September 26, 2021
Task update: My house is still not clean (a Sisyphean task), but I'm on roughly page 150 of Dune. Before we get to the SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS.
TENNIS FASHION POWER RANKINGS
I'm not so much interested in who wore it best as opposed to which athletic clothing brand has the best line. Tennis is nothing if not the Project Runway of sports. I suppose you could argue for the NBA being the more fashion forward sport, but in tennis, the arena of competition also serves as the runway. I also enjoy the absurdity of a sport that collectively decides that 1994 was the definitive year for fashion. No sport has ever embraced bright neon quite like tennis.
1) Fila
Bjorn Borg's 1976 Wimbledon outfit:
It's pretty much defined classic tennis fashion for all time. After dabbling in wild patterns and tie dye during pandemic the times, Fila's US Open 2021 line was a return to clean and simple. And it looked
pretty good on pretty much everyone who wore it.
Fila also sponsors
Karolina Pliskova who made it work in black or white, day or night.
Fila is an Italian company, so they should be good at this.
2) Asics
Asics got an unexpected boot out of Leylah Fernandez making the finals. While Gael Monfils usually looks good in anything, that top plays. But where Asics really made a play for #1 with this dress worn by Iga Swiatek:
The piping around the neck and shoulders is all class. Jen Brady also wore it in Cincinnati. Alas, her foot injury prevented her from rocking the Flex Seal patch in New York.
3) Adidas
Adidas took a perfectly good color and pattern for the North American hard court swing:
and did this to it for the US Open:
Instant downgrade. I'm a fan of green, but that was even worse when they went for a yellow-green shade I like to describe as puke:
Adidas's saving grace is that they understand their responsibility to Maria Sakkari's prodigious shoulders:
But then they gave her a skirt that was a size too big for the semis against Raducanu:
I think their shoe where "adidas" is spelled out in block letters on the inside is dumb. No offense to anyone who wore them. Old school hip hop acts got it wrong. Always rock Fila.
4) Lacoste (Men)
Lacoste is lucky to be the clothing sponsor for the two best men's players on the planet right now. I thought Medvedev looked better in white and green:
than he did in his finals blue:
but it was still a good look. Djokovic does try at the fashion game:
but rarely dazzles. I'm convinced it's because he's had the same nondescript hair style his entire time on tour. I'm trying not to be a Djokovic hater, but I just don't get his personalized logo.
It's a 'D' (for obvious reasons) with some kind of flaccid... thing... attached to it.
It's besides the point because if you're focusing on Nole's fashion and not that of his player box:
But your kidding yourself if you think anyone else besides Bianca Andreescu's Mom is winning the player box fashion power rankings:
5) Everyone else
New Balance usually puts Coco Gauff and Milos Raonic in something cool. Coco wore a pink skirt and Milos didn't play. I think Yonex might have had a decent outfit in circulation, but I couldn't name a player who has them as clothing sponsor and not just a racquet sponsor. Head was worn by a few players, including Barbora Krejicova. They seem to make functional athletic clothing. You've also got your Lotto's, your Mizuno's, your Joma's. Lotto usually has at least a few top players.
But the ladies are not tuning into a Matteo Berrettini match for the clothes.
6) Nike
For all the female players who ... didn't really go to high school and so never got to be on the cheerleading squad - Nike's got you covered. pic.twitter.com/cN6gr0FQnt
— Stephanie Myles (@OpenCourt) August 27, 2021
Truth.
7) Lacoste (women)
Pavs is great and I like that color, in theory, but there was a match where both players were wearing that outfit and it brought into stark relief that something was off.
The CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS
These recaps are more of a celebration of the show than they are a review, but this was one of those rare times when none of the subjects from the show truly grabbed my attention. Maybe it's because I biked 100 km in the morning and then hung out with my rambunctious nephews before watching the episode Sunday evening. I was tired.
1) Seth Doane
Seth played the Italy card once again. The top spot goes to the Italian city of
Maurice interviews Adrienne Warren who plays Tina Turner in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. That's 3 Tinas and 2 Turners for those counting. Surprisingly, I think it is Maurice's first appearance in the power rankings, It can only mean that his phenomenal Desus and Mero profile predates the power rankings, because that would have been a #1 for sure.
Maurice gets a bump because I just like listening to and watching old clips of Tina Turner. One of my favorite songs:
It's a true shame how problematic anyone involved with this song not named Tina Turner is. I'm talking the ignoble combo of Ike Turner and Phil Spector folks. And while one can shudder at the emotional and physical pain Tina went through during this period of her life, let's leave Ike behind in the dustbin of history and instead focus on how she persevered and thrived.
I have a vivid memory of randomly channel surfing one day and coming across a Tina Turner concert from somewhere it Europe. To this day, I don't know why it was on the low powered TV broadcast station Channel 25 WBQC but something caught me about the way a single person could perform to, I don't know, 60-80,000 people. She's a rock star.
Question: Are there any references to Beyond Thunderdome in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. If there, I'm on next plane to Broadway and someone grab me a seat at any price:
In case you need more Tina Turner/CBS Sunday Morning content, here's the Gayle King interview.
3) Lee Cowan
Lee Cowan talked to Drew Carey about the 50th Anniversary of The Price is Right. There isn't a person with a television who didn't love the show as a kid, because it came on at 11 AM and if you were watching it meant you weren't at school. We all assumed we were experts and could beat 99% of the actual show contestants, save the ultra rare double showcase winner. Sometime during my teens the margin for winning the double showcase was widened from $100 to $500. Is that when The Price Is Right jumped the shark? The Price is Right didn't jump the shark. We did. Or at least I did. We'll always have the commercials for Breyer's frozen desserts and Happy Gilmore:
Regarding Drew Carey, I had moved beyond the realms of daytime television by the time he took over for Bob Barker. I did enjoy the original incarnation of Whose Line Is It Anyway in my teen years when White America was beginning it's infatuation with Wayne Brady during my freshmen year of high school I also watched way more of The Drew Carey show in syndication than I care to admit. It somehow lasted on TV for 9 years, largely on the strength of a song, the attractiveness of Kate (ah yes, the sitcom trope of attractive women who date schlubby guys), and someone who was in Office Space sporting a fu manchu.
All of this maybe a little mean to Drew and the efforts of those who kept in on the air all those years. I like Drew Carey because he seems like a genuine, regular guy. He just seems to be on TV about twice as long as you expected him to be.
Susan Spencer's cover story is about family estrangements. I've never really dealt with that directly. But every family has its skeletons and some of mine were perhaps kept extra hidden. I do know what it's like to be cut of someone's life that I was very close to. It was not a total excommunication, but it still sucks.
In the words of Man in Blazer, Roger Bennett quoting the poem "The Mower" by Phillip Larkin:
...we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.
Reason 327 why I need to go out West and just hang out for a few months: The Painted Desert. Unfortunately, for both me and Horace Greely, I don't think I count as a young man anymore.
6) David Pogue
I'm not exactly sure why David Pogue is covering Broadway since his beat is usually science and technology. Shrug. Maybe he's a big Princess Di fan. (As big a fan as he is of ELO?) C'est la vie. It just goes to show you that can't pigeonhole anyone this show.
Another week, another museum for Serena Althchul. Not that I'm complaining because for the first time in the history of the rankings, she makes back to back appearances. And Serena is just delightful.
This week focuses on a car themed exhibit at MoMA. (Yeah, I'm an art acronym person now.)
I am (or maybe was) a big fan of the original BBC incarnation of Top Gear. To the point a secret life goal was to own an Alfa Romeo. However given environmental and commercial concerns, I don't have the same feeling for cool cars as I once did. I'm hoping my trusty, scratched up Mazda3 lasts another 100K miles and then I can just go electric. And maybe I can still enjoy Top Gear. Environmentally, I can't, but the cars were always a vehicle (see what I did there?) for the hosts to peddle top shelf foolishness. Speaking of fashion... James May!
8) Mola Lenghi
I tend to not take life advice from millionaire CEOs of billion dollar companies, but if I did, I'd take it from Indra Nooyi before Sheryl Sandberg.
Anyway, welcome to the power rankings Mola Lenghi.
9) Steve Hartman, David Byrne (tie)
On Hartman: Women of Louisiana feed the men sent to restore their power after Hurricane Ida. The constant references to linemen is very confusing now that the NFL season is underway, or so I'm told.
On Byrne: I did go to one concert this summer, so I sort of did my part to support pandemic ravaged indie venues. There was something nice about being around other people. Last concert I went to, I definitely felt like "the old guy" there. This time, not so much. If you're not up to venturing out, just stay in and watch the greatest concert film of all time Stop Making Sense. It's also just one of the great films of all time. I appreciated that they used a clip from "Life During Wartime" as that is one of my favorite numbers from the movie. Who am I kidding? They're all my favorite. I can't choose.
10) Jane Pauley
No Teichnerizing this week. Jane served strictly in host capacity this week. As a man, I am aware of only the 10-12 colors that come in a box of basic crayons. (I never liked markers for coloring as a kid - this ink got on your hands. Never happens with crayons.) But I am forced to admit that her near white outfit this week was not white. More of a cream, I guess? A concession to the cooling weather. Fall is here.
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