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June 30, 2024

June is Over...

A jam-packed update: Olympics prep, film reviews, home entertainment releases, book reviews, interviews, news, and streaming updates!

Willie Mays is interviewed in Say Hey, Willie Mays!
Willie Mays is interviewed in Say Hey, Willie Mays! Courtesy of HBO.

June has come to an end and the last half of the month has been busy between swimming, diving, track and field, and gymnastics. On top of that, the Negro Leagues tribute game between STL and SFG took on a larger meaning with the passing of the late Willie Mays—his passing was followed by Orlando Cepeda, another Baseball Hall of Famer this weekend. I’ll have more about Willie later in the days to come on Dugout Dirt. I’m in the process of reading his recent book, 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid, co-written with John Shea a few years ago. As a reminder, you can click here to view my entire Pandemic Book Club.

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I’ve been doing a lot more weekday reading during the past few weeks. It’s enabled me to read a few more books during June as a result. Since finishing Eruption over Shavuot, I finished two more books this past month. I’m hoping to finish Willie’s book by Shabbos at the latest. It’s 352 pages (including index) and I also have to fit in a Beverly Hills Cop and Founding Brothers marathon. The latter is this year’s planned July 4th programming. Whether I fit in both National Treasure films this week, I don’t know. I still plan to watch the Coney’s National Hot Dog Contest but it won’t be the same without Joey Chestnut. I’ll be watching the various fireworks shows in the evening.

Friday was certainly a day. Never mind the fact that Sundance x Chicago was kicking off and I needed to be downtown. The server hosting SATM decided to go down and had to be restarted. As such, I could not get any work done until late in the afternoon after figuring out the problem. Fun times!

Meanwhile, I’ve learned during the past week that I have a knowledge panel on Google. In short, I’m famous enough for a Google knowledge panel but not enough to have a Wikipedia page. I did have a Wiki page briefly but it was removed within a matter of days.

After tonight, I’ll have my evenings back because I won’t be glued to the U.S. Olympic Team Trials as I’ve been for the past half of the month.

Finally, I went to my first Pride Parade today but not for the expected reasons. No, I specifically went to join the Chicago Jewish Alliance in counterprotesting the protesters. We were originally going to be in one location before making our way down to another location. As another friend told me, this particular contingent ruined the entire vibe of the parade and had no place being in the parade. Chicago fared better than other cities because Toronto was forced to shut down their parade. It shouldn’t bare repeating but there’s NO PRIDE IN ANTISEMITISM.

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Film Reviews:

  • Spermageddon

  • Westworld

  • The Great Train Robbery

  • A Family Affair

  • Reunion

Home Entertainment Releases:

  • The Boys in the Boat

  • The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

  • Money Talks

Book Reviews:

  • Somewhere Out There by Don Bluth

  • Eruption by Michael Crichton and James Patterson

  • The Baseball Talmud by Howard Megdal

  • All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines

Interviews:

  • Jac Fitzgerald - Masters of the Air

News:

  • Freaky Friday 2 Starts Production

  • Jaws @ 50 to Premiere Next Summer

  • The 2024 ESPYS Nominees

  • The 2024 ESPYS Special Honorees

Olympics:

  • Beach Volleyball Commentators

  • Trials - Track and Field

  • Michael Phelps Returns to Broadcast Booth

  • NBC Sending Over 150 Commentators

  • Trials - Gymnastics

  • Steven Spielberg Welcomes Viewers to Paris 2024

  • Peacock - Paris 2024 Programming

  • U.S. Olympic Trials Crashing on Peacock’s Roku App

Streaming—Coming and Leaving:

  • Netflix

  • Max

  • Prime Video/Amazon Freevee

  • Paramount+

  • Peacock

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