occasionally lamented the demise of the shopping mall in the twenty-first century. Countless abandoned mall properties sitting like industrial graveyards across the United States remind us of how online shopping decimated many local economies. No matter how many times properties try to rebrand and remodel, the golden age of malls has certainly passed. Yet, there are pockets of thriving mall life across the country, such as Park Meadows Mall in Lone Tree, Colorado, where I've been for the past quarter century. 

In fact, a couple years ago I pondered and pitched a few magazine pieces about Park Meadows and how "the mall is not dead." I proposed spending a weekend at the mall as a "mall writer in residence" to spotlight and capture the spirit of what has enabled Park Meadows and mall culture to continue thriving in a southeast Denver suburb. Unfortunately, I had no takers on the feature and quietly moved on to other writing projects. However, it appears I'm not the only one noticing and writing about the mall.

For Gen Z -- the obvious offspring of Generation X -- the mall is still the place to be, as A New Generation of Mall Rats Has Arrived.  According to this recent Wall Street Journal feature, there is a new group of young people living the mall rat life, but in an update for the digital age and twenty-first century, this group is filled with social media mavens and influencers who are documenting the experience:

Savera Ghorzang scrolls through her phone all the time. But when she needed an outfit for her Valentine’s Day date, the 24-year-old went to the mall.

“I don’t really like online shopping,” she said. “I’m an instant-gratification girl. I need it now.” Ghorzang held her phone in one hand and a $29 black lace top in the other as she documented her shopping trip on Instagram.

The first digitally native generation is resurrecting an old-fashioned American pastime: Shopping at the mall.

Gen Z’s retail-spending growth is outpacing all other generations, according to data firm NielsenIQ, with the generation’s global annual retail spending expected to exceed $12 trillion by 2030. The cohort also spends a greater proportion of their discretionary dollars in physical stores than older generations, according to data firm Circana.

Younger shoppers’ mall enthusiasm is a bright spot for a business that has struggled with property closures and declining foot traffic in recent years, in part because the millennial generation never warmed to hanging out at the mall in the same way Gen X had. Gen Z has helped boost a recent recovery, with demand for mall space rising again.

Scrubs reboot is a perfectly updated bit of nostalgia

Dr. Dorian and Turk are back at it in the same ol' adorable fashion, as if they ever really went away.

Scrubs was an exceptional show during its first run that debuted in the fall of 2001. In a long litany of provocative, engaging, poignant, and occasionally humorous medical dramas in the world of American sitcoms, Scrubs offered something different. It deftly balanced the poignant with the whimsical, the serious and thoughtful with the wild and wacky, as viewers experienced the first year of residency for three promising young doctors at the fictional Sacred Heart Hospital.

Like far too many network shows, it went on for a bit too long, but the first three seasons were pure storytelling magic, and the series from talented showrunner Bill Lawrence was quite innovative in its narrative arcs as well as its adept use of indie music, a quality it shared with other new shows like The O.C. and One Tree Hill. I still have a CD of the soundtrack from the first season, which introduced me to bands like The Shins. That unique quality was a key part of the show's character, and I have a feeling the music was influenced by the musical tastes of Zach Braff whose first independent film Garden State was another sweet example of the incredible indie music in 90s-2000s film and television.

I've only seen two episodes of the new show at this point, but as I watched the end of the second episode last night, I was struck by how perfectly the show has re-captured the magic. As Dr. Dorian narrates the conclusion of several storylines, including the personal and professional struggles of the young resident mirroring his initial role, the line that grabbed me was something like this:  "We try to do as much good as we can every day for one shift, and then we go home." The wise but difficult wisdom could have easily been drawn from an early episode with the blunt Dr. Cox softening just for a moment to counsel J.D.

Ben McKenzie of "The OC" fame, a Cryptocurrency expert & critic

Who knew that Ryan from The O.C. had such range?

I mean, we all remember the incredibly fun character arc of the kid from Chino who is taken in by Sandy and Kristen Cohen, and ultimately finds success in life as an architect and engineer, coming full circle in the final scene of the show. But, I'm not actually talking about Ryan. I recently learned that actor Ben McKenzie is a pretty smart dude as well, and he is also a well-known student of and critic of the world of cryptocurrency.

McKenzie became a "crypto-skeptic" back in 2021 after beginning to learn more about the strange underground currency during the pandemic, and, along with journalist Jacob Silverman, published the book Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud in 2023. McKenzie also directed (in his debut behind the camera) the documentary film "Everyone is Lying to You." A key to McKenzie's interest in and skepticism of crypto is his college degree in economics. Apparently, when he first began looking into the enigma, he thought, "If I can't understand this with an economics degree," then what exactly is this huge new financial monster?

$14,000 a month as a Crossing Guard? Well, not exactly.

Ah, the artists and the writers -- the "creatives" -- who see beauty and meaning where no one else has noticed it, and capitalize on that. They have my awe and respect.

Take for example, Christine Tyler Hill, an artist recently profiled in the Wall Street Journal:

Christine Tyler Hill was working as a designer and illustrator when she decided she needed a fresh way to connect to her city. So she took a job as a crossing guard.

Every weekday morning at 7:30, she stands at an intersection in Burlington, Vt., ensuring the safe passage of pedestrians, including children heading to a nearby school. During her 50-minute shift, she also takes in the scene, from the daily rhythms of commuters to the familiar faces to the shape of the clouds in the sky.

Those observations pay well. Very well. The 36-year-old has parlayed interest in her daily musings into a one-woman publishing empire that is bringing in about $14,000 a month.

Hill is part of a small group of creative types who have found healthy demand for analog subscription services in a world of digital screens. They create or curate packets of art prints, stickers, letters and commentary covering topics from architecture to food to their daily routines. They often use social media to find and market to fans but the real connection happens offline.

I've admired (and, yes, envied) people like Christine who have found their niche and have the inspiration, persistence, and work ethic to see their vision to fruition.

It's Casimir Pulaski Day! IYKYK

There's no school and banks and government offices are closed in the state of Illinois in honor of Casimir Pulaski Day. Celebrated on the first Monday in March, Casimir Pulaski Day is in member of the Revolutionary War hero who is also considered the father of the U.S. Cavalry. Pulaski is also one of only eight people to be awarded honorary United States citizenship.

The reason Casimir Pulaski day is celebrated in Illinois is because the city of Chicago has the largest Polish population anywhere in the world outside of Warsaw. Thus, for many years Pulaski was celebrated with festivals and parades around the city of Chicago. And in 1977, the day became a state holiday.

The 'Burbs on Peacock

I vaguely remember the movie The 'Burbs, starring Tom Hanks, when it came out in 1989, and while it was generally interesting, it's not the first thing that springs to mind when pondering a remake or update. And, yet, in the era of un-originality and knock-off marketing, here we are with a limited series on Peacock that explores the idea that even in the finely manicured world of suburban America -- or especially in that setting -- all is not well on Paradise Drive.

I've watched half of the season so far - four episodes - and while the show is reasonably engaging, I'm not overly impressed. In all honesty, from the first few minutes of the first episode, which was clever enough, my first connection wasn't the 1989 movie, but the 2004 television series Desperate Housewives, which had an impressive opening season ... but went on far too long. The Raymond Chandler-esque narrative of a seedy rotten dark side to the American Dream was quite entertaining and unique at the time. But like too many network shows, it was induced to stick around far longer than the original writer's inspiration could take it. 

If The 'Burbs is a single-limited series that exceeds the promise of its premise, I will be impressed. But if it devolves into cliche and cheaply sets itself up for syndication, I will be quite disappointed.