Josh Kingsley

The Wisconsin State Fair is my life at the moment. Please understand this isn’t me calling it my favorite time of the year. It’s closer to the opposite. I live four blocks from the grounds in what is otherwise a mostly residential area of West Allis. We do have a nice main street drag, so there is an urban/commercial factor. Furthermore, we are roughly 10 minutes from the Fair grounds. However, the area is largely small town residential. The majority of the area runs on single lane streets with some intermittent turning lanes.

Let me focus the first sentence: State Fair completely takes over my neighborhood. I’m a social person, so the vibrancy has some attraction. It is cool seeing all the people at the park and spending money in my favorite local establishments.I’m also incredibly impatient. The traffic State Fair creates embodies a clear version of my personal hell. Many of my typical drive paths go away with lane closures and they all clog to the busiest of peak conditions. It simply takes longer to get anywhere and I don’t like it. This year provides a couple additional factors. First, things truly look back to normal in a post Covid world. More people are out and about. Second, timing lined up on a major local bridge reconstruction, which totally shut down one of the three major exits from the freeway. That part sucked before the glut of traffic. That all said, I genuinely love State Fair, view it as a net positive, and much of this is basic complaining. State Fair brings some of my favorite things: fried stuff on a stick… interesting food… and live music.

A Southern Reboot

Roughly 18 months ago I wrote about seeing country legends, Alabama, in Madison. My main takeaways at the time included a call to see them soon due to age. Alabama played the State Fair last week, so I caught them again. I unfortunately have to double down on the previous commentary. Randy Own (vocals) and cousin Teddy Gentry (bass) formed the band in 1969. Their cousin, Jeff Cook (guitar) joined almost immediately. Since that show Cook, who did not play at the Madison show, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease. That was unfortunate, but expected. The jarring change was Randy Owen. He looked old in January of 2022, but more like ancient last week Thursday. It took him a few songs to get his voice, but he does still have it. The whole thing served as a reminder: see your legends because father time remains undefeated. To quote Alabama directly: “We’re only here for a little while.”

Sunday Morning Annoyances

I want to make something clear as I begin my second complaint session of this column: I am not feeling extra cranky or anything. Misty, the kids and I grabbed a nice Sunday breakfast last weekend. We had a day of running felt it only appropriate to start correctly. We all had wonderful meals. What could possibly cause a problem? A few of the TVs in the restaurant had the cornhole tournament going, and I saw some things that just don’t work. Cornhole (bag toss) is a tailgate game, which makes it a drinking game. The goal is to beat your friends in many things including points scored and fun had, but not taking yourself too seriously. The two guys competing were in an arena and wearing headphones. One guy had noise cancelling, hearing protection, and I wanted to jump in the TV and throw something at him. The event needs a reboot starting with mandatory drinking levels. Second, play it in a parking lot. Third, loud pounding tailgate jams. Fourth, the next competitors standing over their shoulders with open drinks claiming they got next. I will get up early to watch that. Figure out a way to include elements, and you have a competition. After a few minutes of internalizing these thoughts I tossed them at Misty. My expectation was a comment about taking dumb stuff too seriously. The actual result was her agreement.

Please quit taking fun things and making them more than they are.

Back to the Podcast Grind

My CHIEFScast podcast took a hiatus. Some of it was life becoming busy. My crew and I got a bit less consistent. We missed weeks that turned into months, and the offseason fully stalled it. The big change was Chris dropping completely (for now). The Arrowhead Kingdom crew pressed for a return, so Bryan and I got on it. We quickly found a perfect new collaborator in Dwayne Johnson, brother of CHIEFS legend, Derrick Johnson. Our first episode recording happened this week, and we have some plans. Please give us a follow in your favorite format, and enjoy the weekly content all season.

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Chris Jones Swan Song

We talked in substantial depth about the Chris Jones situation. Unfortunately, all three came to the same conclusion of Jones’ impending departure. I assigned a probability of a 25% for a Jones extension, but added a 1% per day diminish factor. What that really means is a deal roughly a week before the season or not at all. Veach sets numbers and doesn’t budge. The sides either agree on an extension soon, or we hit swan song time. What does that situation look like? Chris Jones is under contract with the CHIEFS this season. If the extension doesn’t happen he has two options:

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1. Play this final year of his contract
2. Hold out all season

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I cannot see a world where Jones decides to hold out for the season. Making that move simply delays the process and kicks the final year of his contract down the road. Furthermore, full year holdout is a legacy destroying move that I cannot see Jones making. Lack of extension simply changes the dynamic of the interactions among all parties. I’ve started playing out scenarios.I’m going to wait another week to write about this further and hope the story changes in the meantime (fingers crossed).

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Beltway News/Beltway Blue

Two stories popped up in the Nation’s Capital and proximate Baltimore area this week. One completely overblown, one underreported. The overblown story is news from Commanders camp that players went to Ron Rivera complaining Eric Bieniemy pushes them too hard in practice. Washington has a .390 winning percentage for the past five seasons. I am making an educated guess the practices lacked intensity. News came out Tuesday that some Commanders offensive players were uncomfortable. Sounds like EB made guys who weren’t used to working get to work. The corporate equivalent is a new boss coming into a failing organization and holding people accountable to deadlines. These things happen, but they aren’t news. This is only news because Ron Rivera let it be news, which is a mark of a poorly run organization. Finding out the Commanders run poorly is definitely not news.

The under blown news happened in Baltimore. Check out this shocking video:

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Hopefully that didn’t rattle too hard as I share this detail: that spot got that TV guy suspended. He and the graphics team pointed out an obvious fact: the Rays are good, the Orioles haven’t been recently. That’s the story. Anyone who follows baseball knows the O’s are having their first good year in a long time. Baltimore last made the playoffs in 2016. The six following seasons produced 4th and 5th place finishes in the AL East and a .386 winning percentage. Tampa is one of (quite possibly THE) best run sports teams in the country. Baltimore tanked for over half a decade.

Put Kevin Brown back in the booth and let him continue displaying clear facts about the team he covers.

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New Red Friday (Wednesday Flag)

The new flag dropped yesterday. I love the design and grabbed a couple. One goes on my office wall and the other in my Milwaukee watch party spot. I love the design!

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Josh Kingsley — ArrowheadOne and ArrowheadKingdom

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