STARTING FIVE

1. There’s No ‘I’ in Teamster

So, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Northwestern football players may unionize. They also may still blow double-digit leads in the fourth quarter when facing ranked teams.

If there were ever a town in which you wanted to flip the game on the NCAA and create a union, that town is Chicago. Ask Studs Terkel.

Good thing? Bad thing? I’m going to go Zen Master on this and say, “We’ll see.”

2. Zooropa

If you read this site often, you know that I love animals.

More than most people.

I don’t apologize for that.

So I don’t quite understand what is taking place at the Copenhagen Zoo, which has exterminated two giraffes and now four lions in the past month. I’m not even sure I want to understand the logic, but can’t they just deport them? Or put them on a boat with an Indian boy? Sell them to Matt Damon?

I hate this.

3. The National’s League

You will be hearing about this film: “Mistaken For Strangers.” It’s a documentary, ostensibly about the indie rock band The National, made by Tom Berninger, the dissipated younger brother of the band’s front man, Matt Berninger. What begins as a band-on-tour doc transforms into a story about the film maker himself, a man who has lived his adult life in his big brother’s shadow and is trying to find his own niche. And, with this film he may have done just that.

Haven’t seen it yet, but it’s getting great reviews. I like to think of it as the “Rain Man” of rock docs.

4. Strangers with Candy Crushed

The company that makes games such as Candy Crush, Farm Heroes and Ultimate Time Suck*, King Digital Entertainment (KING) had its IPO yesterday and the stock plummeted 15%. That’s the worst IPO performance of the year. So, there is hope, people. You do realize that this life thing is not a dress rehearsal, don’t you? This is all we get. So why are you playing Farm Heroes? (“So why are you writing a blog?”) (Hey, I’ll ask the questions here.)

*Not an actual game

5. Pacers Win This Round

The Pacers beat the Heat in an over-caffeinated, thump-your-chest game that ESPN will tout as male soap-opera drama until they (hopefully, for some) meet again in late May. Hey, LeBron scored 38 and looked terrific, but these games that end in the 80s are often ugly and far too physical. Me, I’ll watch the Western Conference where they don’t care so much about winning the line of scrimmage.

 

Reserves

Guilty…Of Love in the First Degree

This is so Florida, except that it happened in the Bay Area: man flirts with a female employee at a fast-food joint named Curry Up Now (there should be a law against that name), then later returns to rob the store. Police abducted him by arranging a phony date with the object of his ardor.