George HW Bush, Christmas Music hot takes and Portugal

The Azores are like the Revis island of Europe. All alone but more than enough to win the day. 

Swimming in the ocean downtown, driving into two different volcanic craters, black sand beaches, hydrangeas everywhere, New England like weather unpredictability, I also drove for the first time outside of America. Interesting. 

Ponta Delgada is like if Ireland, Puerto Rico, has a baby with Portugal- the geography and weather are like a weird combo of Ireland and Puerto Rico. 

Places listening: Canada, Philippines, France, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Malaysia , Jamaica, Mozambique, Gabon (1st time), Tanzania, New Zealand and more

Top Cities listening: Ashburn VA, Ugong Philippines, New Liskeard Canada, Athens Greece, Kuala Lumpur, Maputo Mozambique 

Is Christmas music the original Christian Rock - I mean not quite / cuz one is about Santa (mainly) and one is about Jesus... but there are a ton of Christmas classics that do have religious lyrics “oh come all ye faithful”, “silent night”, “little drummer boy”, “joy to the world.” - so I’m going with kinda 

If Steve perry said. I’ll play faithfully for your wedding ceremony and oh Sheri to kickoff your ceremony... but in the middle we need to play my whole newest album... are you in?

Feel in love w the Fast & the furious: Tokyo Drift In Ponta Delgada. Tokyo drift = fake band name of the week 

The actor who played Han, Sung Kang, is so beloved to me after fast & furious 4, fast 5, fast & furious 6 - that watching him in Tokyo drift was enough to get me excited. 

George HW Bush passes away. 94 years old. Rest In Peace. “Read his letter to Bill Clinton from Twitter”

Westworld Season 2 Preview Podcast

Westworld Season 2 Preview - premiers on April 22nd on HBO

Westworld’s first season ended on Dec 4, 2016 - we’re going to look at the craziest things that have happened since then.

188 listens in Athens, GA this week, Alexandria Egypt #2, Ashburn, VA #3

Australia as a nation third place

UK, Brazil, Portugal, Ireland, Singapore & Poland listened as well.

Ashley Howard, new HC at LaSalle University!

Patrick Reed wins the Masters

Clearly Trump being elected 2 weeks prior to the end of season one, and everything associated with Trump since that time could take up spots 1-200 on this list — but let’s try and keep this as trump free as possible

The women’s march in Washington, which in some ways can be viewed as significant factor in the #MeToo movement

The Patriots have won a super bowl in Dramatic Fashion and Lost a Super Bow in Dramatic fashion - to the Eagles who’d never won one before

We had the Oscars’ best picture of 2017 mix-up with Moonlight belatedly winning after Warren Beatty and Faye Dunnaway messed up the announcement and said the wrong film first

United Airlines went viral for dragging a passenger off of a plane — somehow making every other airline look much better by comparison

We had a congressman - Steve Scalise - shot at a baseball practice for a congressional baseball game - which is very scary stuff

White Nationalism at Charlottesville ripped open longtime wounds and shined a spotlight on how emboldened racists and racist nationalism have become

Hurricane’s wreaked Havoc on Houston and in Florida but most notably destroying a modern day way of life in Puerto Rico - a way of life “electricity and fresh water” that is still not fully back on the island for its citizens

Floyd mayweather and Conor McGregor finally have a boxing match / 8 months later Conor gets arrested for crashing a ufc pay per view and assaulting fellow fighters and attacking a bus

The Las Vegas concert shooting - nuff said

Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and scores of others in Hollywood, business, etc - were all torn to bits by the #MeToo movement

Roy Moore almost wins a senate seat in Alabama despite overwhelming evidence they he is essentially a serial pedophile  

There was a total solar eclipse

Facebook is massively involved in the election tampering by Russia in 2016

The aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas School Shooting - winter 2018 — has been pretty significant

The Mueller investigation seems to be just getting started

Loyola Chicago went to the final four

2017 Winners & Losers plus Big predictions for 2018

Winners and Losers of 2017 

Places listening: Top City this week Bagong Kalsada in the Philippines, crushing it. Mountain View, CA #2 and Los Angeles #3

Dubai of the United Arab Emirates cracked the top 5 for the first time as well. 

First time places — Laos, Vietnam, Luxembourg - over 27 countries listened last week — THANK YOU TO ALL, please leave a review on iTunes and please keep spreading the word

Bud light and Game of Thrones were both winners in 2017 and you need to look no further than the “Dilly Dilly” ad campaign to prove that both were winners

Losers - in some ways Micro Brews — for about 10 years the hipsters fave been leading the “Marco Brew” renaissance with Pabst Blue Ribbon — but in 2017 it felt like commercials started poking major fun at Micro Brews. 

Example one — the Honey Mead Wine guy getting sent to the pit of misery in the Dilly Dilly ads

Example two - Actor Danny Trejo is in a series of Sling TV commercials - there’s one in which he’s a bartender and some yuppie guy is like i’m looking for a microbrew no, a nano brew… and he carries on, and then Danny says, I made this one in my bathtub. And the customers takes it but says something like “That’s so gross”. 

HBO is a loser in some ways too — Peak Game of Thrones only highlights the following - they’ve got nothing ready to replace GOT, people are likely going to turn on GOT during it’s final season, because at least 50% of audience won’t like how it ends

Puerto Rico  is a loser of 2017— the commonwealth of Puerto Rico was decimated and so little has been done about it, that they should have the option to pick a new country to become a territory of. Or better yet, Yankee Swap style — they should get to swap “aid packages” with another part of the country that go aid this year

Also fun fact — Yankee Swaps are called “White Elephant” gift exchanges in North Carolina — and when I was in Philly it was called a pollyanna  

Lavar Ball - despite how many people don’t like him — is a winner — since he came from obscurity. With that said, I’ll be shocked if he’s a winner in 2018 — i think he’s slated to be one of 2018’s biggest losers. 

Winners: Rose McGowan and everybody associated with the #MeToo movement who came forward

Losers: Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey Jerry Richardson and dozens of others who clearly were abusing their powerful places in entertainment, sports, and business

This clearly goes much deeper - but from a media standpoint - does this keep going? Who goes down next? I feel like this could absolutely destroy washington is we let it

ESPN got trounced and the NFL got trounced — post peak front runners getting dismantled is a theme i think will continue in 2018

Gender Reveals and Gender Reveal / Guy in American Flag Jorts in Southie

Possible winners in 2018

Possible losers in 2018 - The Tea Party / radical right — I’m not sure if I can ever bet against republicans wholesale again — but i feel pretty good about “establishment republicans”, independents and left leaning democrats mobilizing en masse in the midterms against the Tea Party. 

Joe Biden Mania — 2018 — I only hope that it doesn’t peak too early

Onesie Christmas Pajamas — the cast of Premier league on NBC are all wearing them today — the amount of matching onesie pajamas on instagram, facebook, snapchat is off the charts — i think the backlash is coming

Jimmy G and the San Francisco 49ers — if this guys stays healthy and they can sign him — as long as he stays healthy and can avoid the “Johnny Manziel pitfalls of fame” — they are going to the playoffs in 2018 and likely for most of the next 7 to 10 seasons 

Kentucky Derby, Parents on Social Media, Canelo Alvarez and Premier League

First Weekend in May is quietly one of the biggest sports weekends of the year

Kentucky Derby 

Some type of a Boxing match — De La Hoya / Mayweather really started this — This year Canelo vs Chavez Jr 

NHL and NBA Playoffs

Premier League Relegation and Promotion drama 

And the 2nd annual Parenting tips and parents on social media filibuster freestyle podcast with Andy Maslin 

What have you noticed since becoming a parent? Is instagram the new home for “kid photos”? Are parents using snap chat? 

How did Andy’s mom like Key West? I’m guessing the Red Garder and the Garden of Eden were both omitted from the tour? 

Puerto Rico notes

Slot machines in airport. Shouldn't those exist everywhere? Soley for enhanced people watching?

Church's chicken is really big in San Juan 

Al's mar azul - this would be a top 5 bar for andy maslin, i believe 

El Batey - been a diver bar for over 60 years - graffiti everywhere - under no obligation to close ever - Johnny Depp and many others have rolled through there. Apparently Benecio Del Toro may or may not have been in there a few times as well 

Vino @ la factoria 

Heard Spanish fallout boy and Spanish Dave Matthews at the Tijuana's in Canado in San Juan 

Derby Pregame : 

Did I see a JetBlue commercial with Tom Brady in it and “Fly” by Sugar Ray? 

Twinspires.com legal app based/ webbed horse betting ? Why is gambling/ Lottery stuff so random in terms of what’s ok and what isn’t? 

Any good Cinco de Mayo party stories from either you or Linda 

Which horse name should be our fake band name of the week? Why kind of band would it be? 

Looking at Lee

Thunder Snow - got hurt out of the gate — sad 

Fast and Accurate 

Untrapped

Always Dreaming - WINNER (was 2:03.59) was always in the top 3 

State of Honor

Girvin

Hence

Irap

Gunnevera

Battle of Midway

Sonneteer

J Boys Echo 

Classic Empire 

McCraken

Tapwrit

Irish War Cry

Gormley

Practical Joke

Patch 

If you could name a horse what would you name it? I think I’d find a way to name mine something like Flavor Flav (just to make it awkward for the announcer or Donkey in honor of the Shrek character 

Wet Track at the derby 

State of honor lead first half mile at 54 to 1 

Arsenal - wins — FA Cup final mathematically still in race for top 4 — poll results - we asked arsenal fans if they’d prefer a Europa league trophy to another early exit from Champions league — 77% of them our of 40 voters said they’d take the guaranteed trophy 

English Football action — Portsmouth wins 6-1 on final day, Plymouth Argyle tied 1-1 and Portsmouth leapfrogged Argyle for the title on Goal Differential 

Leyton Orient and Hartlepool relegated from the Football League / playoffs are Luton Town v Blackpool and Exeter City v Carlisle United - Somehow those guys came in 6th with a GD of +1

Others are all +19 or better 

League One -  Port Vale, Swindon Town, Coventry City and Chesterfield (Gillingham escaped by a point) - Sheffield United dominated the league and joining them in promotion Bolton Wanderers (former premier league stalwart). Playoffs are under way Scunthorpe vs Millwall (tied at Millwall in leg 1) and Fleetwood Town vs Bradford city (bradford won first leg)  

Football Championship: Brighton & Hove are making their first ever trip to Premier League and Newcastle is going straight back up  - Newcastle won and Brighton tied, so the Magpies are the Champions of the championship (they are literally always between the 16th and 21st best team in England - like in baseball when a major league team is essentially a quad-A team 

Playoffs (2 interesting matchups) Reading is the three seed - but have a goal differential of only 4. Fulham is the 6 seed  but have a goal differential of 28 (3rd best in league). Sheffield Wednesday and Hudderfield town both finished with 81 points, but Wednesday is a +15 in GD while huddersfield is a -2. Huddersfield hasn’t been in the top flight since the early 70’s and did win the 1922 FA Cup 

I’m picking Fulham and Sheffield Weds to meet at Wembley - Wednesday hasn’t been up since about 2001 or so 

Wigan and Rotherham are going doing emphatically but poor Blackburn Rovers are relegated on Goal Differential - brutal - they tie with Nottingham Forest, but finished behind them by 2 goals (-10 to -12) 

Canelo Alvarez dominated Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr - basically shut him out 10 rounds to none - next up - He’ll put his 49-1-1 record up against 37-0 Triple G - aka Gennady Golovgin 

USC women’s beach volleyball dramatic win over Pepperdine 3 matches to 2 for their 2nd straight NCAA title — those teams had to travel all the way to Gulf Shores, AL to play each other — it was televised on TBS — what are our thoughts on NCAA sponsoring Beach Volleyball as team sport?