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| Thursday, September 02 | | · | The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things - Toronto International Film Festival |
| · | Billy at Neuqua Valley High |
| Wednesday, September 01 | | · | David Pajo Interview - Punk Planet |
| Thursday, August 19 | | · | Jimmy's studio photos. |
| Saturday, August 14 | | · | Journal Post From Jimmy 8/14 |
| Wednesday, August 11 | | · | James News - Remix of Blue released |
| Thursday, August 05 | | · | Jimmy C. News |
| Wednesday, August 04 | | · | 08.03.04 - Billy Journal Post |
| Monday, August 02 | | · | BC Live show. |
| Friday, July 23 | | · | More Breaking Benjamin News |
| Sunday, July 18 | | · | Jimmy Chamberlin's self-maintained homepage |
| Saturday, July 17 | | · | Pumpkins on GTA: San Andreas Soundtrack |
| · | 07.15.04 - Billy Journal Post |
| Thursday, July 08 | | · | This song so many have covered |
| Wednesday, June 30 | | · | IGN's Breaking Benjamin CD Review |
| Tuesday, June 29 | | · | Corgan's analysis a smashing success |
| Monday, June 28 | | · | The Wrigleyville Report with Billy Corgan |
| · | Billy Corgan: Blinking with Fists |
| Sunday, June 27 | | · | ''Rock's Graduate Student'' |
| · | Looking For A Break |
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| Corgan's analysis a smashing success |
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 xemicus writes "By Paul Sullivan Chicagosport.com
Celebrity Cubs fans are everywhere, and sometimes it's hard to separate the real ones from the Jack Nicholson wannabes. But in his new venture as Cubs reporter for WXRT-FM, Chicago rocker Billy Corgan is putting his credibility squarely on the line.
Every Monday and Friday morning throughout the season, Corgan dishes out opinions on the state of the Cubs during Lin Brehmer's show, critiquing players, coaches and manager Dusty Baker just as rock reviewers critique his music.
"It's like the Cubs coffee klatsch," Corgan said. "It's a little early for me. I'm up, but talking to the world at 8 o'clock is a bit dicey."
But after a few months on the job, the former head of Smashing Pumpkins has quickly built a reputation as the Charles Barkley of local radio for his unfiltered commentaries. In between recording his first solo album and giving his Cubs views, we caught up with Corgan at the Cubs-White Sox series and got an earful:
By Paul Sullivan Chicagosport.com
Celebrity Cubs fans are everywhere, and sometimes it's hard to separate the real ones from the Jack Nicholson wannabes. But in his new venture as Cubs reporter for WXRT-FM, Chicago rocker Billy Corgan is putting his credibility squarely on the line.
Every Monday and Friday morning throughout the season, Corgan dishes out opinions on the state of the Cubs during Lin Brehmer's show, critiquing players, coaches and manager Dusty Baker just as rock reviewers critique his music.
"It's like the Cubs coffee klatsch," Corgan said. "It's a little early for me. I'm up, but talking to the world at 8 o'clock is a bit dicey."
But after a few months on the job, the former head of Smashing Pumpkins has quickly built a reputation as the Charles Barkley of local radio for his unfiltered commentaries. In between recording his first solo album and giving his Cubs views, we caught up with Corgan at the Cubs-White Sox series and got an earful:
Q Do you take this WXRT job seriously?
A "If anybody takes it as a real thing, I'd be shocked. I don't take it seriously. I view it as entertainment. I'm by no means an expert, but then again, I think most 'experts' aren't experts either. It's not journalism. It's strictly entertainment, for fun. 'XRT has been happy with the amount of attention it's received. We have a good time with it, and Lin is a total die-hard Cubs fan like I am. I don't think it's a big deal. It's in the spirit of the team and of the town. It's just fun. I mean, like these Sox fans—they're way too serious."
Q How much effort do you actually put into it?
A "No more than I always do. I pretty much watch almost every Cubs game, either in part or in total anyway. I'm clued in to who's going good, who's going bad."
Q What's your take on the current season?
A "It's a bit like the Lakers. You've got these key injuries, and you keep saying sooner or later it's going to click in. But it still hasn't clicked in. I hope we're not saying six weeks from now it's going to kick in. You see a lot of mistakes being made because of the lack of consistency in the lineup. You'll see bad baserunning, the kind of the plays that even if you're a winning team those things are going to show up in the playoffs.
"I'm worried that even if they get to the playoffs, they won't be a mentally strong team. It's hard to root against them in the sense that at least [general manager] Jim Hendry has put together a team of good character guys that really want to win. They don't seem to give up."
Q Having sung "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series, do you feel linked to the 2003 playoff collapse?
A "It's still a painful thing. How do we know that 25 years from now we're not going to look back and say, 'That's as close as we came.' I just didn't think it was going to get to a Game 7. I was down there in Florida, and it didn't look like they were going to lose. I still think back to that Game 5, where [Carlos] Zambrano went out to the mound and the Cubs looked real relaxed. The pressure was off, they were up 3-1 ... they should've closed it out right there. But Carlos wasn't focused, and the team seemed lackadaisical. It was not a great game, a classic game, but that game kills me too."
Q Are you pro-Dusty or anti-Dusty?
A "Dusty is great for Chicago because he's lightened the whole situation up. I hear a lot of the sports-talk radio, and they're always on Dusty for making weird moves and stuff. I don't think one of those uptight managers would work in Chicago. I think Dusty is the right temperament for Chicago. I think the Cubs have a lot to overcome beyond just winning baseball games—like you saw with the Bartman thing [in Game 6 of the NLCS]. Once that happened, it was like, 'Oh, here we go again.' Dusty has taken the sting out of the image that this is a losing franchise, which is pretty remarkable. He's got the team convinced it's us vs. them, that they're not really worried about what the fans think. It's Dusty's team and his mentality. They're not vexed by the Chicago psyche of never winning. And that's critical for them getting over the hump and winning the World Series."
Q Do you resent celebrity Cubs fans popping up everywhere these days?
A "It doesn't bother me. The only thing I don't like is, like the Lakers, there seems to be a lot of emphasis now on the trendy part of going to a Cubs game, and everyone gets this, 'Gee whiz, aw shucks, can you believe Jim Belushi is showing up at the game?' stuff. The emphasis has to be on the people who support the team—day in, day out—and I always defer to that. I'm a common Cubs fan. I was a common Cubs fan long before I became famous. I'll never forgive the yuppies for moving in back in '84. I'm still mad about that. When the Cubs stopped selling bleachers tickets the day of the game, that was the end of that old Bleacher Bums culture. Now it's just fake Bleacher Bums."
Q Are you optimistic the Cubs can still get it together and win it all?
A "When everyone was saying before the year that the Cubs were the team, I said 'injuries.' It went a little too smoothly last year. It's hard to say this is the year. With free agency, it's not like an NBA team, where a team builds and you can see an arc and then they hit their peak. Kerry Wood's health is obviously still the question mark, whether he can be the kind of 20-game-type winner that we always feel he could be. And [Mark] Prior still hasn't regained his form. I don't know. If this team got really hot, I think they'd start to believe, and they look like they believe they can win. As far as fundamental baseball, though, I still think they're way off from playing consistently. How many games have they lost from something stupid happening? A lot."
Copyright © 2004, The Chicago Tribune
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Posted on Tuesday, June 29 @ 13:29:44 MST by anova |
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