In my past two January columns, I made bold predictions about the coming years. Some of my prognostications were uncanny; like in 2010, when I predicted the Padres would go 92-70. They finished 90-72, which was pretty damn close.<\/p>\n
Now that it\u2019s December, it\u2019s again time to compare my precognitive skills with what passes for reality!<\/p>\n
Here is my column from January of this year, and accompanying comments:<\/p>\n
1.) There will be a big-budget animated 3-D Hollywood feature film starring the Geico Gecko. A lesser film will star the animated workers from the Empire Flooring TV spots.<\/em> 2.) Some savvy Hollywood producer will put together a movie package starring some of the weirdest-named actors in show business: Cord Overstreet, Penn Badgely, Leighton Meester, Blake Lively, and Creed Bratton will star in The John Smith Story.<\/em> 3.) KPBS-TV will switch formats and broadcast nothing but membership campaign programs starring Celtic Woman, Rick Steves, Dr. Wayne Dyer, and a handful of \u201850s doo-wop groups, each featuring at least one original member.<\/em> 4.) The \u201cnew look\u201d Padres will recapture their 2008 form and then some. The Friars\u2019 60-102 record will be the worst in baseball. Meanwhile, Adrian Gonzalez\u2019s Boston Red Sox will win the World Series, bumping off the Giants in seven games.<\/em> 5.) The Chargers will finish 2011, their final season in San Diego, by going 16-0 and playing in the 2012 Super Bowl against some team from the NFC.<\/em> 6.) This year\u2019s Super Bowl will be won by New England, 32-28, over Chicago.<\/em> 7.) In September, Nissan will introduce a smart phone that you can drive. It\u2019ll have one terabyte of memory and get 650 miles per watt.<\/em> 8.) Marijuana lounges with live music will become the rage in California.<\/em> 9.) Several Wall Street investment bank fat cats will be prosecuted for precipitating the worldwide financial meltdown of 2008.<\/em> 10.) Polka-metal music. (It could happen. There\u2019s already been rap-metal music!)<\/em> 11.) One of the Troubadour\u2019s writers will have a national hit song on the radio. I\u2019m not saying who, though. I don\u2019t want to tip her off.<\/em> 12.) For the first time since Kyu Sakamoto\u2019s \u201cSukiyaki,\u201d in 1963, an Asian-language song will be a hit in the U.S. Hong Kong-based singer Ho Li Kao will hit number 30 in September with the ballad, “Ng sha.” It will be sung entirely in Cantonese, backed by the reunited Black Sabbath.<\/em> 13.) The retirement age in the U.S. will be raised to 76. Not bad, eh? That was five \u201cBingo!\u201ds in 13 tries, meaning that approximately 40% of my predictions were almost semi-true.<\/p>\n Hasta Luego!<\/strong> Next month this space will be occupied by a real musician, Mr. Charlie Loach, lead guitarist with Folding Mr. Lincoln. Charlie is also a Magna Cum Laude BSCS graduate of Chapman University (not sure what that is but I\u2019m impressed.)<\/p>\n I\u2019ll still be around on Facebook, Jazz 88.3 or Talk Radio 760 KFMB.<\/p>\n It has been a pleasure to serve you. Let\u2019s keep in touch. In my past two January columns, I made bold predictions about the coming years. Some of my prognostications were uncanny; like in 2010, when I predicted the Padres would go 92-70. They finished 90-72, which was pretty damn close. Now that it\u2019s December, it\u2019s again time to compare my precognitive skills with what passes for reality! Here is my column from January of this year, and accompanying comments: 1.) There will be a big-budget animated 3-D Hollywood feature film starring the Geico Gecko. A lesser film will star the animated workers from the Empire Flooring TV spots. (Still waiting. The Gecko is an icon and seems to have the acting chops to pull off a feature. The Empire Flooring guys, not so much.) 2.) Some savvy Hollywood producer will put together a movie package starring some of the weirdest-named actors in show business: Cord Overstreet, Penn Badgely, Leighton Meester, Blake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radio-daze"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1320"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2516,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320\/revisions\/2516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n(Still waiting. The Gecko is an icon and seems to have the acting chops to pull off a feature. The Empire Flooring guys, not so much.)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Still waiting. I may have to produce it myself because all Hollywood does anymore is remake remakes.)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Bingo! In fact, as I write this, I\u2019m watching myself on KPBS-TV talking about Pink Floyd and hustling YOU for money!)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Bingo! I was half right. The Padres weren\u2019t quite as awful, managing to reach 71-91 and finish dead last in the NL West. Close enough to be called an accurate prediction! The Red Sox collapsed during the last few weeks of the season and didn\u2019t even make the playoffs. Gonzalez, however, was awesome!)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Who wrote this crap?)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(This seems unlikely.)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Wrong again. It was Apple\u2019s 4S.)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Bingo! They have been for years but the authorities aren\u2019t aware of it.)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(I was going to write, \u201cGoldman Sachs execs die in plane crash,\u201d but I thought it might be in poor taste.)<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0Bingo! Sort of. Two guys have gone down for insider trading. They are both from India, but they worked on Wall Street!)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Sad. Rock is dead. Roll out the barrels.)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Ssssshhhh. She still doesn\u2019t know it.)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Bingo! Black Sabbath have reunited and are recording. I hear through the grapevine that they are considering Sakamoto\u2019s song for the B side of their next cassette.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(Still waiting. We all know it\u2019s coming.)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nThis is my final Troubadour<\/em> column
\nAfter eight years I have decided to retire as a \u201cwriter,\u201d at least for a year or so, to spend more time pursuing my other passions, being on the radio and watching TV.<\/p>\n
\nLove, Jim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"