Nate's World of Words - Written, Spoken, and Otherwise

Hit the Road Jack: Sheppard, Bauer, and McCoy

2010-05-26T22:56:00.002-04:00

I think I figured it out:

2 TV producer fans of "Party of 5" decide to do shows about the limbo between death and heaven. One thought it was a complicated reunion involving bonding several loved ones who have a major common life experience - another thought that all problems can be solved by Jennifer Love Hewitt!

That was my facebook status right after the Lost finale on Sunday Night. I think that now that Lost and The Ghost Whisperer are no longer on the air, there is definitely a gap in TV programming about talking to dead people. Maybe a psychic can be added to the cast of Jersey Shore so Snookie and The Situation can talk to their dead relatives and hear firsthand how proud they are of their lifestyle of tanning and fistpumping.

After 5 yrs of writing about Lost.....I thought I would weigh in with my opinion of the best finale in the post Suzanne Pleshette era, and I specifically want to address 2 paragraphs from last weeks column which defined the emotional pull of the finale,... and also made it totally irrelevant to fans who didnt watch this season!

Last season, the Lostaways had a brilliant idea that during their time travels to the past, it may not be a bad idea to blow up a hydrogen bomb and destroy the island. The theory was that their original plane crashed because electromagnetic energy was sent off from the island and caused the plane to come down. If the island is destroyed, then there is no plane crash and they can change the fates of their future selves.

So change the fates they did. Or did they? During this finale season, we saw a season premiere where the Lostaways are on the plane and the plane flies over Lost Island and continues on its merry way to LAX without crashing. But back on Lost Island although there was an explosion, the hydrogen bomb did not go off as it was supposed to because it shoulda killed the Lostaways allowing them to live on in the Parallelogram Universe, sort of like The Presitge where the magician killed himself and his clone lived on, but now, the Lostaways live 2 simultaneous lives as Island Crash Survivors and Los Angeles Non Crash Survivors or as The ICS and the LANCS!

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That last sentence was where the producers were able to pull off the ultimate "Gotcha".. and gotcha they did. After watching the painstaking attempts to change their fate as plane crash survivors, the fans finally got what we wanted in the season premiere in the post bomb era when the plane flew over Lost Island and our beloved characters did NOT crash... a plot line we followed with breathless detail because after 5 seasons most Lost fans really grew attached to these characters and we wanted to see them 'happy"!! But to paraphrase Freud.. sometimes an island is just an island. And indeed it was... the Lost fans were manipulated into watching this normal parallel universe only to get Newharted and St. Elsewhered and Bobbys in the shower-ed even though hes still dead on Knots Landing.

I guess different people have different attitudes about what happens after death. I always imagined that once you buy the farm its off to heaven or hell for those who misbehaved. (I wonder where the owner of that CT monkey is going - to a Hell where she will be constantly attacked by wild monkeys?) Anyway, the way I see it, upon arrival in Heaven you go through a sort of customs staging area where a social worker checks you in and then stays with you as a wingman as you go through a door to have that very emotional reunion with all your dead friends and relatives.

As it turned out.... on Lost there was never a parallel universe. And even though it wasnt a dream or the visions of an autistic kid - it was part of something that seems to affect the former cast of Party of Five - that limbo between the moment of death and getting that ticket punched to heaven... which is also a belief of the goofballs that created The Ghost Whisperer. Instead, the limbo is a place that has no time, but is actually a reunion for a bunch of people who shared something special and all make the move together even though they all entered Limbo-land at different times. This Lost version of post death pre Heaven is a little preposterous to me, yet Lost made it look somewhat plausible by staging a reunion among the show's popular characters. This means that everything in the parallel universe never existed this season.... while EVERY bizarre weird unexplained moment on the island over the last 6 yrs. really took place.

In retrospect, I liked this finale. And even thought I only jumped aboard the show in Season 2, I really gotta admit that the cast reunion at the end was quite fun... it actually looked like the actors were really not in character as they said their final goodbyes to their friends and loved ones. And the show seemed to wrap the island happenings in a nice little bow. After having the island watching torch passed from Jacob to Jack, our pal Dr Shepherd basically used his brief time in power to lead the fake Locke to his own demise - both worked together to lower electromagnetic boy Des to the special part of the island which led to fake Locke's return to mortality and the end of non aging for Richard who actually if he was getting old would have smeared that eye liner he always wears along with a little too much lipstick that would leave marks on the cheeks of his little nephews and nieces.

But as the reunion interspersed with the end of Jack we all knew it would somehow end where it all started. Instead of opening an eye... one would close. They could have gone the horror movie route and ended with the opening of an eye of Fake Locke... but Family Guy recently went down that road with the Violent Chicken. I thought we might hear yells of "Jack Jack be careful" and Jack would see he is being yelled at by a confused Chloe from 24.

But this whole idea about parallel-land being Heaven's waiting room was quite the surprise. All the characters we ran into this season back in LA did not die at the same time, yet they all ended up at the church at the same "time". And their awareness of who they were happened to them at various points.. Des was one of the first when a drug addicted Charlie forced his car into water causing Des to flashback to Charlies drowning and his heroic "Not Pennys boat" which he scribbled on the back of his hand when he went underwater to unjam the frequency that was blocking any attempts the stranded Losties to transmit a "Hey were lost on this crazy island" report.

And so it went.. confusing all the viewers this season as nobody could figure out why these memories were seeping in to the Paralleliverse. Was this creation and elimination of memories like the movie Total Recall which made Sharon Stone famous? And for that you have to credit the producers and writers.. because for all the predictions that are scattered all over the internet... nobody ever saw this coming. We were so wrapped up in the concept of the plane not crashing and seeing what would happen if we could turn back time... that our enjoyment of the ride prevented us from seeing what was really going on! Yes folks. it was the perfect decoy.

And the questions pop up how much of the Paralleliverse was "real"? In reality anything that conflcted with the island story never really happened but was part of the therapeutic imagination of the characters post death pre Heaven healing.

Was Jack formerly married to Juliet and did they have a son? Or was this Jacks and Juliets way of being the parents they always wanted to be. Locke let the cat out of the bag when he told Jack he had no kids. And Sawyer a cop? Not a conman? Maybe he wanted to be a good guy... although his cop character had some big time character flaws. Ben especially got to experience being a humble simple easy going non controversial teacher... which taught him a lot about his island shortcomings as he presented a heartfelt apology to Locke who he brutally murdered...

And on it went... we saw their shortcomings on the island.. but in "paralleliverse", these flaws gradually got worked out... as these characters got another "chance" at life and when they realized their goals simultaneously - which is an odd word to use in a context that involves no "time' - they were ready to make the move. I must say that the Kate - Jack reunion was just incredible when she told him she missed him so much. Kate probably went on to have a long life and hadnt seen Jack since she left him at the island. It was such a touching moment to show that sometimes you need "time" to just work these things out until you are ready to move on to the next step. I guess they are ready to cross over when they are no longer...."Lost"...

Or.... they could just visit Jennifer Love Hewitt!!

Final Lost Predictions!

2010-05-21T14:43:00.005-04:00

Welcome back from yet another hiatus.

And where the heck has NWOW been? Actually I haven't really gone anywhere... but my computer blogging time has dropped off substantially lately. I have noticed that since 2005 when we started NWOW, I have found writing these columns to be very relaxing... especially when there is job related stress. Simply put, the last few months in Mortgage Land have been pretty stress free - and quite busy too, taking me away from my little blogging corner of the universe.

I also discontinued my mortgage podcast. Clickcaster, the file storage site where I keep the podcast's audio clips posted an announcement in January that the site was down to scheduled maintenance. That "scheduled maintenance" update remained there until May when the website effectively disappeared into the sunset following the footsteps of the long forgotten previous website where I kept my audio files. I started a Twitter account about mortgages, but the rules about the length of the tweets are a tad restrictive when one talks about complex financial situations so ultimately I will probably start some no holds barred kvetching about mortgage news here at NWOW instead.

But that is not the topic for today - as we approach a crazy doubleheader of TV farewells... Sunday is the end of Lost followed by the 24 finale on Monday.. And with the end of Monk earlier this year, that ends 3 of the better 1 hour shows that have aired over the last several yrs. CBS has also cancelled Jennifer Love Hewitt's "The Ghost Whisperer", a show I found downright awful, which is odd because Lost has incorporated a lot of those seeing dead people concepts into this season - yet for some reason it comes out a lot less stupid in the context of the Lost universe.

Which brings me to how I would like to see Lost wrap things up -

Charlie Salinger wakes up after a night of drinking with Sarah Reeves in the back of the restaurant and all this talking to dead people silliness was all a drunken stupor inspired dream...

Is a Party of 5 reference too much of an inside joke? Then again, how much debate went on about a joke being "too inside" when the Newhart writers devised the idea of using Suzanne Pleshette for the Newhart finale, some 13 years after the original went off the air??

Anyway, it looks like we have finally learned what Lost is really about... (and these next few paragraphs could be helpful for people who are not entirely up-to-date in the world of Lost.) Two super human twins were raised on the island... Jacob is the good guy and his anonymous brother is the bad guy. Even though the "rules" aka the Lost mythology states that they cant kill each other, Jacob somehow is able to terminate his anonymous brother's mortal life which ultimately created the infamous Smoke Monster - Anon's post death way of making his presence known... However, Anon also has the skill to assume a human form by inhabiting a corpse on the island. So in the twisted craziness of the Lost-iverse, Anon has taken over the body of John Locke whose corpse ended up back on the island after he died off the island. The original Locke was killed by Ben - who then sent the corpse back, and once the body came back, Anon "took it over" and then as Locke successfully convinced Ben to kill Jacob.

Anon wants to kill his twin because he wants to get off that freaking island just like everybody else does... but Jacob has shared the info that letting his bad twin off the island will have catastrophic results, and in his post death state, Jacob "appears" to the Jennifer Love Hewitt Ghost Whisperers Crash Survivors to warn them that somebody among the Castaways needs to replace him, and assume the task of keeping Anon from jumping ship - or airplane.

That in itself would be a great road to the finale, but the Lost writers threw in a very clever monkey wrench this season. Last season, the Lostaways had a brilliant idea that during their time travels to the past, it may not be a bad idea to blow up a hydrogen bomb and destroy the island. The theory was that their original plane crashed because electromagnetic energy was sent off from the island and caused the plane to come down. If the island is destroyed, then there is no plane crash and they can change the fates of their future selves.

So change the fates they did. Or did they? During this finale season, we saw a season premiere where the Lostaways are on the plane and the plane flies over Lost Island and continues on its merry way to LAX without crashing. But back on Lost Island although there was an explosion, the hydrogen bomb did not go off as it was supposed to because it shoulda killed the Lostaways allowing them to live on in the Parallelogram Universe, sort of like The Presitge where the magician killed himself and his clone lived on, but now, the Lostaways live 2 simultaneous lives as Island Crash Survivors and Los Angeles Non Crash Survivors or as The ICS and the LANCS!

The rules of logic dictate that only 1 timeline can exist.. but since when does Lost apply any such rules? The show's heart and soul is Desmond who spent many years living underground on that crazy island regularly pressing buttons on an old 1980s computer (The type that probably programmed the original PacMan) to keep the island's electromagneticism under control. And of course, the time Desmond doesn't press the buttons, the Lost plane crashes. Now we find out that Des has some kind of bizarre superhuman power that enables him to survive high levels of electromagnetic waves. Somehow Des gets into Anon's clutches and ends up in the bottom of a well... until some mysterious person rescues him...(Prediction: Claire) and now it appears that the ultimate island goal of getting rid of the monster may depend on Des.

Meanwhile in Non Crash LA - Des seems to have realized that his fellow plane passengers have some greater calling and he has spent the last few weeks assembling them together. Ben - who didn't crash but lived on the island, gets into a fistfight with Des in Non Crash Land and starts having flashbacks to a fight they had in their parallel lives. This of course makes no sense to Ben - how can he flash back to an event that "never happened"? But somehow Des has it figured out and as we move towards Sundays finale he is assembling all the Non Crash Losties to gather at a concert in LA.

So there you have it - 2 parallel stories coming to a finale... and somehow intertwining in a way that as of now defies logic but by the time 1130 Sunday Night rolls around, will apparently make plenty of sense.

So for the last time - here are some of my predictions for Lost.

Whatever happens on the island -I predict that Anon will be defeated. The rule to defeat Anon is to kill first and ask questions later. But even if they defeat him, the Crashies have to get off the island too... so unless somebody (Ben?) knows to twist that wheel that gets 'em out,... they may have to fly outta there, but since their pilot is dead.. that might not be an option either. This raises a very interesting question from the first episode - the original crashed plane's pilot (who was also on Heroes) was killed by The Smoke Monster... wouldn't Anon want the pilot to survive to get him off? Or maybe Lost needed the pilot to die to allow the pilot to become a 6 season show??

But the Non Crashies now gathered together in LA has also caught my att'n... this concept of forming memories of things that "never" happened to them is very intriguing. Ideally could Des convince the concert attendees that they have a greater calling to rescue "themselves" off Lost Island? Or could their be some dramatic reunion right at the concert hall involving 2 sets of the same people? I get the feeling that the ability to defeat Anon is going to have something to do with the LA Non Crash survivors and now I am ready to proclaim my final prediction:

I remember an episode of Fantasy Island - where a guy wants to go back in time to catch Jack the Ripper. Mr. Roarke takes the guest back in time but not only does Jack the Ripper get away from the Fantasy Island guest... but he opens a door that connects the past to the present and ends up roaming around present day early 1980s Fantasy Island and putting little Tattoo in danger. I recall nothing else about that episode except that the FI guest did not do his job and by not protecting the border allowed Jack into present day 1980 Fantasy Island. Sorta like the situation in Arizona... except deadlier.

I predict Des is not recruiting the LA Non Crashers to save their alter egos - he is recruiting them to save humanity - saving the world sounds too much like Heroes, but keeping the World safe from Anon makes the most sense...unless of course The Smoke Monster gets away and becomes the next star of a buncha slasher movies! Or maybe moves into the attic with Roger on American Dad. And if Anon is able to kill off everybody on the island, leaving only the 1 survivor who can get him outta there,.... (perhaps Ben who knows how to work the Wheel of Escape?), then its up to Des's LA crew to somehow get the island to its season premiere form.. apparently sunken at the bottom of the sea. And if it involves a flyover with a bomb drop to do this... is he going to get the LA Crash Survivors back together on a plane and head back to the island and destroy it during the fly-over with seconds to spare just before Ben can turn the wheel that lets Anon out and into the real world! But what happens if that plane.... crashes??

LOST: A fun TV show and a word that usually follows “Nets”!

2010-02-20T18:52:00.002-05:00

We’ll get to Lost – the TV show in a moment, but first a quick glance at the Nets as they march towards 8 win immortality in their attempt to shatter the infamous 9-73 record set by the 72-73 76ers. Now that the Nets have hit the 5 win mark, their current 5-50 record is far better than that Sixers team that actually started out at 4-58 and those lovable Mavericks of 92-93 fame whose 11 win season consisted of a 4-57 start… Amazingly, both those teams had worse records than the Swamp Dragons who have just announced that they will be in Newark for the next 2 seasons before they move on to Brooklyn!

The key to setting the record at 8-74 will involve some more consistent losing over the last 27 games. Can a 5-50 team which has consistently been winning 1 out of every 11 games put together a 3-24 hot streak to hit that mark? A stellar 4-23 would only tie the record and a sizzling stretch of 5-23 would keep Philly in the record books! Or will they challenge the all time worst stretch run of the 1968 San Diego Rockets who went 1-32 over their final 33 games?? And if they get to the magical 8-74,… they would be 66 games under .500… Only 2 professional team have achieved that record in the last 50 years… the 40-120 1962 Mets and the 2003 Tigers who finished 43-119.

Net observers are noticing that the losses have been a lot closer over the last 10 or so games, and the way they have been playing lately it makes it possible that getting the record will be tough to achieve. In the meantime, now that they have 5 wins, the next goal is reaching not the mathematically impossible .500.. but actually the .100 mark which would mark the 1st time this season they have achieved that status. But if they have to pay .125 ball to avoid immortality it seems very possible that they will resume their losing ways and get to their next milestone - a 5-59 record which has never ever been done. Can they lose next 9 games to reach that record?? Its too early to tell, but at least it gives us something to look forward to!

Now time for Lost. I have tossed off so many theories about that wacky show over the years that I have run out of ideas. But as the show heads to its final episode this May, one can only wonder how this crazy show will wrap up. So instead of yet another crazy theory, I am going to speculate on what the finale will look like.

The cool aspect about this show is that we can write about what has been going on… but in reality we really don’t know what’s flying. Last season they cooked up this crazy idea that if they went back in time they could change the circumstances that led to their Episode 1 plane crash. Well faster than Cher can slap on a thong, they discovered that they could turn back time. Our Lost crew knew their plane crashed because of some kind of magnetic mashugas that was emanating from the island due to a hydrogen bomb. Last season’s madcap goal was to detonate the bomb. Then the Lost crew would die in the explosion, but their plane would never have crashed and they would end up living “happily ever after”. Sort of like the logic used in “The Prestige” – kill 1 but keep the clone.

The season ended with a flash of light as a badly injured Juliet smashed the bomb which didn’t quite go off as planned. Then we waited through 7 long months for the show to start up again! Now that its back, we see that the plane did NOT crash and everybody goes on their merry way with some interesting storylines… Locke is still paralyzed… Rose has cancer… Charlie almost overdoses…Kate is on the run from the law… and Claire’s adoptive parents foshnizzled on their offer to take her unborn baby. Doesn’t look like everybody is quite so happy off the island.

But wait a moment.. the show is not just about life off the island after the plane did not crash. We found out in the first episode of the season that the plane crash crew did NOT die when the bomb went off… Somehow the bomb went off and blew them into the future.. but since they had been in the past, they actually ended up in the present…Only Lost can produce such a sentence that actually makes sense!

I’m not quite sure what year they ended up in… but I think they are now in “present time” since Sawyer has shared scenes with both Jin and Fake Locke. And with Fake Locke being in the same timeline as Sun… that means that lovely reunion appears to be imminent! Which means that not only are they time travelers, but somehow they have changed the timeline and the “Crashers” and the “non Crashers” are co existing with themselves at the same time but in 2 different places! Kind of like when Stuie Griffin found his future self living in San Fransisco.

So while viewers await the Sun and Jin reunion – I am more interested in seeing the “Crashers” meet the “Non-crashers”

The non crashers have the common bond of being on the same flight…. which involved the escape of a criminal (Kate). Since there is a list of all of the flight’s passengers, maybe the cops will call everybody over to the local Bennigan’s for a little Q and A. Also, Hurley seems to be interacting with some of the non crashers…Rose and Locke were on that flight, and both of them were his employees… and the 2 people who were magically healed on the island too! Then we round up the “Crashers”… and rescue them from the island for a 2nd time… The first rescue was pretty exciting… but imagine how neat it would be the 2nd time around since “they” already are living in the real world.

I can just imagine that Oprah episode! Hopefully she wont mistake one of Ben’s scars for lipstick like she did with Drew Brees! People who were on an airplane find out that “they” have been rescued after being stranded on an island. Letterman could get 5 of them to do a Top 10 List. Maybe they could rent out a hotel ballroom for that reunion of the Crashers and the Non Crashers. Serve up some cocktails maybe? See if Sawyer has nicknames for the other Sawyer. And would he seek out Juliet to see if he can hook up with her? Would a respected doctor hook up with a self proclaimed con man? Would Hurley give the other Hurley a job? Would Sayid resort to torture if the other Sayid doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear about the island?

But I guess poor Locke would feel left out at the reunion… His alter ego is dead….He’ll just sit on the sidelines having coffee talk with his history teacher friend Ben Linus as ABC drools over the prospects of a spinoff featuring the 2 of them that would probably fizzle quicker than After MASH and Beverly Hills Buntz.

I think of all the crazy concepts on Lost, the idea of people finding out that they co-exist somewhere else is more mind boggling than anything else the show has come up with! I couldn’t even begin to imagine if there was another Nate floating around out there…although it would be pretty cool if there was a 2nd Trophy Wife! But then again you always hear that somewhere out there, your exact double is floating around… and I understand Facebook used Doppelganger Week to find people’s exact lookalikes due to their Google-esque algorithm research based on people who chose the same celebrity.

Only 2010 can produce such a sentence that actually makes sense!

CLIP OF THE WEEK

I caught this recently… Newsweek got a bunch of its staffers who have never seen Lost to watch the Season Premiere… and then try to explain what is going on!

SECOND CLIP OF THE WEEK

See the first 1:15 of this clip from Real Time with Bill Maher and you will see that Elliot Spitzer’s comeback trail probably should not include panels with Seth MacFarlane. Nonetheless, a very very funny clip!

J: Leno, Wow, Z, and E-T-S! Part II

2010-01-29T13:03:00.003-05:00

Following our theme from our last column…

This week I will start with The Jets and congratulate my team’s co-tenants for an excellent season that led them into the AFC Title Game. Having a rookie quarterback gives them hope for future seasons, although just because a team makes it this far doesn’t mean they are an automatic to make it there the next season…. Check out the Giants of 2 seasons ago for a perfect example. Nonetheless, their coach’s wiseguy comments that the Jets will be THE main tenants in the new Meadowlands Stadium is a bit uncalled for… The fact is The Giants were the main tenants at Giants Stadium and were there first while the Jets were playing at the late lamented Shea Stadium. Now that they have a new Stadium it’s a fresh start so both teams might be on equal footing.. unless the new stadium’s corporate sponsor is the Giant Supermarket chain!

J ay Leno

It is interesting how the theme for Wednesday was Jobs and Jobs. In the morning, Steve Jobs announced the non menstrual related innovative I-pad. Im not quite sure what it does that the I phone doesn’t do… except it has a bigger screen and possibly a keyboard? Then in the evening, President Obama delivered his State of the Union and announced new plans to find jobs for non working Americans. It’s a jungle out there for job hunters and the competition is fierce… It seems like only the most competitive job seekers are able to find the jobs that are out there. That is the American way.

Yet there seems to be an exception when it comes to late night TV.

I have the late night Oprah – Jay Leno replay playing in the background and as I listen to it, I realize that Jay is really not the “bad guy” here. And I must say I am definitely NOT a Jay Leno fan and I like Conan a lot more. Leno stabbed Letterman in the back to get The Tonight Show… but I can’t find fault with him in this situation. I think Conan made a mistake leaving NBC because of his contention that “The Tonight Show” shouldn’t be on at midnight. Time slot? Conan is an Ivy League graduate but doesn’t realize how far that franchise already sank after Jonny Carson left.

Let’s say people start staying up till 11:30 on a weeknight when you are approximately 17 years old. People who are in their early 30’s and younger, have virtually no recollection of Johnny Carson… and you would have to be in your mid to late 60s to remember Jack Paar and Steve Allen as Tonight Show Hosts. For all intents and purposes… it may have been called “The Tonight Show”.. but it really was “The Johnny Carson Show” and he hosted it remarkably consistently well for 30 years.

And while Fox is good at ratings for its News Channel and Prime Time Lineup.. historically it has never been able to get ratings with its late night talk shows with Joan Rivers and Chevy Chase. And now that Conan may be trying to start a new late night franchise, will he really do that much better there than if he would have taken his lumps and stayed with NBC??

Granted Leno was a bit of a jerk when he took over The Tonight Show… (and apparently engineered Carson’s somewhat “early” departure). But this time? I really cant blame him. Leno was a team player five years ago when NBC told him he would lose the show in 2009 even though he was winning the timeslot. But NBC didn’t want to lose Conan or pay him an exit fee if he didn’t get the Tonight Show in 2009. Now after pulling the plug on the 10pm show, NBC loses Conan, a lotta money and has a big problem on their hands if Leno can’t take back the ratings.

The bottom line: Nobody will ever replace Johnny Carson… but at least Conan had a better show. Oh well I guess my idea last week of a 2 hour Leno – Conan Tonight Show ain’t gonna fly.

JWow –

I see where the stars of Jersey Shore are holding out for more money to return for a 2nd season. Following up from last week, I don’t think they need all of them… just Snookie, The Situation, and JWow and possibly Paulie and maybe maybe Vinnie. After watching the reunion show last week, you realize that Ronnie has done a tremendous public service to show people the dangerous mood swings that you get from alleged steroid use! He’s nuts.. especially when during the reunion he dumped Sammi because of something silly she said to The Situation 5 months ago on the “hidden video footage”.

In reality, look how much buzz MTV is getting from this show. The seasons over and people still talk about it. Granted, a lot of it is because it is very well edited, the soap opera scenarios are probably staged and the graphics are well done so you never forget all the character’s names. But I don’t remember the last time there was this much hype and ratings for an MTV show.

I think they should show them the money… if they don’t they risk hiring new wackos who will try to emulate and go even further and turn themselves into caricatures of this seasons group. Can you imagine a girl trying to out Snookie Snookie? And try to out talk and out muscle The Situation? Or top Paulie’s contention that the Israeli girl who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage is nuts one week, and somehow nonchalantly ends up in bed with her the following week? MTV needs these people back… but should also add a few new people to mix it up a little bit.. kind of like one of those All Star Survivor seasons!

J ay Z

Drats those Jay Z owned Nets narrowly avoided immortality winning on Wednesday Night to improve to 4-40. If they would have lost they would have been the first team to start 3-41. I was looking at the trends of other teams that came perilously close to the Sixers immortal 1972-73 73 loss season….thanks to the ESPN site I mentioned last week (which actually has a few mistakes on it). The Nets 4-40 record is still not a guarantee that they wont go 4-34 the rest of the way… actually now that they have 4 wins, the next futility record is the amazing 92-93 Mavericks who were 4-57, and the 72-73 Sixers who were 4-58. Can the Nets actually start a new 18 game losing streak to tie that record?? Or will their 5th win come so far down the road that they can beat the futility mark of 5-58 held by 3 teams?

And how bad a hole did the Nets dig with that 3-40 start? The #8 seed for the playoffs are the Bulls who are .500 dropping the Nets 18 1/2 games out of the last spot. IF the Nets were to win 18 in a row and the Bulls continued playing .500, the Nets would still be 10 games out of the last playoff spot with 20 games left to play!

Interesting note about those Sixers… after starting 4-58 they went on to win 5 of 7 to improve to 9-60… and then lost 13 straight to finish 9-73. However, if a 9 win team is able to run off a 5-2 record in a seven game period, you realize how hard it is to consistently lose so often over the course of a long 82 game season.

Trophy Wife isn’t happy with me that I root for the Nets to lose each night. She says its not nice. Good thing she didn’t know me during the 2000 World Series!

J: Leno, Wow, Z, and E-T-S!

2010-01-20T23:26:00.002-05:00

So how about that new background here at NWOW? You did notice, right? We finally changed the background on the site… also known as “the skin” this past New Years Day. I had thought about changing it for New Years 2009, but my attempts to visit a website that had some nifty looking skins a year ago turned disastrous when the site had a spyware virus planted in it.. which I shoulda noticed because I kept getting knocked off while using my usual terrific browser Mozilla Firefox.. Of course, I was a total moron because I went back to that virus filled website…. This time using Internet Explorer which instead of knocking me off like the superior Mozilla, instead instantly paralyzed my system with some horrific spyware and resulted in my hard drive getting wiped clean and I had to start my computer all over again from scratch. All because of a silly G rated “skins” site.. And of course, good lucking watching the computer store owner keep a straight face when you tell him you got the virus from a “skins” site.

This time, I took the easy route and downloaded a background provided by Blogspot/Google!

This year we will also be taking a new tactic with the annual Pumpstradamus predictions. The first two years we did an audio podcast.. the last 2 years we did a video podcast and this year we are doing a good ol’ fashioned Q and A so start posting your questions in the comments section, and we will then pass them along to Pumpstradamus who will then provide his incredible answers. Pumpy will be back in the next couple of weeks to answer all queries!

This week’s column is sponsored by the letter “J”

J ay Leno

I have been waiting to see how this NBC mess worked its way out before commenting on this topic. Over on Facebook, I posted a column by a blogger who questioned the relevancy of appointment television and “the timeslot” in this era of DVRs and watching TV shows on line. Nick Summers borrowed a theme from our most recent movie review with this comment on The Newsweek blog. Sayeth The Summers:

“The new comedy prestige─to be the material that dominates Twitter's trending topics list, to create the clips embedded on a million blogs─has nothing to do with airing on a certain network at a certain time”

First of all, NBC shouldn’t have been so wishy washy a few years back when they told Jay Leno that Conan would take his spot in 2009. But they worried about what would happen if they lost Conan to another network… never realizing that his ratings would be worse than Leno’s and Letterman. But they managed to keep Conan strung along dangling The Tonight Show in front of him… So using their King Solomon wisdom to keep both Leno and Conan, NBC announced there would be a Jay Leno show at 10pm. They thought it would be a cost effective hit.. its relatively low production costs would make it a money maker with lower ratings than a typical hour of network TV. But the local stations forced to carry the show were not exactly thrilled that Jay’s lower 10pm ratings were killing the ratings for the 11pm local news.

Here’s my 2 cents on this fiasco: Even though I agree he is getting screwed, why can’t Conan just swallow his pride and realize that he really is better off staying at NBC? If the Today Show can add 2 hours to itself… including the 10 am hour with Kathy Lee Gifford…why can’t The Tonight Show add an hour too? As crazy as it might sound… Leno would host the 1130 Tonight Show Hour and Conan would host the 1230 Tonight Show hour. And if Leno gets about 10 weeks off each year… on those 10 weeks, The Conan Tonight Show would move up to 11:30 followed by a rerun at 1230…

That would essentially kill The Late Night Show.. but frankly that show really belonged to Letterman and Conan… even though Jimmy Fallon has done a decent job the few times I have seen him.

But don’t you think this idea of The Tonight Show: Hour 2 would cause a lot less aggravation for Conan and his crew whose cross country move seems to be more sympathized than the numerous other shows that move around the world and get cancelled a lot sooner than Conan did.

J WOW

And speaking of one of the shows that stole Jay Leno’s 10pm audience….

Is it true?? Are we really near the end of the road for the first season of Jersey Shore? If indeed that is the case, last week’s oddly scheduled double header (they couldn’t stretch the show another week, airing two 1 hour episodes on consecutive weeks?) may have answered the question… Who is the smartest person on Jersey Shore?

My answer is JWow’s boyfriend.. I will get to why I think that… but it is not because of his odd choice for female companionship… although that boobie displaying bandanna she wears as a shirt when she goes clubbing is quite the gravity defying piece of wardrobe.

Let us hearken back to Hour 1 of last week’s episode, when the crew took a trip to Atlantic City and as far as I can tell, never showed any of our lovable gang of 7 gambling in a casino. We did see Snookie fill a bubble bath with so many bubbles that she looked like a naked Eskimo drunkenly crawling back into an igloo after a crazy night of Penguin tipping. She also was ambushed when she thought she had the gang behind her when she thought everybody would support her confrontation with Sammi that she was spending too much time with Ronnie… eliticing memories of George being left hung out to dry when he confronted Jerry about his nauseating clingy Shmoopie girlfriend in the legendary Soup Nazi episode!

JWow had a little too much to drink that fateful night… and “The Situation” had a different agenda programmed into his Palm Pilot. While he has been increasingly annoyed with Vinny’s odd courtship of his sister, The Situation decided it was payback time in AC and promptly pulled a self proclaimed robbery and stole away some chickie that Vinny had been making out with, using the swift moves not seen since Jay Leno’s zipping back to 11:30 and bumping Conan.

The Situation was making out with this woman at this AC club, when a very drunk, JWow butts in and demands he take her up to their Jersey Shore comped hotel suite because she was too intoxicated to make it back on her own. The Situation told her to press her own elevator button… because he had other stuff to do… She smacked him somewhat gently in the keppie,… and got promptly tossed out of the club which she was really too nauseous to be at anyway.

She got back to the room and ranted and raved about The Situation… and once he returned to the room later that night… she ran right up to him and viciously punched him hard right in the head! This was when we realized that there is a huge crew of muscley Jerry Springer security guys on the sidelines because they all came running almost literally out of the woodwork to pull the crazed JWow away!

It was during the 2nd episode that JWow came back to Seaside… took out the duck phone.. and called her boyfriend… She was now sober, but hung over and as she told the boyfriend the story of the night before about her nightclub confrontation, nightclub ejection and subsequent violent attack of The Situation, the boyfriend responded with this brilliance…

“Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much?”

Ronnie had the line of the week when he was talking about how he and not The Situation had been able to hook up with Sammi. Sayeth the Ronnie:

“I closed that deal… I already have the title for that closing!”

Amazing how Ronnie can use a mortgage analogy at Jersey Shore. However, if indeed this is the end of the season, I wonder if all 7 will be coming back. Frankly, I’m not 100% sure that every single muscle on Ronnie is a result of bar and dumb bells… and based on Snookis fixation on boys who are juiced… I ponder to ask if indeed Mr. Ronnie has been taking some kind of supplement. If you watch the show closely and the silly little fights he and Sammi have.. you start to realize that even though is Sammi a little hormonal with her moods sometimes.. Ronnie seems to be on some kind of emotional mood swinging roller coaster. He gets into fights on the boardwalk because he is easily instigated and you start to wonder if this show is really exposing the ugly side effects of alleged steroid use.

If they bring the show back next year…and I hear they will… I wouldn’t be too upset if Ronnie and Sammie were left off the roster. You really only need Snookie, The Situation, and his trusty Tonto-esque sidekick Paulie. I guess you can bring back Vinny and JWow, because even though their summer was rather uneventful, their constant bickering with The Situation makes the show that much more entertaining.

J ay Z

He is part owner of the Nets and even the team management now admits that this season is done, and they are playing for “The future” when they will have the 1st pick and a halfway decent free agent or 2 before they move outta Jersey and head to Brooklyn.

I believe that the Nets might be the first team ever to spend every day of the season having the “games back from the 8th playoff spot” always higher than their win total! Right now they have 3 wins and they are approx,.16 games behind The Bulls for the 8th spot. Keep in mind the Nets didn’t win a game till they had already lost 18 so after win #1 they were already approx. 10 games out from the #8 spot… Now that we are at the halfway mark, they are on a pace to finish 32 games out of the 8th playoff spot, which means that if the last playoff team finishes .500 the Nets would be close to breaking the record for the worst team ever. They should be farther behind Chicago, but the Nets actually won their only road game in the Windy City!!

At this point, the only thing worth watching of this comical nightly loser fest is the historical perspective of this team’s horrific performance.. The all time worst team was the 72 sixers that went 9-73. ESPN has a terrific site over at http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/features/worstteams . Check it out… and you can see how incredibly awful these Nets rank with other landmark lousy teams. The only difference is… the fans were buying tickets to see a team that would eventually get better. These Nets are leaving town so NJ fans will never see a good team… and the team has actually fessed up to its ineptitude. I got an email from the Nets marketing dept and they actually promote upcoming opponents and their star players… and the implied easy victory coming up during their visit to play those horrific little Swamp Dragons!

The 3-38 Nets have their next milestone lined up: Both the 97 Nuggets and 93 Mavericks started 3-40 but then went on to win the next game to get to 4-40. However if the Nets can lose their next 2 road games, they would return home to play the Clippers next Wednesday to become the first team in NBA history to have a 3-41 record! By the way those 72 sixers actually were 4-58 so the Nets would have to go 1-20 to match that record! (The 92 Mavs were almost that bad… going 4-57.) By the way Philly then went 5-2 to improve to 9-60 before losing their final 13 games.

J-E-T-S… Jets Jets Jets!

I’m a Giants fan and even though I enjoyed the Vikings-Cowboys game more than the Jets game, I wish them and their fans the best of luck on Sunday as they attempt to upset the Colts and head to the Super Bowl.

“The Prestige”-ious 200th Column – A Movie Club Review!

2010-01-01T14:30:00.003-05:00

Hello everybody… Happy New Year and welcome to our 200th column!

We started NWOW back on November 10, 2005 and 11 days later we presented our first movie review… The First of our Star Wars reviews - Phantom Menace as we reviewed all 6 in chronological order. We have done a few other movie anthologies since, and from the feedback I get, the movie columns are quite popular among the NWOW readers.

But Nate has been a very very bad boy and has been neglecting the movie reviews. We are currently in the middle of the Christian Bale movies… our first review since March 6th (American Psycho) and only our second since October 17, 2008! when we reviewed Empire of the Sun.

Interestingly enough, today’s movie The Prestige is one of my favorites. I have owned the DVD since it came out, I have seen it a few times already, but I needed to sit down with pen and paper to jot down my notes about this incredible flick. This week I took my traditional vacation between Christmas and New Years and the other afternoon, after getting delayed en route to a matinee of Up in the Air (which I ended up seeing a day later), I decided to spend the cold winter afternoon on the couch in my snuggie watching “The Prestige”.

Here is the trailer…

The movie is directed by Christopher Nolan who did the incredible “Memento”.. and once again the story does not unfold in chronological order. We see that Bale’s character... Alfred Borden is in prison, and as he faces execution we discover that he has been convicted of killing another man, Robert Angier played by Hugh Jackman. We soon discover that Jackman and Bale are competing magicians in turn of the century England… not the century we started 10 years ago… the one before that.

The two fellas start out as friendly coworkers.. working as magician’s assistants who are “audience volunteers” They classify the magician they work for as rather vanilla, while at the same time watch with googly eyes as a Chinese magician (must not have been that much going on besides magic in those pre vaudeville days)… catches their attention because of an incredible trick he does at his show involving fishies in a fishbowl.

The two men watch the Chinese magician limp out from his theater into a waiting 1900s model car after the show… and even though he can barely walk with help from his assistants they start to wonder if to quote Doug Henning… the difficulty walking in all… “an allusion”… especially when they figure out what appears to be the only way to logically do the trick… walk around bow legged (or bowl-legged) with a fishbowl between your legs. ... But this appears to be doable only if the magician has incredibly strong legs that would enable him to walk while carrying the bowl under heavy leg obstructing clothing. This leads our boys to speculate that the Chinese magician is able bodied but pretends to be handicapped while in public. Wasn’t there a wheelchair bound shoplifter in the news recently who was caught red handed when he stood up and put merchandise in a hidden compartment under his chair?

And there you have one of the keys as both of these young magicians rise to the top – appearing one way “in public” while in reality hiding secrets about themselves to help sell tickets… However magicians deal in allusions, and one of these fellas decision to “keep a secret about himself” just may not have necessarily been inspired by seeing the Chinese magician.

The two become rivals when during their “audience volunteer” stint Bale’s character accidentally ties a knot that Jackman’s wife (a magicians assistant) can’t quite untie. This is especially a big problem when she is tied up and lowered into a big tank of water. When she can’t get out… the on stage trick engineer…(Michael Caine) has to break the glass to rescue her.. but the subsequent events of that day turn a friendship into a rivalry..

Jackman puts on a disguise and decides to check out Bale’s show but ambushes him while he is performing a magic trick that involves catching a bullet. That results in a long rivalry between the two which also is part of Jackman’s sad obsession with topping Bale’s tricks. We see in flashbacks that “in the end” Bale is on trial for killing Jackman… who drowns during a performance… not behind a curtain on stage, but instead beneath the stage where he drops into a water filled tank below through a trick door in the floor while he is tied up! . The movie then uses flashbacks to tell the story of how these two fellas try to one up each other every chance they get…. in an attempt to be The Best Magician.

And to achieve that Best Magician status is to properly achieve “The Prestige”… the punchline to the trick that usually results in huge ego feeding applause. Prestiges tend to involve making things disappear and then bringing “them” back….which sometime involves a beautiful white dove who has a lookalike return as part of the prestige.

Speaking of making things disappear… how do you like the audacity of those Brazilian kidnappers who seem to have notion that should get visitation rights for that poor little Goldman boy they took away from his dad. Now that the kid is home, I hope a grand jury pulls a Roman Polanski and indicts those kidnappers so if they come to NJ to get the kid, they end up getting arrested again!

In “The Prestige” the ultimate show stopping trick is a pre-Star Trek teleporter. This is where a person gets from Point A to Point B in a time frame that defies logic.,, sort of like when your wife tells you to take out the garbage and it ends up outside in less than an hour. Each man has his own unique way of doing this rather incredible trick…. And while Bale figures out how Jackman does it… Jackman develops an incredibly sickening obsession with figuring out every last detail about Bale’s method. That obsession takes him on a boat to Colorado (Don’t forget we are pre Wright Brothers) where he meets a scientist (played in a jaw dropping performance by an unrecognizable David Bowie) who invents a way for Jackman to do the Teleporting trick… which not only defines the movie’s entire plot, but when revealed to the viewer produces a “Whatchu Talking About Willis” moment. The moviemaker might think that revealing “the prestige” moment will generate applause.. but instead the viewer gets the urge to restart the DVD (or hide in the movie theater) so you can watch the movie again to see how the pieces fit into the puzzle.

Bale, Jackman and Caine are excellent in this movie…. as is the actor who plays Bale’s right hand man. Scarlett Johanson plays a magician's assistant/groupie who works for both of them at different times... She also attracts their male libidos and has an affair with both men - sort of like the T Shirt store owner's girlfriend in Thursday Night's episode of Jersey Shore. And as for Bowie – any time an actor plays a role so well that you don’t realize that is him till the very end… you know you are watching an incredible performance! And he is not the only actor accomplishing that feat in this movie….

And if you have never seen the movie and decide to see it – reread the review after you see it… you might find some clues laid right out in front of you… but like the movie.. you don’t quite catch it right away… because the key to an illusion is not really knowing where to look

This movie is just fantastic and this is coming from a person who is not a big fan of these period pieces… On a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… The Prestige is a 4 bladder movie!!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK: Pumpy goes for his 4th straight winning year this weekend as he enters the final week with a record of 8-7-1. Since Jackman went to Colorado in “The Prestige”…we go there too this week as the Denver Broncos are 13 point favorites over the Chiefs. Sayeth The Pump: “I just got my year end income statement and I was so upset I took out my kerchief and sobbed!… So in honor of my kerchief… take The Chiefs!”

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN OF THE WEEK: Well we totally foshnizzled last week.. going 0-3 to drop to 22-26… 3-9 in the last 4 wks! The Giant game is irrelevant so this week we will visit the other Meadowlands inhabitants and 2 college games.

Bengals 10 doggies over THE JETS – The Jets will not cover this spread.

Boise St. 7 ½ doggies over TCU in the Fiesta Bowl – Gotta get in the habits of watching Monday Nights on FOX since 24 is just a couple of weeks away,

Alabama 4 over Texas – Can you believe its 20 years since Brent Musberger got canned at CBS??… Bear Bryant will be kvelling from the heavens when all is said and done!

The Top 14 Shows to Watch in 2010

2009-12-27T01:00:00.001-05:00

I am a little late with the column this week… getting it on line in the post midnight hours of Saturday Night! It has been an incredibly busy week as I took on new responsibilities at my synagogue’s annual 12/24 event and I must say the hard work paid off as we sold out with approx 230 people attending an event that in past years brought in approximately 100-150. Nonetheless, my usual blogging time got pushed back and I spent Christmas Day sleeping and watching movies including of course ---- A Christmas Story!

Today, NWOW presents a list of the 14 must see shows for next year – 2 of them will not have new episodes next season but I decided to list them anyway because you can still watch the reruns…

Here they are listed by their 2009 watchability rankings

1. Jersey Shore – This show achieved immortality moments into its premiere episode when a young musclehead named Mike proudly proclaimed that his nickname.. usually a name that is shorter than ones real name… is The Situation! A few minutes later a crazy little Elvira lookalike munchkin arrived, announced her name was Snooki and instantly got plastered. Must see TV… but needs an announcement before each episode that these people are not true representatives of typical Italian NJ young adults.

2. 24 – Year in and Year out..24 hits it out of the ballpark with its unique format. Some exciting new characters were brought aboard this year and the show ended on a cliffhanger with Jack Bauer contracting some type of deadly disease. The problem with 24 and the next show on the list is their season only runs January through May and by the time the end of the year lists are written up, you have to scratch your head to remember what was going on several months ago.

3. Lost – Speaking of the Devil… last season Lost really hit a home run with its mind boggling time travel elements and bizarre twists about John Locke and his ability to come back from the dead. I just reread the May 19th column…(Rivers. Islands and Sun – see the archives) to remember all that craziness that was jammed into my head about the season. The show has a ton of fans as is evidenced by the day after recaps on various websites. Even the fantasy baseball q and a’s on Espn.com involve a weekly column where characters ask their questions using the names of Lost characters. Hopefully they will run a last season recap before the season premiere to remind us of what happened in May.

4. Curb Your Enthusiasm – The 2nd to last episode may have been the most brilliant episode of a comedy show in TV history. The whole sub plot involving fictitious Groats disease invading the set of the Seinfeld reunion led to the long anticipated "meeting” between Michael Richards and Leon who is black. Just in case you forgot, a few years back while performing standup at a comedy club, Richards had a meltdown and went into a rather prejudiced rant when he was heckled at a comedy club by some blacks. However, Leon followed the stereotype of black people not knowing the Seinfeld characters and instead went into an adlibbed rant while posing as “Groats survivor Danny Duberstein” about how “Richards” could be cured of Groats disease. Purely hysterical and when the season comes out on DVD… probably in time for the holidays next year…it will be a must have for all Seinfeld/Curb fans. See #14 also.

5. Family Guy – Seth McFarlane is a genius and each week the show gets 9 out of 10 jokes off successfully in this crazy cartoon about a dysfunctional family from Quahog, Rhode Island. Nobody likes the daughter, one son is a moron and the baby boy is possessed. One of the neighbors is paralyzed, the other is perennially horny, and the dog and baby talk better English than anybody else… The pop culture flashbacks are just hysterical 9 times out of 10. Currently its funnier than The Simpsons, but it will not run for as many years.

6. American Dad – Show #2 of 3 from Camp McFarlane ( The 3rd is Family Guy spinoff The Cleveland Show which may be on next years list) focuses on your typical crazy right wing Republican Family with the rebellious daughter. This guy works for the government and has a fish that talks with a German accent and a flamboyant Paul Lynde sounding alien who has a penchant for dressing up in outrageous wardrobes. Don’t we all have an alien living with us? The show does not use the Family Guy flashbacks, so it depends more on character development to move the story along and some weeks is better than Family Guy. The Christmas episode with Michelle the angel….aka the hooker with wings was very well done!.

7. Big Bang Theory – How could you not like a show with characters named Sheldon and Leonard named after the legendary TV producer who is a distant relative of Trophy Wife? Sheldon steals the show and Kaely Cuoco is perfectly cast as the lovely neighbor who has the bizarrely odd relationship with Leonard. The relationship is not too realistic, yet it gives Sheldon some great opportunities and if this show has a long run like the other CBS Monday sitcoms, the story might evolve into a Penny-Leonard breakup followed by a Penny-Sheldon hook up which would be incredibly oddly funny. The best show on Monday Nights and the best sitcom on network TV

8. Better off Ted – A new addition to our list; I just started watching this workplace gem a few weeks ago and unlike The Office I really find it funny. (I don’t know why, but I just can’t get into The Office)… Nonetheless, Ted is surrounded by a nutty boss played by Portia de Rossi and two bizarre scientists who look like they belong on a Jeopardy Tournament! Last weeks episode where one scientist was sleeping with the mother of another was incredibly funny capped off by a sight gag where a scientist reveals his latest invention – popcorn that pops using the heat inside your mouth. You had to see this to really appreciate it. I hope this show sticks around… it’s got great potential.

9. Jeopardy – There doesn’t seem to be anything else on at 7pm – and I even catch the reruns on GSN. I am leaving off the other classic game shows on GSN because except for the last 2 shows here, I am only listing shows that are still producing new episodes. Even though I don’t know most of the answers, I do feel happy when I know some of them.. and in those rare situations when I get a Final Jeopardy answer that the three contestants all miss… then I feel like a million bucks.

10. Millionaire – After seeing Slumdog Millionaire I started watching it again… The Meredith Vierra version got a little more adventurous this year when they added a timer. They also recently got rid of “phone a friend” much to Google’s chagrin… since friends were just googling to get the right answer. They also did a million dollar tournament in the fall that with a few tweaks could be very entertaining and add an element of contestants competing against each other. Its an entertaining game and more my speed than the much more challenging Jeopardy. The Regis reruns on GSN are also entertaining.

11. How I Met Your Mother – The show trying to stake its claim as the follow up to the Thursday Night Friends/Seinfeld powerhouse. Five entertaining characters who hang out at a local bar – the stories are well told in a non chronological fashion and Neil Patrick Harris has totally reinvented himself post Harold and Kumar with the incredible Barney who has remarkable methods to meet chics… For those of us who are married and live vicariously through our single friends… Barney is a very entertaining character… especially when he comes out with some bizarre philosophies. Great acting job by NPH who is gay in real life!

12. 30 Rock – The behind the scenes look at an SNL type comedy show is quite amusing on a regular basis. Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey lead a strong cast as the network executive and producer of a show hosted by “Tracy Jordan”. The show has been consistently funny this season including a recent episode loaded with gags such as a bizarre look at how high def adversely affects ones appearance when looking at a person close-up. Another bit involved a character who I thought did an incredible Gilbert Gottfriend impression until I found out that it was actually the voice of…. Gilbert Gottfried! Alec Baldwin hasn’t made Thursday Nights this entertaining since he was on Knots Landing!

13. Monk Final Season – Technically not a show I will watch in 2010 but it gets an honorable mention because the final episodes were so brilliantly put together. Monk’s original assistant Sharona returned in one of the late episodes and her character got some closure by hooking up with bumbling cop Randy. And ultimately Monk not only solved the murder of his beloved wife Trudy but also found out that she had had a daughter. That reunion was amusing and very touching. Monk found a new purpose in life.. getting to know Trudy’s grown daughter. We also saw the final scene where Monk goes to a crime scene and finally unbuttons that top button and dresses a little stylish… making you realize that in the world of Monk… alot of the foibles had gone away and in his world everything was going to be ok. I’m sure they will bring the characters back for a reunion movie.. unless a Monk reunion becomes the new project for Larry David on the next season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.

14. Seinfeld reruns – It was probably the top show in those “Best of the 90s” columns in the pre-blogging era of a decade ago. However that show had a less heartwarming episode as the 4 main characters were sent to prison for not helping a mugging victim. For more than 10 years we have heard the debates of that finale, and the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme this season was an incredible “Seinfeld reunion” which had a new “ending”. George got married, made millions, got ripped off by Madoff and then got dumped by his wife.. only to reconcile with her as long as he would sign a pre-nup not touching his money that she got in the divorce and wisely did not invest with Madoff. Amazingly the first scene with all 4 characters in the “reunion” included just 2 words – Madoff? Madoff. It was all in the tone And after watching this season of Curb… I have started to revisit the Seinfeld reruns which air nightly at 1130 and 1230.

And if we must follow the rules of shows to watch for 2010 you can always substitute 13 and 14 with any of the many CSI’s and Law and Orders.

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK

Pumpie tied last week to remain evened up at 7-7-1. This week we go to Cleveland the city where they filmed “A Christmas Story”. In a game only Pumpy cares about, the Browns are 3 ½ point faves over The Raiders. Sayeth the Pump: “MY buddy just went to Cleveland.. so take the Browns!”

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK

Last week we dropped under .500 by going 1-2 to drop to 22-23. The Giants hold the tie breakers and need to win 1 more game than the Packers or Cowboys in order to make the playoffs. In the unlikely event that the Giants lose and the other 2 win… next week we will be picking bowl games!

GIANTS 7 faves over Carolina – The Panthers are coming off a big 4th quarter in the Sunday night win over Minnesota.. but it was late at night and past Brett Favre’s bedtime. Huge game for NY.. in their last game at Giants Stadium.

REDSKINS 6 ½ doggies over Dallas – The Skins should be quite ticked after last weeks Monday Night Debacle… and you won’t be seeing that crazy trick play again where all the players ran away so quick you thought the center farted.

Seahawks 14 doggies over GREEN BAY – Hopefully Seattle can sneak in and help the Giants… but they will probably just cover the spread.

NEXT WEEK: We welcome a new decade with our 200th column!

Welcome to New Jersey Part III: Snooki? She Must Be Italian

2009-12-19T19:03:00.002-05:00

“It seems today,
That all you see,
Is violence in movies,
and sex on T.V.”

Shouldn’t this be the theme song for Thursday’s episode of “Jersey Shore”?

Yes folks… we called it the night it premiered… not only is this program loaded with the most entertaining characters on reality show history… but you can find parallels between the shenanigans at the shore house and real life current events.

Lets catch up with the key highlights involving that wacky Cast of 6 plus Vinnie who is really like Chuck on Happy Days… he’s there but you really never see him:

This week the term “The Situation” became even more mainstream. Not only was it the punchline on a Letterman Top 10 list… but The Situation appeared as a guest on Conan O’Brien, on Wendy Williams, and in a comedy skit on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He even presented Conan with his own nickname - “The Solution”. It makes no sense.. but its still funny in that Situation-esque way.

During Thursday’s episode, Paulie discovered that Ronnie is getting a lot of screen time with his sordid affair with Sammie. By the way, who washes the housemates sheets? They never seem to do laundry! Paulie realized he needed a new way to get on the air. After seeing Vinny practicing his fist pumping off camera, Paulie did not want to be releaged to back burner status so he decided to become The Situation’s wing man and hang out with him as he attempts to introduce young ladies to “The Situation”.

The Sammi-Ronnie hook ups are one of those deals where you hope that if they have a kid their genes skip a generation so the kids will end up with at least some brains. The episode picked up where last week’s left off where Sammi mistakenly thought Paulie left a club with JWow/Sham Wow. Paulie truthfully reported that nothing was going on, but Sammi just wouldn’t let it go. A friend of mine claims that during part of the argument, Sammi actually sat on the toilet… but I wasn’t sure. Ultimately the episode revealed that Sammi has major insecurity issues.

Now let’s see if I have this right… Paulie and The Situation hook up with 2 chics at the bar while Snookie hooks up with a guy she thinks is Ron… yet his name is really Russ. Can you imagine the late Tim Russert referring to his dad as Big Ron? Has any other blogger been able to find a connection between Russert and this show? Meanwhile, it turns out that Russ is really friends with Sham Wow’s boyfriend… (or is it J-Wow?) and is on a spy mission to report that her braless fake bozooms have been bouncing around with young Mr. Paulie. The Situation and Paulie leave the club with their 2 girls en route to the hot tub, but then they see 2 better looking chics in a convertible so they simply walk away from Pair o’ Chics #1 to try to hot tub it with Pair o’ Chics #2…

Pair o’ Chics #2 end up headed back to the house as Snookie leaves with Ron-Russ. But in a moment that totally disproved last week’s theory that she is intelligent, Snookie gets lost finding her beach house and decides to take Ron-Russ to the beach instead where they just hang out. Meanwhile back at the house, Pair o’ Chics #2 turn out to be very dull and The Situation finds himself… in a situation. But not to worry… because there is a knock on the door, and guess who is standing there? Pair o’ Chics #1! Which means that Pair o’ Chics #1 were able to somehow figure out where the house is located… while Snookie who actually lives there was wandering the streets of Seaside!!

Ultimately Chic #1 from Pair o’ Chics #1 appears to be hooking up with The Situation… but Paulie wants no part of Chic #2 who is a tad annoying. He breaks the cardinal rule of being a wingman and just walks away from her leaving the 2 girls with The Situation… but Chic #2 starts kvetching again so ultimately her friend ditches her and heads back to a bedroom for some hoochie mscoochie. Of course not the smartest idea… what is the annoying girl going to do since the Wingman stopped guarding her?? She barges into the bedroom…. Interrupts our young lovers…and tells her friend she is making a big mistake. Once again, The Situation ends up…. in a situation!

Last week I discovered something very interesting about the Situation… despite his well proportioned 6 pack and his womanizing ways, he really deep down seems to be a half decent guy… And not only does he give himself a nickname… but he also has nicknames for other people too. He has one for Conan O’Brien… He called one of his many failed conquests Freckles McGee and he called another girl with an odd personality “The Grenade.”

This was when I realized that The Situation is really…. Sawyer from Lost. I mean c’mon.. he has the 6-pack… he can’t seem to get it right with women… AND he always has a nickname for everybody!

Now for the news stories this week!

THE NETS SITUATION

Before we accuse our Gang of 6 plus Vinny of being New Jersey’s biggest embarrassment… The New Jersey Nets continue to have the stranglehold on that prestigious title. The Nets are already 9 1/2 games out of the last playoff spot… and they have only won 2 games! How are they supposed to make up that deficit? And whereas 2 wks ago I said the team has chutzpah to charge for tickets, the action of this past week shows that their audacity has no boundaries.

This week the move to Brooklyn edged closer to reality. The NY Court’s decision to allow Eminent Domain helped them considerably and now bonds are going to be purchased that will free up money to construct the new arena which means the Nets are pretty much finished in NJ after playing the next 2 lame duck seasons.

But… there was talk in Trenton this week about introducing a bill to create a truce between the Meadowlands Arena… home of the Nets.. and the new Prudential Center, which lured the Devils and Seton Hall basketball from the older arena. A lawmaker in Trenton introduced a bill this week that would allow a deal between the two competing arenas that sporting events would move to Pru and the Meadowlands would host non sporting events… This deal would be funded by a new $3 surcharge that would be added on to tickets purchased at either arena.

And the centerpiece to this deal is the Lame Duck NJ Nets would play in Newark for the next 2 seasons and then head off to Brooklyn.

Luckily, a loophole to bail out of this asinine deal came up when it was decided to table the discussions until the new Governor takes office in January! But without cooler heads prevailing, it would have meant that not only do Nets fans have to pay for tickets.. but all fans attending events at either arena would have had to cough up 3 bucks to allow the worst team in the NBA the privilege to play in a nicer arena! How crazy is that?

My solution: The Nets are so awful… send them packing right now.. If they want to play in Brooklyn… send them there for their next home games and all the games thereafter! If the Cincinnati college football coach had to leave immediately after taking the Notre Dame job, then let the Nets play at Brooklyn College! At least Brooklyn fans can get the chance to start to watch the Nets develop into a team that is not mathematically eliminated from the playoff race by Christmas!.

JERSEY SHORE CONNECTION: We New Jerseyans expect our teams to be loyal to us! And the day we see our lovable Gang of 6 plus Vinnie head to Nathan’s and Coney Island instead of Seaside… then they should get the boot too!

THE GOLDMAN BRAZIL CUSTODY SITUATION

This past week’s episode also featured Snooki’s mom… a rather non descript woman who really wasn’t outrageous like her daughter… She just struck me as a nice lady, and as Snooki’s mom.. a very patient lady. The two hung out together and after she left you realized that Snooki is quite immature because she was near tears after her mom drove off. It was only 2 wks since they saw each other!! Didn’t she ever go to sleep away camp??

This week in the news we also saw that poor David Goldman is again at odds with that evil Brazilian family that stole his son. He hopped on a plane to rightfully claim his child from those kidnappers after the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled in his favor, but once again those corrupt bastards filed an appeal and again deprived the boy of being where he belongs. If his mother was still alive, one could understand keeping him down there.. but she kidnapped the kid, took him to Brazil and then punched her one way ticket to Hell when she died during childbirth. God works in mysterious ways.

JERSEY SHORE CONNECTION: See how happy Snooki is when is with her mom. Kids belong with their parents!

THE WILLIAMSBURG BIKE PATH SITUATION

Bicylcists had their bike lanes removed in the ultra religious area of Williamsburg. Rumor has it that the religious Jewish community is upset because the female bikers are scantily dressed, but publicly the Chusids say the bike lanes run right past school bus stops putting the little pishers right in the way of the bicylcists. Saturday, a group of female bikers decided to hold a protest – topless as the chusids walked quickly to and from the synagogue!

JERSEY SHORE CONNECTION: If Snooki can go to a club and do back flips in a mini skirt that showed too many details about her thong – then I guess anything is possible!

A CHRISTMAS STORY ON TBS MARATHON SITUATION

Next Thursday Night is 24 hours of A Christmas Story… I already plan to watch next week’s Jersey Shore with regular pronouncements of “Snookie… she must be Italian!”. And again we will see Ralphie get his mouth washed out with soap for cursing and see his incredible violent attack on the school bully Scut Farkus!

JERSEY SHORE CONNECTION: If you wanted to see cursing and violence,… you may have watched the last five minutes of Jersey Shore. That was when we saw the much heralded but blacked out scene where Snooki was punched in the face by a drunk guy at a bar. MTV aired domestic violence disclaimers at the end of the show.

It is really unfortunate how rampant violence is getting. All of these people who want to be “reality stars” see the shenanigans on The Jerry Springer Show. Even though I am convinced it is almost entirely all staged, why is it acceptable that Springer Guests resort to violence to hash out their problems as a source of entertainment?

Take a lesson from Snooki.. there is no place for that type of behavior. During the Monk finale when Monk was poisoned, the doctor told him the poison will cause vomiting… and then death! Monk was very upset to hear he would be vomiting. In the preview for the next Jersey Shore episode - we see Snooki immediately after she is assaulted… and her first concern – “Did I crack a tooth?”

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK

Last week Pumpy AND Unbiased Giants fan dropped to .500. Pumpy goes into next week all even at 7-7. This week in honor of Rutgers playing in the St. Petersburg Bowl, we go to Miami where the Dolphins are in Tennesee where the Titans are 3 point faves. Sayeth the Pump: “I decided to work out (like The Situation) and I lost weight so now I can Tighten my belt… so take The Titans!”

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Last week we went 1-2 to even things up at 21-21.

Giants 3 faves over WASHINGTON – The Giants need to win 1 more than Dallas the next 3 wks to make the playoffs. I usually go with the home dogs on Monday Night.. but this week I will make an exception.

Minnesota 9 faves over CAROLINA– The Giants final 2 opponents face each other Sunday - if the Vikings win the next 2 they will bench their starters for most of Game 16 which could very well be a huge game for the Giants!

49ers 8 ½ doggies over PHILADELPHIA – Time for the Eagles to come back to Earth.

Welcome to New Jersey Part II

2009-12-12T23:50:00.005-05:00

Happy Hannukah everybody!

Time for a recap of the Week in NJ… first the latest on the Gay Marriage Issue.. followed by the latest news from the best new show on TV… “Jersey Shore”

Gay “Marriage” is one on of those topics that I really am not that passionate about… yet I am writing about it today because I need to honor my commitment to turn out a column each week in the Fall to go along with the Pumpstradamus football picks.

This weeks update on Gay Marriage in NJ: Lame duck Governor Jon Corzine supports it…. Incoming Republican savior Chris Christie says he will veto it. I am not quite sure why Gay Marriage has become such a hot topic for the Republicans. The vote that was scheduled for last week was bounced from the State Senate and instead will be moved over to the State Assembly.

OK now time to recap the 2nd episode of “Jersey Shore”?

I mean, c’mon I may be in my very very late 30s but I just find the show very entertaining. It’s a reality show just for us Joiseyans. And although I am sympathetic to Italian Americans who take offense to the characters on this show… I think most people realize that the Guidos and Guidettes on this show are not truly representative of the typical younger generation of Italian Americans… remember that point, I will tie that in to gay marriage later in this column!

Thursday’s episode further showed evidence that if this was the strategic game of “Guido Seaside Heights Survivor” Snooki and The Situation would be the final 2 because they seem to have the most common sense among the rest of the crew. . Two of the girls – Jwow and Angelina somehow managed to get dumped by their boyfriends. Jwow had “cheated” last wk when she saw a Guido Shmeckle.. and when she fessed up on the phone to indiscretions.. her boyfriend abruptly hung up. Angelina was so distraught about her break-up that she was too sick to work her shift at the boardwalk t shirt store and subsequently copped a ‘tude to her boss and was fired, and then left the show. The rest of the house yawned,

Later that night at 11pm, I found myself skipping my nightly dose of Chuck and Sue and instead stayed with MTV for the “Jersey Shore” post game show… a panel show with a hostess and 3 cast members. The Situation was there along with Sammi and he used his “sleazy to the point that hes actually likeable” charm to show Sammi she missed the boat by hooking up with a different guy. During Thursday’s episode she went on a miniature golfing date with her boytoy Ronnie, he wore a wacky hat that made him look like Peter Pan.

They then brought out Angelina who continues to have delusions of mediocrity…. She announced that she and that bf are no longer together.. however that bf was also married at the time… even though Angelina used some kind of twisted white trash term to explain that he was separated from his wife. It was also interesting to note that Angelina admitted that she had met the Situation before the show had started taping… the 2 had “hooked up” once before – yet in the premiere they acted as if they had never met… which on 2nd thought could actually make sense… since most of these hookups appear to take place in an alcohol fueled daze.

But one of the wackiest moments involved loveable Snookie… who gets punched in next weeks episode – who brings her female bartender friend back to the hot tub…(still not used by the other female housemates; see last week’s column for my Warren Commission theory about why they don’t use it)… and the next thing you know, Snookie announces she feels like making out with someone and starts slobbering with her girl friend!

And then I started to wonder if this would change my mind about Gay Marriage.

And no – I won’t. I agree with Washington State’s “anything but” vote last November, but my issue with Gay Marriage is solely based on one reason – and that is the definition of the word “marriage”…Keep in mind I am more than 100% supportive of gay partners getting all of the legal benefits that a heterosexual couple is entitled to… although that does open a can of worms for straight couples who live together and can’t get those benefits.

The only thing with me.. is the word is the word… men can’t be “pregnant”… despite what that one loony kazoonie pregnant guy says… When it comes to math – numbers are black and white with no gray area. Language is a little different.. there is a gray area.. but if the definition of “marriage” is a union between a man and a woman… I don’t know how a same sex couple can be married to each other.

I think its also important to note the protests are being conducted by nutjobs living in the past who protest gay marriage because they think its an immoral lifestyle. Because even though gay sex is not my type of thing, many other things are not my type of thing such as voting for George Bush, chopped liver and going to the ballet. But who am I to say that others cant participate in an activity that isn’t “my type of thing”?

The Hasidic Jews who have been protesting gay marriage are attracting a lot of attention on this topic too… as has the Catholic Church. I think the chusids should have spent time protesting outside screenings of “Trembling Before God”… that movie that portrayed their anti gay stance and made them look a lot worse than the homosexual “sinners” they protest against. I think its time for people to accept that the concept of accepting homosexuals is here to stay.

And the one argument that is tough to debate is people who don’t want gays showing public displays of affection. We live in a society where its perfectly normal to see a straight couple holding hands or giving each other a peck on the cheek. I don’t want to see anybody doing more than that in public, yet how do you answer parents of confused young kids who witness 2 men or 2 women holding hands or giving each other a peck on the cheek.

And ultimately NJ will go like every other state. The politicians want the gay vote so they will vote for it… but ultimately once it goes on the ballot, the voters will probably end up rejecting it just like every other state. But most of us are not voting that way because we are the “anti gay” fringe… we are the anti gay ‘marriage“ group.

And like the Italian Americans who are annoyed with “Jersey Shore”, I think its important to differentiate those of us voting no on the language terms from those people who are anti Gay for some bizarre antiquated moral reason. We find ourselves in the same battle like the Italian Americans who don’t want to be compared to the wacky 5 on “Jersey Shore”

And I say 5 because Angelina is gone leaving 7 in that house, and I still think that “The Situation” and Snooki have brains that are loaded with common sense. If you saw the premiere episode, you saw how she misunderstood her roomies attacks on skanky girls as being a direct attack on her… even though that conversation had NOTHING to do with her. Was this paranoia… or a misunderstanding typical for a Three’s Company episode?? Incidentally one blogger described The Situation as Don Knotts with a 6 pack!

Actually Snooki is incredibly paranoid and insecure. She isn’t dumb… she just has some type of mental illness!. And her insecurity is as big as The Situations bizarre sense of self confidence. But just because she is paranoid and insecure doesn’t necessarily make her a dummy… unless she starts protesting that homosexuals are immoral people!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK:

Pumpy improved to 7-6 with his incredible prediction of Miami over the Patriots. This week, with all this talk about gay marriage and "Jersey Shore"... Jersey is where we go as the New York Jets are 3 point road faves over Tampa Bay: Sayeth the Pump: "Take the bucs because between 2 kids and a new house - I need a lot of bucks!"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Last week we went 1-2 to drop to 20-19... and like Pumpy we go into week 14 1 game over .500.

GIANTS 1 fave over The Eagles - The Cowgirls fans are also rooting for the Giants this week.. but oddly there is a playoff possibility where an Eagle division win and a Giant wild card tie with Dallas would knock Dallas out of the post season. Nonetheless, I'm picking the Giants!

San Diego 3 doggies over DALLAS - The Chargers have been hot with a streak that started against The Giants.. a game we all remember with dread!

BEARS 3 doggies over Green Bay - Then again, Packers with the wild card, and Giants and Eagles getting in is also a nice scenario... this week take da bears!

CLIP OF THE WEEK: I like Neil Diamond... and amazingly he has remade The Adam Sandler Hannukah Song! Happy Hannukah!

Welcome To New Jersey: The “Situation” State

2009-12-05T22:20:00.003-05:00

I just watched the finale of Monk and I see they left the door open for a future Monk Movie. I can see it now – Randy calls Monk to come to NJ because Sharona got a job on the MTV Reality show “Jersey Shore” and he is worried that she is cheating on him. Hilarity ensues when Monk goes undercover to the beach house in Seaside and slowly eases his way into the hot tub filled with Guidettes that the House Guidos picked up at a local bar,

Just when I thought I was going to do a column about Tiger Woods’ marriage being as shaky as a Nets Season Ticket salesman’s job security…. I came across the greatest thing I have seen on Television since Danny Duberstein gave pep talks to Groats Disease sufferers – the premiere of the new MTV show “Jersey Shore”.

I really don’t know where to start – on the one hand you have the biggest joke in New Jersey… and then on the other hand I could talk about the other topic…. The biggest joke in New Jersey! Three years ago I went through a phase where I started watching all the crazy reality shows on MTV… I blogged about that here on NWOW back on August 4, 2006 where I shot the average demographic age of the MTV viewer through the roof.. I just reread that column for the first time in awhile, and it was interesting to note that during the summer of ’06 I got so fed up with cable coverage of the problems in the Middle East (along with idiot liberal Jews more concerned with giving Mel Gibson a 2nd chance than the wellbeing of heroic Israeli soldiers who were taken captive) that I started to watch MTV reality shows.

That column was actually about MTV’s 25th anniversary in 2006 and I talked about the dating show “Next”… There was also a dating show where the parents watched videos of their kids dates called Parental Control… along with a pretty neat “inspirational” – type show called “Why Cant I be You?” hosted by a guy named Nick Zano who I thought dropped off the face of the Earth until I discovered that he plays Josh on Cougar Town.

We are also home to The NJ Nets whose 0-18 start was the focal point of the sports universe.. but after starting a 1 game winning streak Friday Night, the 1-18 record gives them a little break from critical scrutiny. Keep in mind that now that they have 1 win they can realize that they are already 6 ½ games out a of a playoff spot.

The NJ Nets may go down as the worst team in NBA history. Just the events of the last week show how horrific the situation has gotten. Sunday they fired the coach.. actually I should say he was let out of his misery. They then proceeded to tie the 0-17 record by losing to the Lakers in LA. A day or so later they appointed Kiki Vandeghwe as “interim coach”… the ownership situation is so uncertain at the moment that nobody gets a long term contract. And if you caught the Star Ledger coverage of the story… Vandeweghe was pretty much forced into the job by the team’s President…

Then on the night that Jason Kidd came home, the Nets set the all time record at 0-18. And even though they will not end up winless like last year’s winless Detroit Lions 0-16 record, the fact is that this may be the biggest disaster in sports history… yet the team has the audacity to ask people to PAY FOR TICKETS! What a nerve!

The irony about Kidd is that that trade was actually a pretty good one for the Nets.. they unloaded his contract a few years ago after he told the team he wanted to get out and got a pretty good player in return- Devin Harris. However, the Nets front office looked at the Kidd trade not as a way to get good young talent.. but instead as an opportunity to dump their good players. They subsequently traded away Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter and got almost nothing in return. Nothing. But they saved a lot of money so instead of paying players, the disgraced lameduck owner Bruce Ratner can pay his lawyers to help him boot out local residents from their Brooklyn homes through eminent domain so he can build his sports complex that will make him richer.

I remember how MLB kicked out George Steinbrenner in the early 1990s when he got mixed up with some monkey business. Maybe NBA commissioner David Stern should boot out Ratner too… and do it soon because New Jersey Nets basketball should not be charging "fans" to watch a very substandard product with no hope for improvement until they move out of state.

And speaking of the early 1990s…I remember the post collegiate years of trips to the Jersey Shore and the “people watching” I used to do there. Now almost 20 years later, its good to see that the next generation is still pretty much the same as evidenced by Thursday Night’s premiere of “Jersey Shore” on MTV,

This is one of those reality shows that is not a competition or a life improvement … its just watching 8 goofballs who don’t know each other thrown together in one house. Its not an unusual sequence. But when you take 8 self proclaimed guidos and guidettes and toss them in a house in Seaside… and then get a very slick video editor… you know you have something special.

The premiere aired Thursday night and has been airing repeatedly ever since. Once you start watching this … you start to Thank God that you it is not an eclipse because you can’t just look away. Of the 8, a few got more airtime than the others… with the standouts being a small girl named Nicole aka Snooki, a guy nicknamed “The Situation” and a girl whose nickname is based on Ms Lopez and calls herself JWow… you might know her cousin the ShamWow. Theres also a guy who proudly announces he is a college graduate and demonstrates his 4 yrs of higher education by showcasing his excellent skills as a fist pumper. And then there is Sammi.. a Guidette who is also the only NJ resident on the show.

We meet all 8 in the premiere 2 hr episode – and of course its interspersed with well edited “talk to the camera” segments where each character moves the story along talking about what is going on… as their name appears on screen… while grainy Jersey Shore footage rolls in the background. The 8 get to live at the house, but have to work for their landlord.. a guy named Danny who owns a Boardwalk T Shirt store.

Two of the women have boyfriends… yet one proclaims that she has officially cheated when she catches a glimpse of a Guido shmeckle. Another girl with a boyfriend rips a t shirt off one of the guys and then leaves the club with the shirt leaving him shirtless (Not a bad idea when you work at a t shirt store)… Instead she decides to go eat ham and drink water which might really mean something else.. but then again what do I know?

But the heart and soul of the premiere is “The Situation”…. A man who announces that he will hook up with Sammi… when he decides they will. The 2nd night when they went clubbing… (one of the housemates caught pinkeye and couldn’t get a replacement for the pm shift at the store because everybody else had to “get ready”: for their evening activities.. even though the T shirt store closes 2 hrs before the scheduled departure time)… “The Situation” was making his move only to see her walk away from him and start making out with another Guido cast member instead. Of course a fight later breaks out. By the way, you gotta see the shirt this girl wore to this club!

But the other thing I find interesting is how these girls talk about their boyfriends but get ticked off when the guys bring girls back to the house.. which is not too difficult when you have a camera crew following you around. We also catch on to Nicole Snooki’s intense paranoia when she hears the other girls criticizing the “whores and skanks” and Nicole thinks they are talking about her!

But the funniest thing is when those female guests go into the Jacuzzi with the Guidos and proceed to remove clothing. The female housemates (Not Nicole who is either puking or with a guy who is puking) start heckling the girls in the hot tub. But if they have boyfriends… why would they care so much? And then it occurs to me… The Guidettes on “Jersey Shore” (except Nicole)… never ever go in the hot tub probably because they are so worried about the germ killing abilities of the chemicals in their Jacuzzi that they think that those one night stand chics are leaving some kind of diseased deposits in the Jacuzzi water.

Or maybe they just watch a lot of Monk?

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK:

Last week Pumpy won to get back to .500 at 6-6. This week we go to Florida where Tiger Woods is doing some major damage control after he was caught doing some hocus McPocus. The Dolphins are (only) 3 point home doggies to The Patriots. Sayeth The Pump: “I just went to get a Shark tattoo, but instead they gave me a Dolphin,… Oh wait. That wasn’t me.. I saw that in a commercial… Take The Dolphins!

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Last week we went 2-1 to improve to 19-17.

GIANTS 2 doggies over Dallas – A must win if the Giants want to play in the post season. They are still alive if they lose, but they would need A LOT of help.

ATLANTA 5 ½ doggies over Philadelphia – That Eagles comeback over Washington last week was a tough blow for Giants fans…

Baltimore 3 doggies over GREEN BAY – The Ravens are coming off a good win… of course that logic hopefully won’t apply to the Eagles.

TV Sort of Quarterly Report - Part II

2009-11-26T00:45:00.004-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!!

As I prepared this column a week ago, I was about to write about how aside from the last season of Monk on Fridays, there are only 2 good nights of TV – but last Wednesday as I got ready to watch Law and Order SVU – I saw a promo on ABC for the new show Modern Family that featured an appearance by Elizabeth Banks! Well homina homina homina.. I have been a fan of hers since she was in The 40 Year Old Virgin hot tub scene. I decided to skip L and O and watch Banks instead, so now I guess I will slightly amend my opinion about TV only having 2 good nights.

After stumbling into the Elizabeth Banks episode – I actually liked Modern Family. Since I am new to the show I am not as familiar with the characters like the tv columnists who have press releases to held id the different characters on these ensemble shows. The Banks character was friends with 2 gay guys who recently adopted a baby. The show is about a big extended family and I have no idea who these people are just yet, except the patriarch is Ed O’Neill from Married With Children and he apparently married a much younger woman. (I only saw 2 episodes folks). He is quite sharp and easily prevents his teenage granddaughters attempts to leave a family dinner to hang out with her boyfriend. Another character who I think was Ed’s daughter gets her husband a “thoughtful” birthday present when she gets a personalized performance from a member of her husband’s favorite 80s band… Spandau Ballet. Only it turns out the husband never liked Spandau Ballet and didn't even know any of their songs. While watching the episode, I thought it really was the guy from SB... but I later found out it was actually actor Ed Norton.

The other new show is the much hyped Cougar Town. That show was ok but one of the episodes featured a woman played by Rachael Harris playing exactly the same kind of character she played in The Hangover.. the bitchy wife! The characters have different names.. but they are exactly the same!! It seems like the actress is getting typecast… Its too early to tell if I will stay with this one.. again there are a lot of characters and I’m still trying to figure out who’s who.

This season I seem to have stopped watching longtime favorites Heroes and Desperate Housewives and have replaced them with a comedy heavy lineup. I also like that new Shark Tank show but it seems to be off the air now, replaced by V which I watched religiously when it was on NBC in the 80s.. but I have not caught the new version yet.

SUNDAYS WITH SETH AND LARRY

Hands down the funniest night on Television.. and actually it might be TOO funny.

Sundays with Seth – What the heck is in Seth MacFarlane’s DNA and what made him so brilliant?

2 weeks ago it was hour after hour of Seth. Not only his triple header of Cleveland Show, Family Guy and American Dad but he also had a variety show one night that was quite funny too. Clips of Family Guy were worked into the show and it was quite odd to see the show with a laugh track as the variety show’s audience was laughing with delight. The bit about Marlee Martlin’s voice was pretty tacky but then again is that really such a shock that a Seth MacFarlane production would be tacky?

I really can only handle 2 episodes of Sundays with Seth in one setting because I still need to save some yuks for Curb Your Enthusiasm. Therefore, I haven’t really started to watch Cleveland, but even a glance here and there is getting me hooked. The Thanksgiving episode with Auntie Mama last week was hilarious and made me realize that the transvestite character modeled after Mama on What’s Happening is part of Seth’s motivation to create this show. He grew up watching all the black sitcoms and really had no forum to spoof them on his other cartoon shows. So he did what everyone else does who has 2 cartoons. He created a 3rd. He also had a funny episode a couple of weeks ago when his step daughter was supposed to take a chastity vow.. but his son did so instead which greatly upset Cleveland and pointed out the hypocrisy that sexually active teenage boys and girls have a double standard. Maybe Adam Lambert is on to something.

Family Guy and American Dad continue to roll around with typical hysterics. The concept of Stuie cloning himself and calling his clone Bitch Stuie was priceless… including his little homoerotic bathtub time with his over-eager-to-please clone. After awhile the episodes get all mixed up in my brain and I would probably have to consult tvsquad to remember what last week’s episode was about. Cant they just alternate American Dad with Cleveland Show to prevent Seth overload? Then again, some nights AD is the best of the 3 shows. Last week’s show with Stan falling in love with a band (which I later found out was a real band - after Spandau Ballet, I thought it was all fake!) was quite amusing as he swooned over them like a lovestruck teen.

Oh that’s right, the episode showed Quagmire fessing up to Brian about why he doesn’t like him… it sounded like something from Festivus.

And speaking of which…

Curb Your Enthusiasm… possibly the best show on TV this season, and Larry David has a chance to give the person who created Twilight a run for the money for Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainer of the Year.

The season picked up where last year’s left off… as Larry (the man who inspired George on Seinfeld) hooked up with Loretta Black at the end of last season. The new season starts, and Black has cancer, and Larry wants out.. so he figures out a way to get her out of his house and decides to try to win his ex wife Cheryl back which became the theme of the season. And when Cheryl mentioned that she was happy when Larry worked on the Seinfeld show because he had “something to do”…. The wheels started turning and the Seinfeld reunion concept was born!

The show hit the jackpot the last 2 weeks with the final 2 episodes of the season and possibly the series. All 4 regulars returned to shoot the “reunion special” along with a few side characters such as Newman .. Incidentally, this reunion storyline has motivated me to start watching the Channel 5 reruns again.

A week ago Sunday “The Table Read” episode proved to be the funniest episode of a TV show since the last Newhart. A side story involving “Michael Richard”s concerns about the fictitious Groats Disease put Larry in a quandary. “Richards” worries were affecting his acting, so Larry decides to have an acquaintance, Groats survivor Danny Duberstein talk to him to calm him down. Only it turns out that unbeknownst to David, Duberstein died of the disease two months earlier. So who does he turn to? Leon. And as part of the plot Leon… a black man about to meet “Michael Richards” after the real Richards racist rant at a comedy club… was forced to impersonate Jewish accountant Danny Duberstein.

And while all of us were licking our chops about Leon confronting “Richards”… Leon while watching on the set points out how totally clueless he is about the Seinfeld characters and when Newman walks in to the angry “Hello Newman”, Leon looks at Larry offstage and says…”Who is that funny fat bastard?”

And the “Richards – Fake Duberstein” confrontation… turns out to be not about black anger towards Richards rant.. but instead was a showcase for JB Smoove to earn the Best Comedy Actor Emmy. The improvised scene between the 2 was absolutely hysterical with Duberstein announcing he had 3 bar mitzvahs because he has to recharge it every 13 years.

The only drawback to the episode was when Marty Funkhouser meets Jerry Seinfeld and proceeds to tell him a funny joke that was really not in character to him… but is exactly what Super Dave Osborne would have done. Both characters are played by the same actor, but it seemed out of place. Kind of like when Ted Knight appeared on The Love Boat… he didn’t ask Captain Stubing how Mary and Lou were doing??

And even though the finale was not quite as funny, it was still pretty pretty good with Larry almost sabotaging his entire show when he and “Jason Alexander” get into a bit of a snit. Jason quits and Larry decides to play George which means he was playing himself – sort of. “Jerry” was also funny and fired off a few classic zingers… almost as if he knew that he had to go the extra mile because JB Smoove was not appearing in this episode.

Ultimately the season wraps up with a satisfying ending and personally, I can’t wait for the DVD to come out.. I think the last 2 shows looped together would make a hysterical episode..

MONDAY SITCOMS ON CBS

CBS tweaked its lineup this season… How I Met Your Mother is now on at 8pm and it continues to try to be the follow up ensemble to the Seinfeld/Friends generation. Two and a Half Men may be a one joke sitcom, but it continues to chug along. But by far the best comedy of the night – The Big Bang Theory. Now that certain types of social awkwardness are referred to as Assbergers… it seems that Sheldon is not just goofy.. but has been diagnosed. His roommate Leonard might be bizarrely dating the beautiful neighbor Penny, but the Sheldon - Penny acting chemistry is quite remarkable,

Last season the seeds were planted – no pun intended – when she got Sheldon a napkin used by Leonard Nimoy. Geek heaven! But the episode a week ago was classic when she fell in the shower and needed Sheldon to pull her out naked and get her to a hospital. There are not a lot of comedy teams out there that are as funny as these two, and I never realized Kaley Cuoco had the potential to be such a great straight man.

Many might question if Sheldon is straight after that episode although he admitted to peeking when she made him put her clothes on with his eyes closed so he could take her to the hospital to treat her injured arm. She also asked him not to put her panties on… and instead went commando in skimpy shorts which didn’t seem to phase Sheldon as it would the average heterosexual man in that situation. Instead, he lectured her on the importance of wearing clean underwear just in case she was in an accident and needed to go to the Emergency Room.... even though she was actually on her way to the Emergency Room!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK- Pumpy is under .500 after last weeks loss and is now 5-6. This week in honor of Thanksgiving we go to New England where the Patriots are on the road against the unbeaten Saints which could be a very exciting Monday Night Game. The Saints are 3 point faves. Sayeth The Pump:

“Lets' take the saints, because I'm a big Louis Armstrong fan and I like his rendition of "When The Saints Go Marching In"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK

Not too thrilled with the Thanksgiving Game and the early blogging schedule. Last week the hot streak continued at 2-1 for a season to date record of 17-16.

DENVER 6 ½ doggies over The Giants – I know the Broncos have played crummy lately but has anyone seen the Giants lately? And Nets announcer (0-15 already this young season) Chris Carrino is calling the game on the radio and I predict he will call his first and only win for 2009! But they won’t cover.

Raiders 13 ½ doggies over DALLAS – Huge spread that the Cowboys will not cover. I was more interested in today's early game but it kicks off just one hour after my 11:30 posting.. so lets take the late game instead. If both Dallas and Denver win, the Giants division hopes will be finished.

Washington 9 doggies over THE EAGLES – The Skins have been somewhat decent these last few weeks.

TV Sort of Quarterly Report - Part I: The NBA

2009-11-22T00:03:00.003-05:00

This year we scrapped the long time tradition of a “regular” quarterly TV report, instead opting to chime in on a semi regular non organized basis about stuff related to the boob tube. And now that the World Series is over, it’s time for my fall season to start with a look at some trends for this season. And we start with Part I... What I Won’t Watch This Year… and it is a list of 1 .

WHAT I WON’T WATCH

The New Jersey Nets!! What a disgrace they are.. not only because their record is 0-13, but because Commissioner David Stern allowed this situation to develop.

Several years back, the Nets were actually a pretty decent team… making it to the finals twice. They had 3 solid stars in Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, and Richard Jefferson. But when Bruce Ratner got his grubby paws on the franchise, it slowly returned to its embarrassing status as the joke the franchise used to be in the pre-Jason Kidd era. All this guy wanted to do was make a ton of money by building his little dream complex in Brooklyn,.. building an arena for the Nets and knocking out some homes through eminent domain in the process. But as the project gets closer to the end of the year “Crap or get off the toilet” deadline, it seems that the Nets are getting lost in the shuffle in this disaster.

A small powerful group in Brooklyn is flexing its muscles to keep the Nets from moving there, and while Ratner has been addressing those issues, he has been doing his best impression as Nero… because as he fiddles, the Nets burn. The team is the biggest joke in the NBA and appears incapable of winning a game. They suck so bad that they even blew a huge lead to Minnesota on Opening Night only to lose at the buzzer… and Minnesota has lost every game ever since.

Its obvious Bruce doesn’t give a crap about the Nets, and his real estate deal might end up going through without the new basketball arena. He already has a buyer for the team, but its immediate future will be determined soon when the decision is made if it is Brooklyn bound. This presents an interesting dilemma. The team has gone down the toilet during this intermediate status… but if they end up moving, are they just going to let the team lose every single game till they move in a couple of years? Why would any local fan want to pay to watch a lame duck team at the Meadowlands Arena if they know that the team is moving away in a couple of years??

But if the Brooklyn deal falls through… and the eminent domain opponents are doing their best to keep Ranter’s grubby money hungry paws off these properties… THEN, the team should make a commitment to staying in NJ and do something.. either a quick change of ownership to clear away the stench of Ratner… and announce a firm commitment to rebuild the franchise as quickly as possible… even if it means the team is going to head south to the Prudential Center in Newark.

But either way, this situation cannot continue, and I’m curious as to why Commissioner Stern has not stepped in to help fix this mess.

And as the Nets inch closer towards the most pathetic start in NBA history… 0-17 held by Miami and The Clippers… LA's 2nd class citizen at the Staples Center has its own bizarre controversy going on with their announcing team.

It seems that long time announcers Ralph Lawler and Mike Smith were calling the game the other night when the Memphis backup center Hamed Haddidi was brought into the game. Haddidi is the first ever Iranian player in the NBA and as Lawler and Smith discussed this, an irate caller placed an angry call to Fox Sports about the exchange (and we have the transcript) and among his complaints about this non issue were the announcers mispronounced the country by calling it Eye-ran instead of the way Christina Ammanpour pronounces it.

Sayeth the Lawler and The Smith (from the LA Times)

Smith: “Look who’s in.”

Lawler: “Hamed Haddadi. Where’s he from?”

Smith: “He’s the first Iranian to play in the NBA.” (Smith pronounced Iranian as “Eye-ranian,” a pronunciation that offended the viewer who complained.)

Lawler: “There aren’t any Iranian players in the NBA,” repeating Smith’s mispronunciation.

Smith: “He’s the only one.”

Lawler: “He’s from Iran?”

Smith: “I guess so.”

Lawler: “That Iran?”

Smith: Yes.

Lawler: “The real Iran?”

Smith: “Yes.”

Lawler: “Wow. Haddadi – that’s H-A-D-D-A-D-I.”

Smith: “You’re sure it’s not Borat’s older brother?”

Smith: “If they ever make a movie about Haddadi, I’m going to get Sacha Baron Cohen to play the part.”

Lawler: “Here’s Haddadi. Nice little back-door pass. I guess those Iranians can pass the ball.”

Smith: “Especially the post players.

Lawler: “I don’t know about their guards.”

So lets get this straight… Iran is a country that wants to nuke Israel (and the Palestinians who live there too!), yet 2 announcers get into trouble for mispronouncing it?? How absurd is that? I think the political correctness has gone too far.. and Im surprised the Post’s Phil Mushnick hasn’t written about this…(although maybe he has?) Mushnick always points out how Jay-Z the Nets part owner has songs out there that use the N-word… but that’s ok? But mispronounce Iran? Suspension!!

What the heck is going on David Stern??

Stay tuned for Wednesday: Part II of the TV Quarterly Report… We’re posting early to get the Giants and Cowboys picks in!!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK: Pumpy and UGF ran the table last wk and both are .500. This week Pumpy tries to improve his .500 record and since Oprah announced she is gonna end her show, for this week’s game we go to Chicago where the Bears are 3 point home doggies to the Eagles. Sayeth the Pump:

"I watched Oprah last week when she had the woman from Connecticut who was attacked by the monkey. But when she showed her face I couldn't "bare" to watch... so take the Bears!"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK: We’re all evened up at 15-15 after last week’s 3-0… Now time to build up a winning streak.

Atlanta 6 ½ doggies over GIANTS – The ol’ cop out “The Giants will win but not cover” pick.. but do the Giants deserve a TD advantage after a 4 game losing streak?

Washington 11 doggies over DALLAS – Maybe last week’s results were an omen??

CHICAGO 3 doggies over Philadelphia – The Sunday Night game airing opposite Sunday’s with Seth and the Curb Your Enthusiasm Sunday Finale?? I ain’t watching this one unless Danny Duberstein and Michael Richards are the guest announcers talking about Peaches!

Willis and The Liberals

2009-11-14T22:25:00.004-05:00

As much as everyone thinks the microblogging on Facebook and Twitter are leading to the demise of regular blogging… sometimes you see something on a Facebook status update that sparks an idea for an entire column.

Two weeks ago NWOW presented an idea for government health insurance funding issues by proposing it be designed as a tax deductible tax so those of us who itemize our tax returns can get something out of it by writing off the tax. Last Saturday Night, the health bill moved closer to reality when the House of Representatives passed its version and now it is off to the US Senate.

I already see Facebook emails from people concerned about the Senate version keeping a provision involving a $750 excise tax imposed on American citizens living outside the USA. This does not exist in the House version, but many are concerned that if it is included in the Senate version and becomes part of the law, that many Americans living overseas who get insurance there, will still have to pay into this program too. This affects a lot of Americans who made Aliya and relocated to Israel but retained their American citizenship. I guess it probably makes more sense that the bill applies to American “residents” and not citizens.

Of course the new benefits exclude illegal immigrants. And I guess we won’t be hearing as much about this topic on CNN now that Lou Dobbs has left the network. Is he starting a new space website just like the last time he bolted away from CNN? However, you can call me a liberal on this particular issue, but I disagree about barring illegals from getting car insurance. Talk to somebody whose car got smacked by an illegal and you will understand the logic on this one. What happens if an illegal immigrant hits you? How are you supposed to pay for the repairs? Who pays your damages if your car gets totaled?

Anyway, I was reading FB on Sunday morning after the House vote, and I was mortified to see that a friend of mine who I will call Willis had posted a status update along the lines of ….”Health Care Reform 1, Women’s Reproductive Rights 0”… leading me to loudly proclaim…”Whatchu talking about Willis?” Indeed his friends comments started to pile on and virtually all of them were agreeing with him!

As it turned out, there was a bit of a misunderstanding among some of Willis’s friends whether the House version allowed government funding for abortions for women who are rape or incest victims or whose lives are in danger. I decided to chime in and correct the assumption that all abortions were banned by the health bill. One woman subsequently posted that that it’s a good thing she never plans to hook up with a man because it is unlikely she will ever get pregnant and need an abortion. .

At that point, Willis came up with his 2nd “Watcha talking about Willis” moment! Sayeth The Willis: "What happens if she becomes artificially inseminated and then changes her mind?"

And its moments like this that make me realize that normal thinking people like myself… non liberal Democrats… are really the only sane people left in this world! How crazy is that scenario that an “I changed my mind” abortion should be paid for by anybody other than the mind changer? Taxpayers should be paying for that?? If the fetus was prescreened for some illness, it’s understandable… but the Willis “oh I changed my mind” scenario? Of course, there are situations involving “poor people” who can’t afford an abortion. Hopefully those who are forced to keep those babies will have provisions in this bill for prenatal care and arrangements after the baby is born that it gets medical care or an adoptive home.

And its too bad that just when the Republicans start to move to the center and think like normal Democrats like myself, their party then decides to move farther to the extreme right. Why else was a no name like Sarah Palin on the 2008 GOP ticket instead of somebody more experienced like Rudy Giuliani? Oh yeah, Rudy is pro choice… just like a lot of decent Republicans like former NJ Governor Christie Todd Whitman. But the Republicans want to move further away from the normal Democrats while the liberals wrongly assume that their branch of the Democratic party is more representative of how my peeps think.

Even this week, when the Washington sniper was executed… that was an event that brought the Democrats and Republicans together. I am against the death penalty but when it comes to certain cases, its impossible to feel sympathetic towards somebody like John Muhammad or Timothy McVeigh. Yet there was a fringe of law students who were upset about the Muhammad execution because they felt he didn’t have enough time to prepare his appeal! Hellooooooooo.. he was arrested in 2002.. that’s plenty of time to figure out an appeal!

And its hard to tell if Willis was serious or just being sarcastic. But one thing my fellow pro choicers need to accept is that the pro lifers are entitled to their opinion, and we need to respect them even though we think they are wrong. And as long as the Pro Lifers don’t shove it down my throat… (or shoot abortion doctors) they are entitled to disagree with me. I really think that most Republicans are moving towards the middle of the road on this issue and are not represented by the crazy extremists in that party… just as I feel that the liberals are not the face of the Democrats!

But the Liberals are not the only ones who embrace bizarre causes…The Republicans do it too. Carrie Prejean was a no name beauty pageant contestant who was asked an irrelevant (to the pageant) question by the no talent Perez Hilton about gay marriage. She answered the question honestly and now that she has been dethroned for an “unrelated” reason, she is the poster child for the future Young Republicans… She appeared on Larry King the other night… got a little flustered by the line of questions… and then threatened to walk off the show AND claimed Larry broke a pre interview deal by allowing a live phone caller to call in…(who by the way had a heckuva tough question that never got answered). I have watched his TV show and listened to his radio show for years and I never ever heard a guest say Larry King violated a no live phone call rule… but every time the not so slick Prejean is criticized on a non Fox News show, the Republicans blame the liberal media. I don’t care that she is against gay marriage (I have a similar opinion covered in last week’s column), but just because nutjobs criticize her does not mean that this 22 year old beauty queen is the future hope of Republicans.

Its too bad we live in a society that has so many extreme right wingers who want ALL abortions to be outlawed… including victims of rape and incest and women whose lives are in danger. Its that fringe group that has me on the pro choice team… even though I am not a particular fan of abortion. Nonetheless, as long as woman has the right to choose… that is entirely up to her.. as long as she pays for it. But to have taxpayer money fund certain abortions? I think the liberals are just asking too much.

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK

Last week Pumpy improved to 4-5 by accurately picking the Chargers. This week we go to Washington which is a lot safer today now that the Sniper has been executed. The Redskins are home against Denver and are 3 1/2 point doggies. Sayeth the Pump: "I like Red Skin Potato Salad... so take the Redskins!"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK

Last week we went 2-1 for a year to date record of 12-15. Is this the week that we run the table and reach .500?

GREEN BAY 3 doggies over Dallas - I'm still not accepting that the Cowboys might finish with a better record than the Giants.

SAN DIEGO 1 1/2 faves over The Eagles - Maybe that win last week gave the Chargers some momentum to knock the Eagles down a notch.

CAROLINA 1/2 doggies over Atlanta - If these games all work out, the Giants would come back from the bye week in a much better position to get to the playoffs!

Bloggiversary #4 = A Busy Week for Harold Moskowitz!

2009-11-07T18:34:00.003-05:00

Hey next week is 4 years since we launched this wacky blog! Mazel Tov!

Well what a fun week this has been for my fellow Mets fans! I wasn’t paying close attention, but I assume that the media was getting excited about 2010 and a healthy full season of Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltraaaaan… and wondering if David Wright is going to hit more than 10 home runs next season. Whats that??? Nobody’s talking about this… Well if that’s the case please let me know when the Yankee hype is over so I can crawl out of my shell while my Pin Striping Yankee fan Trophy Wife walks around bellowing.. “Theeeeeeeeeeeeee Yankeeeeeeeeees Win!”.

How does a Met fan write a column about a Yankee parade even though last year’s column about Yankee Stadium was mentioned on other blogs? Here are my observations.

Ed Koch should have worn a warmer coat.

I was rereading the coverage of the Giants parade last year and frankly I don’t know that I can write about the Yankee Parade with as much love and affection. I don’t hate the Yankees.. and I actually was happy for them when they won in 96, 98 and 99. But watching that celebration at Shea at the end of the 2000 season… (and also at the same time being thankful I missed the Game 1 Armando Benitez meltdown due to the celebration of my favorite Jewish Holiday of Simchas Torah), I just don’t get too excited about hearing “Theeeeee Yankeeeeeeeeeees Win!”. In reality, in the post 2000 era, I actually enjoyed that 7 game loss to the Arizona D’backs in the 2001 World Series.

I work from home on Fridays and usually have the TV on in the background.. but when I turned on Channel 9 to get my morning dose of People’s Court…(which next week will feature an episode with the original Judge Wapner) whose NYC taping schedule baffles me.. When does Harvey Levin have time to fly in if he is on the West Coast taping TMZ every day? Anyway, the Wendy Williams Show was on Channel 9 which was when I realized that 5 had started its coverage of the Parade and bumped Wendy over to 9. For those of you who are not in the NY Metropolitan Area- both stations have the same owners and they juggle around their shows and newscasters on a regular basis.

I was a tad disappointed to see at 11 that all the local stations had picked up on the Parade Coverage. I was hoping to catch the Jerry Springer Show… a program whose penultimate segment has to be the wildest 7 minutes on TV. The first 45 minutes of the show feature well acted confrontations between cheating couples who feel compelled to reveal their extra ciriccular indiscretions on the Jerry Springer Show in front of a live audience. Yet when the inevitable fights break out… each performer seems to know exactly where on the stage they need to be for this spontaneous outburst of emotion. Ya gotta like up and coming young actors.

But after 4 or 5 segments of all this emotional drama.. the best part is when the audience starts to chime in… As a homage to the old Phil Donahue show, this is the segment where Jerry walks through the audience microphone in hand and gives audience members a chance to shoot off wisecracks at the guests. As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up watching Hollywood Squares and got a kick out of the quick wisecracks answers shot off by the celebrities when the questions were posed to them by Peter Marshall. Of course as a kid, I never knew that the witty comebacks were rehearsed in advance… I just thought that as kids grow up we develop an ability to have lightning quick comebacks. This is why I’m amazed that these redneck Springer guests can just sit there serenely moments after painful confrontations, and not only listen to these audience attacks.. but respond with witty comebacks with such speed that would make Paul Lynde and George Gobel blush!

And whereas a lot of people have complained that the November World Series ends too late, the cool thing is this parade took place after the Election… which means the politicians weren’t schmoozing as much as usual. I was just rereading the Giants Parade column from last February and I had this to say about our recently defeated Governor Corzine,… And… notice how much has changed politically since that parade which was held on Super Tuesday!

“First of all, I didn't vote for Hillary because she is the NY Junior Senator and she should have been at The Giants Ticker Tape Parade on Tuesday. I know she is campaigning.. but this is an important event... and Governor Spitzer was there as was Senator Schumer. And as for New Jersey's politicians.. why wasn't Governor Corzine at Giants Stadium for the big celebration Tuesday afternoon? Corzine was too busy to attend that event.. but had enough time to go to The Skylark Diner in Edison for a Tuesday Night Hillary Clinton Supporters Party,... just a few short miles away from Route 440 where he is planning to plunk down some toll booths!”

This leads to my 2nd commentary for today… the election results. It looks like Corzine just never quite bonded with New Jersey voters. Anybody who listened to the debates had no business voting for Chris Christie because it was quite clear he was clueless about running the state’s finances.. even though he did an excellent job as a crime fighter and should personally thank young Mr. Dweck of Deal whose snitching out of so many people while his own ass was in such deep trouble gave Christie a great popularity boost.

Actually, Chris Daggett seemed to have a better grasp with his tax ideas…. But ultimately I look back at 4 years ago when I started this blog out of my old condo and was paying a few thousand a year in property taxes and now as we reach the end of his tenure I live in a house and my property taxes are substantially higher…. Actually my house’s property taxes are up by 25% since I moved here 2 ½ years ago... and with declining home values!

A friend of mine who is a Republican Yankee fan was drooling over his twin victories this week, but my fellow Jerseyans who think that those property taxes are going to drop… … really need a reality check if they think that Christie is going to change anything. All he will do is cut services and promise tax cuts, but the local towns will lose aid and will just raise property taxes to keep afloat. Don’t people get it… there really is no such a thing as a tax cut… especially if you can’t run a deficit. So for all those who are orgasmic about the Reagan tax cuts… keep in mind that it led to an inflated deficit which lasted until President Clinton got rid of it only to see 8 years of Bush to just dig us back into yet another hole.

Also… Timmy whose tummy problems were part of the legend of the Giants Super Bowl win…(see the Feb. 2008 archives) asked me how people could vote for Christie after he loaned money to a colleague… many point out that Corzine loaned money to Karen Golding to bail her outta jail after she was arrested for stalking Democratic big macher Joseph Cryan. Lo and behold… as soon as the last vote was counted Golding announced that she wasn’t stalking him but had actually been involved a 3 year affair with him! As former Yankee announcer Mel Allen used to say…”How ‘bout that?”

And finally, regarding gay marriage.. the definition of the word is technically between a man and a woman although Washington State and its Referendum 71 seems to get it right. I have no issue with gay partners being entitled to EVERYTHING a spouse is entitled to…(including a week of hearing Theeeeee Yankeeeeeeees Win!) And Washington State’s Election Day vote for Referendum 71 better known as the “everything but marriage” law makes so much sense, I’m surprised all the states don’t adopt that..

Frankly at this stage.. people voting against allowing benefits for homosexual partners are mostly the anti abortion religious wackos who still live under a rock with other crackpots who think that a gay lifestyle is sinful… aka the Right Wing Republicans who misinterpret a line in Leviticus in the Old Testament. They are the same bunch who knocked Scozzafava out of the House Race in Upstate New York because she is not conservative enough for the Palin era. Don’t these right wingers realize that more gay men mean less abortions? Now if you will excuse me…. Trophy Wife will rewatch the World Series, while I am going to read the first 70 Referendums.

And Harold Moskowitz from the headline? He changed his name and everybody now knows him as…. John Sterling!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK – His pick of the Giant mess left by the Psychics Club meeting at his house fell short as he dropped to 3-5. This week we go to New York... the home of the Yankees as the last ticker taped team – The NY Giants are 5 point favorites over The Chargers. Sayeth The Pump:

“I just came back from the cell phone kiosk at the mall and bought myself this awesome new charger.. so Go Chargers!”

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK: Unbiased? I wrote more about the Giants parade in a column about the Yankee parade! Anyway last week we went 1-2 to drop to a very mediocre 10-14. (Last yr after 8 weeks we were 16-8)

San Diego 5 doggies over THE GIANTS – The Giants will win this one by a field goal

EAGLES 3 faves over Dallas – Pick your poison. I dislike the Eagles less.

Arizona 3 doggies over CHICAGO – Green Bay and Atlanta have easy games against Tampa Bay and Washington which means a Chicago win combined with an unspoken of Giant loss would send the Giants to the bye week out of the playoff race!

CLIP OF THE WEEK: As much as I don’t like The Yankees, I admire George Steinbrenner because he pours so much heart and money into his team even though he is nowhere near the wealthiest owner. It’s a bummer that his health is keeping him from enjoying this World Series as much as he did in the past. Here is a clip from Seinfeld.. a show he never appeared on… or did he??

The Subsidized Health Insurance Tax

2009-10-30T16:41:00.004-04:00

Well here we are right in the middle of the World Series every Met fan is bored by... Who do we root for? We know that the 2009 World Series is a historical event, yet we watch it not really caring one way or another. It's kind of like when I watch the Soccer World Cup Final... its historical.. but who really cares?

I was just getting ready to write today’s column when I got a call today from a buddy who was quite annoyed about an issue about his company’s health insurance plan. I listened to his situation, but since I am not a lawyer, I really couldn’t do much but listen to him vent… and then at the end of the conversation, I threw in a little plug to check out today’s NWOW column because I was planning to write about the problems that plague us... and the Republicans who make it worse.

I don’t know too much about the issue but I think medical costs would be much lower if malpractice policies were lower and if people were not always suing doctors who mess up for every last dime they can squeeze out. Nonetheless, these are the cards that we have been dealt and it is time to find a solution.

Hillary Clinton took up this issue in the early days of Clinton I but since the Clinton era was followed by 8 years of George Bush, the issue was put aside because this was a topic too complex for President Bush’s limited mental capacity. Now Obama is in the White House and is making health insurance reform the centerpiece of his first year in office.

The "debate" continues whether health insurance is a right that all Americans are entitled to. Many Republicans feel it’s a luxury and many liberals feel that there should be Robin Hoodesque policy to subsidize the poor. Ron Paul was on Larry King’s show last night and said that if the government has no money and mandatory health insurance costs money, then the money will have to be collected from somewhere to finance it. That’s true but people keep crying out "Socialism!" if the government starts running the health insurance show… By the way, socialism really works well on kibbutzim in Israel. And wouldn't we rather have socialism than an aging population that cannot afford to take care of its medical needs??

The rich people of the Republican Party who spend their time drooling over Fox News Channel have a large voting bloc and many of them are fortunate to never have to worry about their health insurance or paying for it. They are lucky enough to work for companies that take care of it for them. And since I am a reasonable Democrat I can understand why they resent that they have to kick in shekels to pay for those who cannot afford it.

But how much of our tax money is allocated to pay the medical bills for those who can’t pay themselves?? And how much less tax money will pay for the federally run Obama health insurance program? And with a new plan in effect how much taxpayer money will go to pay for health insurance? My idea is to call it what it is.. a tax! We can call it the HIT – the Health Insurance Tax… or add an S in front and call it the Subsidized Health Insurance Tax.

If specific HIT money is taken from all of us to pay for health care, the HIT money should then be tax deductible. However the interesting thing is if my poor neighbor has to tap into the HIT fund, then we get to write off the neighbor’s health care costs but not our own. Right now, you can only write off health care costs that exceed 7.5% of your annual income… and a large chunk of people don’t get to write that off... especially those who will be paying a lot of money into health insurance taxes.

So let’s call it what it is… a tax that should be tax deductible. And to keep health costs tax deductible, why is 7.5% the cap to make health insurance tax deductible?… Make it all tax deductible. Right now a family making 100k that pays $7400 per year in health bills cannot write it off… Change the rules… after the government figures out how the payments will be divided up among my fellow tax paying Americans, let's make things a little more fair for everyone paying into the plan... Lower the 7.5% threshold AND turn this money into a HIT tax so at least taxpayers can get a write off for the money they are paying so the tax payments can make more sense.

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK: Last week Pumpy won again to raise his record to 3-4. Since this weekend is a big Philly New York weekend with the Knicks, Giants and Yankees playing against those cheesesteak teams. The Eagles host the Giants in a pick 'em game. Sayeth the Pump:

"Im hosting the Psychic's club at my home this weekend and they always leave a giant mess... so take The Giants!"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Last week we went 1-2 to bring the season record to 9-12. This week we try to run the table to get to .500

Giants PICK EM over Philly - It would be nice for the NY fans to win one of these Sunday showdowns...(Is my preference for the Phillies over the Yankees starting to show?)

Seattle 9 1/2 doggies over DALLAS - A good week for the Giants to open up some breathing room.

Minnesota 3 point doggies over GREEN BAY - If the Giants lose and 2 teams from the Dallas, Green Bay and Atlanta trio win - the Giants would close Nov. 1 going from 5-0 to out of a playoff berth!

News of the Week

2009-10-23T17:37:00.002-04:00

With kudos to the late legendary Paul Harvey here is some news and comment about some headlines from this week.

FUTURE OF BLOGGING??

If you take a look at the left margin of the blogs we link to, you will notice that some of my fellow bloggers have not updated their blogs lately. Not that I am taking attendance but the Joshie and Dangerspouse blogs have not been updated since late 2008! However others are regularly updating such as Liran, DAS, and Neil Best who blogs on Newsday’s wesbite. Incidentally on Yom Kippur an elderly man who had a tough time moving around walked into Temple for Kol Nidre services and the woman sitting in front of me promptly got up and offered him her seat. I didn’t know it at the time but that woman is actually Liran’s sister!

Anyway, as much as people are saying that Facebook (which just restored live feeds with friends new friends’ updates,… yay!) and Twitter’s microblogging is killing regular blogs there are some blogs that are updated frequently… and one of them is The Fine Neil Best blog…(Not to be confused with the Best Neil Fein blog) . Best updates his blog several times a day with short updates about stuff in the sports media.. or in the case of today Soupy Sales death. He even does an occasional live chat where people can kvetch about Chip Carey and other stuff. It is a daily must read.

Yesterday I logged into Neil’s blog to find an announcement that starting next week all content on Newsday’s website will only be available if you pay a fee. However, you don’t have to subscribe if you already subscribe to Newsday or Cablevision io… which just so happens to be my cable provider.

But would people be willing to pay to see websites? The biggest moneymakers for pay per view pages seem to be the pornsites, although when you look at what they have available for free, you wonder how much more you get for spending money on it. There have been rumors that Newsday would start charging and now the rumors have come true and many of the commenters on the Best blog are saying adios… and they wont pay for content… I also wonder if it will block rss feeds for non Newsday subscribers who are RSS subscribers.

And now this week we also hear that Hulu is planning to charge for some content. But this is not a new concept. A few years back when I started doing my Mortgage Podcast…(which also is one of those that has not been updated in awhile), another podcaster did an interview with me. He worked for the Clickcaster website which hosts my podcast and asked me if I ever planned to charge listeners to listen to them. I don’t recall my answer to that question, but I really doubt people would pay money just to hear my podcast.

Personally, I won’t have to pay because I am an io subscriber, but if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t spend my money on his blog. However, by that same token, I feel bad that newspapers are losing so much money because they are giving it away for free online, so maybe this subscription idea will cut down on webclicks and eventually add up to more newspaper subscriptions.

But then again, if Neil Best’s blog is not in the paper… why don’t they just charge for newspaper content and make the rest of it for free.

NJ NETS FOLLOW UP

I see that the lame duck NJ Nets who may or may not move to Brooklyn…(see last week’s column) are leaning towards playing their games at the Prudential Center. And this battle between the Prudential and the Meadowlands Arena may be resolved with an arrangement that sports goes to Newark and concerts and shows go to Izod. That works well for Newark if the Brooklyn deal falls through and the Nets stay in NJ.. and in the deal the Izod doesn’t have to worry about competing with Prudential for entertainment.

Today’s Post has an article about a lunch hosted by the Nets new owner. I think this guy has some shekels. He took a party of 6 to Nello on the Upper East Side. The tab came out to 15,000 with a $3700 tip! Sayeth the Post:

“Their check included $825 for three orders of truffle tagliolini; $600 for four orders of truffle carpaccio; $210 for three orders of veal chops with mushrooms; and $72 for six large waters.
Not to mention $15 for a bowl of chicken soup.
The lunch was topped off with a $5,000 bottle of vintage 1998 Chateau Petrus and two bottles of 2002 Montrachet Latour for $3,600."

$72 for water??

THOSE CRAZY JEW HATERS

A few weeks ago we told you about the loonie kazoonies from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas. They are Jew haters and proud of it.. and the protest outside Jewish synagogues. They also hate gay people too… which means their upcoming trip to NJ will not include seeing Harvey Fierstein’s latest show.

Most people with common sense realize that these Westboro Weirdos are just a fringe group and don’t represent other Baptists. Nonetheless I hear that they now plan to protest outside a Rutgers Jewish Student building next week.

However, before thinking of attending a counter protest, I think the group from Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in Manhattan (a predominantly gay synagogue) got it right. They heard that the Westboro Weirdos were headed to their temple and they turned the tables on them by turning it into a fundraiser. Just like a walkathon where you make a pledge based on how many miles a participant walks… people pledged based on how many minutes the Westboro Weirdos protested.

A big clock was essentially planted near the protestors and the fun began. After 50 minutes Beth Simchat Torah raised $10,000!

And the Rabbi was so happy to raise 10k…. she sent Westboro a Thank You note!

And there you have… the rest of the story!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK

Last week Pumpy lost again since Jacksonville needed OT to win but not cover against the Rams and his record is now 2-4. This week we go to Philly home of the NL Champion Phillies where the Eagles are 7 point road faves against Washington in the Monday Night Game.

Sayeth the Pump: “My friend who is a Phillies fan goes to an egalitiarian synagogue so in honor of Eagle-itarians… I take the Eagles”

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICK OF THE WEEK

Thanks to my picks last week of the Raiders and Chiefs we went 2-1 for a year to date record of 8-10.

Arizona 7 point doggies to THE GIANTS – After last week a TD may be a bit much to cover.. but I predict the Giants will win the game by less than 7.

Atlanta 4 doggies to DALLAS - I love when the Cowboys lose at their new home stadium.

REDSKINS 7 doggies over Eagles – What do they say about home dogs on Monday Night?? By the way, this is the 5th week out of 7 that we are going ALL doggies!

Off the Field Sports Craziness

2009-10-16T17:03:00.007-04:00

The Mets went home… and after 6 months of seven day a week fantasy managing, I took the week off from watching sports while the Yankees played the Twins, but now that the League Championship Series is about to start.. it’s time to gear up for baseball again and root for the Dodgers and Angels.

By the way, Yankee fans caught in nasty traffic might want to keep an eye out for that wacky new traffic skipping balloon that guy in Colorado unveiled yesterday with that crazy media hoax that his kid was all by himself in the balloon.. which worked out very well for the all news stations to give his crazy invention lotsa “balloon time” on an otherwise slow news day.

So in a week where I didn't really watch much sports... there was plenty of craziness off the field!

WAS RUSH SCREWED OVER IN HIS ATTEMPT TO SAVE THE RAMS?

I gotta admit, even though I consider myself more of a “conservative” Democrat… I rarely agree with anything Rush Limbaugh says… but then again I never listen to his show. However, I must admit that he is an extremely entertaining radio broadcaster (but always seems to flop on TV) and that “Excellence in Broadcasting” is not to be taken lightly…. No matter how much you disagree with him he is an excellent broadcaster, and by that same token as much as you might disagree with Rev. Jesse Jackson, he is an excellent public speaker.

Rush’s early career started out as a Promotions Director for the Kansas City Royals back in the day when they were actually a pretty good team in the George Brett era. Those were the days when the ALCS always seemed to be Yankees vs. Royals. Rush then got a gig at a radio station in Sacramento replacing Morton Downey of all people and then a few years later ended up with a show on WABC in its early days as an all talk station.

Whatever Rush does.. he does it well. He has no guests on his show (from what I have heard) and El Rushbo also survived losing his hearing before it was restored in 2001 with cochlear implant surgery that changes the way he hears (not really “in the ears”) but allows him to hear nonetheless. He actually had his surgery 9 days before I met Trophy Wife! He also dated and was subsequently shown the door by former CNN hottie Daryn Kagan….

But as much as I disagree with him, I will defend him and all conservative broadcasters such as Sean Hannity and Bob Grant when rightwingers are accused of being “a racist” because unfortunately the liberals who pollute my Democratic party seem to have a hard time understanding that conservative views are against all people…and that includes white people too!. I am also disgusted by lazy people who collect welfare and live off government handouts… but that viewpoint does not make one racist even if there is a perception that the end of welfare would hurt minorities more.

And the white guilt of the liberal party appears to be an easy target for the right wingers. Rush lost an ESPN football analysis gig…(and he seems to know his sports) when he made a comment that the media really wants to see a black quarterback do well. In reality when a black player excels, the media does not only make a big deal about his accomplishments, but his blackness too. Of course part of that is because blacks were not allowed to participate for so many years so Jackie Robinson’s stats stand out moreso than white players in his era with similar stats and likewise the accomplishments of black coaches and other black quarterbacks who accomplish other “firsts”. But you can’t deny that the media doesn’t pay attention to these accomplishments… They do likewise for anyone perceived as an underdog.

But is Rush a racist not worthy of being an NFL owner? I don’t know… but I have a hard time taking “anti liberal causes” as being against a specific race. I think they are against the causes… but not the race. One of Rush’s many weddings was officiated by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who is black… although many liberal blacks call him an “Uncle Tom” because of his conservative beliefs.

Democrats may disagree with almost everything El Rushbo and Sean Hannity and Michael Savage and all these other mashugie rightwinger broadcasters, but to deny them a chance to buy a football team due to perceived racism is going a little too far.

AND SPEAKING OF RACISM…

For once I gotta admit that Phil Mushnick really hit the nail on the head in his column today…. in referring to the Limbaugh story.. but I think its more relevant pertaining to the Jayson Williams story.

Since we are talking about race today… I remember how I felt when OJ Simpson was acquitted. I wasn’t particularly emotional.. but I knew he beat the rap thanks to some excellent work by his legal team. But what really bothered me was that I was walking through town that same afternoon and a school bus drove by and some black kids yelled out tauntingly about how happy they were that OJ was acquitted.

Why are these crimes a black and white issue?? Was OJ less guilty because of an alleged racist cop whose racism was defined by use of one word! Isn’t the violent act of takinga life more painful than use of a word? And why has the Jayson Williams retrial turned into such a circus??

The Williams retrial will go on! That was just announced this afternoon (thanks to Google News!)… Williams is a tragedy with a capital T. He was an up and coming Mr. Personality while he played for the NJ Nets with a likeability similar to Michael Strahan. I always thought Williams would go on to be a broadcaster but he screwed up his own life in 2002 when he fatally shot a limo driver while foolishly playing around with a loaded gun.

The first trial a few years back resulted in his conviction on charges of covering up the shooting. However the manslaughter charges resulted in a deadlocked jury. Now that retrial time has arrived, Williams’ high priced attorneys discovered that an investigator had used the “n” word to describe Williams during a meeting with other law enforcement. And amazingly his lawyers asked the judge to drop the charges because this n-word utterance was never disclosed during the trial… as if the use of that word somehow changed the fact that Williams had shot this poor limo driver!

Yet according to today’s NY Post,… Mushnick in writing about the Rush Limbaugh story has this nugget about current Nets part owner Jay-Z the rapper. Sayeth the Mushnick:

“Jay-Z, the rapper and rap impresario, and a part owner of the NBA Nets, is among the most popular artists and influential entrepreneurs to have resurrected the "N-word," helped return it to the mainstream”

So the moral of the story is it is ok for a Nets owner to use the word but if a former Nets player fatally shoots a guy and an investigator uses that same word….. then all bets are off!!

SPEAKING OF THE NETS….

Ok… I am no fan of that ridiculous law of eminent domain but you have to credit a guy named Daniel Goldstein who has been standing up to Nets owner Bruce Ratner in his attempt to move the Nets to Brooklyn. I rarely go to Nets games anyway and oddly enough if they move to Brooklyn they will be closer to me than their current home at the Meadowlands Arena. Of course there is the Verezano Bridge and that ridiculous toll to deal with.

But the Nets are the joke franchise of the NBA. They had a nice run earlier this decade during the Jason Kidd era when they took 2 trips to the NBA Finals… but since that time the situation just gets crazier.. and by the way in college I used to get press passes to the team’s locker room and I was there the day Sugar Ray Richardson never showed up so believe me I have seen craziness at that mashugana swamp.

But Ratner is now selling the team to a Russian billionaire but as part of the deal gets to keep his new Arena complex in Brooklyn if the deal is approved in time before he loses his chance to get municipal bonds to fund the project. IN his way however is one Daniel Goldstein, the last man standing in his 9 story condo building that Ratner wants to knock down to build the complex that will pad his pockets with billions of dollars.

A court hearing was held this past Wednesday the NY State Court of Appeals peppered lawyers with questions about why this project should be allowed to proceed. One justice actually asked about relocating to Giants Stadium instead before he was informed that that structure is actually in …. New Jersey!

Nonetheless, I hope the whole thing falls through IF it means tossing people out of their homes… However, it might make more sense to move the team to the Prudential Arena in Newark which is more accessible to public transportation. I hear that the light rail to Giants Stadium does not run trains for events unless there is a larger crowd expected that surpasses the typical Nets audience.

On the other hand if they move closer to me to Brooklyn… here is an idea right out of the Rush Limbaugh Promotions book – have the Nets run a deal for Jerseyans and give us a free toll on the too expensive Verezano Bridge!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK

Last week Pumpy dropped under .500… and I think this is the first time ever since he started doing picks… to 2-3. This week we go to St. Louis home of the Rush Limbaugh less Rams where the Rams are 91/2 doggies to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Sayeth the Pump: “Take the Jaguars because I like that new ABC show with Courtney Cox – Jaguartown”

(By the way the show is actually called “Cougar”town…)

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Last week we went 1-2 to drop to a mediocre 6-9.

Giants 3 point doggies to NEW ORLEANS – Would you believe I’m missing this game for an exhibition Knick game?? It’s actually a fundraiser against the Maccabi Electra team.

Raiders 14 doggies to PHILLY – I think my record will get better once I start picking more NFC East teams in these battles against crummy bottom feeders. Raiders to cover!

Chiefs 6 ½ doggies to WASHINGTON – Don’t tell Michael Vick.. we’re going all doggies this week!

Letterman: Interesting and Disturbing

2009-10-09T17:17:00.004-04:00

Last week just as I was wrapping up my column, the David Letterman scandal story broke, so instead of writing about it immediately, I decided… why not just wait a little while to see how the story plays out. Now that a week has passed, I figured I would take a closer look….

Before we get to Letterman, Yankee fans might not want to hear this.. but I had the strangest dream… involving Joe Mauer. In the dream the Twins were locked into a marathon extra inning game that was going about 19, 20 innings and the announcers kept talking about Mauer having an incredible 8 hits in the game…. However, in this dream the Twins were playing the Red Sox in the American League Championship Series! Incidentally Johnny Burnett went 9 for 11 in an 18 inning game in 1932… Perhaps this an omen.. lotsa hits and a Burnett in the same sentence…

Anyway, as the Letterman saga continues to unfold, there are certain developments that I find interesting and somewhat disturbing. Let’s start from the beginning.

1. How he came clean – Very interesting and not at all disturbing.

Dave felt that Joe Halderman was blackmailing him and he went to the cops. I speculated on Facebook if Letterman knew when he went to the cops that he would have to fess up in front of a grand jury. He initially consulted his lawyer when he was first contacted by Halderman.. would he have gone to the cops if he knew his grand jury testimony would be made public? Nonetheless, it was smart that he announced it on his show… I have seen some attorneys on Larry King say that these shakedowns happen all the time among their rich clients and most of the time the issue gets resolved and nobody knows any different. That is a great selling point for those lawyers’ potential future clients who might be blackmailed and want to keep it quiet… Nonetheless, in this day and age of SmokingGun.com and TMZ, it made sense for Letterman to fess up on his show on his terms.

2. The woman he had his affair with – Very interesting and a little disturbing…

I don’t watch Letterman as much as I used to, but through the years I have seen Stephanie Birkitt on the show many times and all I can say is… huh?? Shes ok looking, a little goofy…and a bit funny with her little Letterman nicknames (double entendre, perhaps?) I always wondered how she was able to get so much airtime when she would bring those gift envelopes to Letterman when people in the audience won prizes. By the way, those contests are exactly what Johnny Carson used to do when he gave out free dinner passes inside envelopes to audience members who played “Stump the Band”. And so far a week into the story we haven’t heard any disgruntled former female staffers step up to say that Birkett got special treatment because of their affair. Frankly, I am kind of surprised by his choice and curious about his other ladies.

3. The story on the 2nd, and 3rd day, etc. Not so interesting and increasingly disturbing…

As the week has gone on, we have heard more about this bizarre triangle between Birkitt, Letterman, and Halderman. Only Letterman and Birkitt know the real timeline but she apparently started with Dave, went to Halderman, and then some say went back to Dave. Are they still together? I would assume not, although I do worry about a video of them surfacing showing a threesome with the Jay Leno 10 pm show playing in the background.

Is Dave a hypocrite for making wisecracks about philandering politicians? Truthfully I have different expectations when it comes to politicians and celebrities who attract a large following with the younger more impressionable audience. But, Letterman is JUST a late night talk show host,…not a man aspiring to lead thousands or millions of people in government, or a pop singer whose posters adorn the bedroom walls of teenagers across America. Do young kids really aspire to be another 1130 pm talk show host?

And is it more wrong to cheat on your wife or your girlfriend of 20 years? If the cheating went on before the wedding, is the 20 year factor more “relevant” morality-wise than if it were a relationship of 20 weeks?

But even though he is just a talk show host, he is a very powerful guy despite his tendencies to downplay his status in the Show Business stratosphere. .I have seen some old late 70s early 80s game shows on GSN featuring Letterman when he was hyping his NBC daytime show and his personality is almost the same as it is now. But beneath that persona, people appearing on Dave’s show know how much a late night appearance on that show helps their careers. The women he encounters appreciate that power, and apparently he had no trouble hooking up with them.

And since I don’t read the tabloids, I don’t know if anybody ever speculated on what Dave was up to after hours.. He seems to shun the spotlight, he never appears at movie premieres or any of that Hollywood stuff and everyone seemed to assume he hopped in his car after taping his show and sped home even though some reports speculate he had a little “love pad” in the Ed Sullivan Theater.

One other story I just found is on the KIRO TV website in Seattle. There is a woman named Sherry Jackson who was featured on a 48 hours segment produced by Halderman, and oddly enough she was the victim of a blackmail scheme. Jackson’s brother was murdered in the Phillipines and somebody was blackmailing her asking for cash in exchange for the poor guys ashes. She worked closely with Halderman on that story, and Jackson told KIRO that the two spoke often about the case. After she heard about his arrest… here was her quote (from KIRO’ s website)

"We would have conversations like that: What an idiot who would do something so dumb?" Jackson said.

4. Halderman’s lawyer’s reaction – Not so interesting… but incredibly disturbing.

Y’know America is a wonderful country and we have a terrific constitution… including the concept of innocent until proven guilty. This has led to some very creative lawyers who will bust their humps to get their clients acquitted. I appreciate that.. the right to a strong defense is spelled right out in the Constitution.. but sometimes these defense lawyers walk a fine line and don’t always know when to keep their mouths shut. As much as I appreciate their attempts to keep prosecutors on their toes.. sometimes they go from brilliant legal maneuverings to advocates of ridiculous causes. If you ever heard Ron Kuby’s radio show that used to be on WABC, you know exactly what I mean.

Now I see Halderman’s lawyer on the talk show and I start to wonder who is the victim here. He is spinning these stories about how there is more to the story, etc, etc. I have seen reports that Letterman included Birkitt and NOT Halderman in his social circle but are we third graders who have to all be invited to every birthday party? I get tired of hearing about “poor” Halderman, when in reality he was the one who demanded money for silence in what appears to be an open and shut case. His threats were caught on tape... the Manhattan DA has a copy of it and he tried to cash the corresponding check.

And what does the lawyer say?? “I can’t wait to cross examine David Letterman”. In other words, let’s threaten to embarrass Letterman so that maybe the prosecution will back down from pushing this issue so a trial can be avoided, and his client can get a favorable plea bargain. But he does dangle the carrot out there that if there is a trial. let’s destroy as much as Letterman’s reputation as we possibly can… all because he had the audacity to get blackmailed..

Doesn’t this stuff sound like the lawyers who defend rapists and lick their chops when the victim gets on the stand?? He “can’t wait” to cross examine the victim, while the defendant doesn’t even have to take the stand!

I am actually somewhat surprised and also impressed that Letterman is such a stud. I feel bad for his wife if she didn’t know about it, and of course he was morally wrong. But the guy is a talk show host whose show promotes movies filled with all kinds of performers who cheat on their spouses on a daily basis. I just hope a lot of participants in these affairs are not badly hurt by Halderman’s path of self destruction.

And wouldn't it be funny if Dave Letterman's production company Worldwide Pants (now there's a pun!) produced a movie about the arrest of a producer who was blackmailing a talk show host about his affairs??

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK:

Last week Pumpy went wrong with his Detroit Lions pick to even his record at 2-2. This week we go to Indianapolis, the hometown of David Letterman as the Colts travel to Tennesee to take on the Titans. The Colts are 4 point faves. Sayeth the Pump: I have been fighting this nasty rash all week so I say take the Titans... because their linebacker Colin is like my skin - Allred!

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK:

We went 2-1 (Im not even sure why I went with the Jet game instead of the Redskins) for a year to date record of 5-7.

Oakland 15 doggies over GIANTS - These 2 TD+ spreads make me nervous. Maybe not the week to cover.

CHIEFS 9 doggies to Dallas – Big spread again, but I’d love to see the Chiefs steal this one.

Tampa 15 doggies to PHILADELPHIA – I get the feeling that Sunday Night the NFC East will look very strong and I’m gonna be 0-3.

5770 in Middlesex County

2009-10-02T14:02:00.004-04:00

To paraphrase Bill Maher - it is time for New Rules at NWOW. There is no hate allowed here... except if it is directed at an unreliable vehicle that strands you!

Last Friday afternoon I had to run an errand and I ended up parking my Saturn across the street from a synagogue. When I returned to my car, I was greeted with a trend that a lot of Saturn owners suffer from – the freaking car would not start. That cockamamie car is very temperamental about starting.. but sometimes if it doesn’t kick in right away, it might start up if I try again 15 – 20 minutes later. Nobody seems to know what is going on with it and thanks to Google I see that I am not the only Saturn owner with this problem.

On that particular Friday, I needed to get to my office to pick up a package so I called Trophy Wife to pick me up and I decided to deal with the car later. However, because it was Friday afternoon, observant Jews do not drive on the Sabbath, and non observant Jews do not advertise their Sabbath driving in front of a synagogue. I discovered this at a very young age on Yom Kippur 1973 – the day the Yom Kippur War broke out. My parents took me home for lunch in the middle of the day…(I was way too young to fast) and after we walked a few blocks from the synagogue we discovered a line of parked cars with passengers sitting in the drivers seats, all of them listening to 1010 WINS to hear what was going on with Israel’s newest war. That was when I realized that Jews who drive to synagogue when they are not supposed to…. park a few blocks away!!

So my solution to the sticky situation was to arrange to have the Triple A tow truck come after Friday night services were completed. I went back to where my car was parked later that evening and while I waited outside for the tow truck, I discovered how incredibly peaceful the street was. People would occasionally stroll by and cars were coming up and down the street… and I also took note that the exterior of the synagogue was so well lit that it almost looked like it was the middle of the day... even though it was really late in the evening.

Unfortunately, in Edison on Monday night, nobody’s unreliable Saturn got stuck on Jefferson Street in front of Temple Beth-El, since nobody sat outside after Yom Kippur waiting for a tow. It was not until early Tuesday that somebody discovered that some thugs had spray painted swastikas on that synagogue. The Rabbi of that synagogue - Rabbi Rosenberg has been very vocal about anti Semitism in the area and he speculated to the media that he might have been targeted by a group of Jew hating teenagers.

The week before, on Rosh Hashana,. A Jewish Yeshiva student in Edison was walking down the street when he was attacked in what is being called a bias incident, since the word “Jew” was apparently used during the attack. This story was not mentioned on the news at first until Rabbi Rosenberg spread the word to the local Jewish community and the news media about this crime. A teenager under the age of 18 was subsequently arrested…. but because he is a minor his identity has not been revealed by law enforcement authorities.

I don’t recall if I have ever met Rabbi Rosenberg… but I do admire his guts to stand up against anti- semites and I did write about him here on NWOW a few years ago. (See January 29, 2006) Back then, a local resident wrote a silly letter to a local Jewish paper criticizing the Rabbi’s wisecrack during a public Menorah lighting ceremony about a prayer that Iran’s Ahmadinejad would drop dead. I thought complaining about it was silly… and even though I agree with the Rabbi, perhaps an event with so many little pishers might not have been the right forum for that comment. But for a Jew to write a letter to a Jewish paper about wishing death on a Hitler loving Holocaust denier? I found that to be quite bizarre..

Nonetheless, even though I might not always agree with Rosenberg. I appreciate that he stands up against Anti semitism… (For many years he had a dispute with another Rabbi who I greatly admired, and I'm not sure Rabbi Rosenberg was 100% right about that issue) Rosenberg also said that he seems to think that his actions pertaining to the Rosh Hashana incident motivated the post Yom Kippur vandalism… plus he feels there is some spillover from the anti Semitism brought on by Ahmedinejad during his UN visit last week. Sadly the Rabbi’s December 2005 wish did not come true.

But anti Semitism has also reared its head in another ugly way recently. Last month we followed the news story about the young lab tech from Connecticut who disappeared the week before her wedding. The cynic in me thought she was just getting cold feet like the woman in Atlanta a few years ago who became known as “The Runaway Bride”. Sadly, she was not a runaway bride and police discovered her body on the day that she was to be married.

Since that time there have been numerous memorial services and one incident caught my attention. The woman was engaged to a Jewish man, and his synagogue was the target of some Jew hating wackos the day after her recent memorial service. The craziness was organized by the loonie kazoonies at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas. This crazy church’s website’s cover page declares that “God hates Fags!” Some of the pre printed picket signs at their “demonstrations” say such nuggets such as “Thank God For AIDS” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”. They also protested at the funeral for Matthew Shepard who the website refers to as an “impeninent Sodomite”. The site also talks about how they hate Jews because Jews killed Jesus and on and on it goes.

And in an article I found online on northshoreoflongisland.com, Arlene Gross wrote about the anti Semitic protest outside Temple Beth El in Huntington, that took place the day after Annie Le's memorial service was held there. But the protest was held during Hebrew school lessons, so young students who study there were forced to be exposed to this trash. Gross’s article contained this fascinating piece of information. Here is the actual quote:

“Among the picketers on Park Avenue was a boy wearing an anti-gay T-shirt that matched his mother's. When asked what he was doing there, he replied: "Picketing."

When asked if he knew why, the 7-year-old replied, "No."

So when Rabbi Rosenberg wonders why teenage minors paint swastikas on his synagogue…. take a look at the parents of these kids. If 7 yr olds walk around with anti gay shirts that their parents force them to wear you really need to wonder what kind of homes are these hate filled teens coming from? And how likely is it that the Anti Semitic rhetoric that is drilled into these kids by their Jew hating parents manifests itself into the next generation when those kids line up in front of a synagogue with their spray paint bottles?

I’ve always said that these Jew haters should be banned from taking any medicines or vaccines discovered by Jews… but of course as sensible as that sounds, the ACLU would say that that is too harsh. But the next time you hear a story about kids being arrested for this mischief… you should question what is going on behind the closed doors of those homes that would let a kid think that desecrating a house of worship or attacking a person just because he is Jewish or black or gay or all 3 is a proper way to conduct oneself.

And because arrested minors' names are not released to the public, the hate filled parents also get to retain their anonymity enabling them to continue the cycle. Maybe it's time to release the names of juveniles who are arrested for bias crimes?

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK: Last week Pumpy hit on the Colt (Nidre) Yom Kippur night game... This weekend as we begin to celebrate Sukkot, we go to Detroit where it was announced this week that Saturn will officially cease production. The Bears are 10 1/2 point faves. Sayeth the Pump: "Take Detroit... because at night I will be "lion" down and sleeping in the sukkah"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK: Last week we went 0-3 for a season to date record of 3-6.

Giants 9 point faves at KANSAS CITY - Double digit road faves? After last weeks game... I'll take the Giants.

DENVER 3 point doggies over Dallas - I think John Elway was a better Joe Buck HBO guest than Jerry Jones...(and I loved the opening where Artie Lange started chasing Joe on the street!)

Jets 7 point doggies to NEW ORLEANS - J-E-T-S... have you ever seen a 3-0 team as such an underdog??

Fall Preview Preview

2009-09-25T15:14:00.005-04:00

Now that the summer is officially over… as I mentioned last week my summer officially ends with the onset of Rosh Hashana…its time for Fall and the new TV season.

Back in the old days, the first day of school always coincided with the arrival of the Fall Preview TV Guide… a nice little consolation prize to look forward to when I would come home from my first day back. But since TV Guide got rid of its small regional magazine and went to the current format, I stopped reading it, so nowadays I rely on Entertainment Weekly and whatever I can glean off the various TV blogs that I read.

In addition to that, I really don’t get into the TV (or NFL) season until after the World Series. That gives the networks the chance to cancel the really crummy shows before I get a chance to check them out, but leave the less crummy ones there for me to watch. This year the Mets have been so lousy and NBC has made a historic change to its prime time approach, I have actually taken a little sneak preview pre-November.. hence the Sneak Preview Preview. Incidentally, I still watch the Mets so their game has to be over before I watch another show. And even though our suffering ends when the season ends a week from Sunday, poor Howie Rose has to go from this fiasco to announcing a season of Islander games!

One of the biggest changes is NBC’s decision to run the same show every night at 10pm… a concept that had never been tried before as most prime time shows air once a week. But since syndicated game shows and talk shows and court shows run once a day all across the week, why not try it with a prime time show. By the way, speaking of talk shows, what local theater troupe lends its actors to Jerry Springer’s show? There is NO way these are real people… If you pay close attention, the “confrontations” appear rehearsed and scripted and the “guests” always stand in just the right spot leading to those “spontaneous” fights. Yet all is calm later in the show when all the “guests” are in the late segment when the audience members fire off wisecracks, and the hick “guests” tend of have uncharacteristically witty comebacks.

So with Jay Leno getting the 10 pm slot, I decided to check it out to see if NBC made a brilliant decision or a colossal mistake. The network gets some ratings leeway for this show since the program is relatively cheap to produce compared to the usual stuff that airs at 10pm such as Law and Order. Its kind of odd having the 10pm shows moved up an hour, but I guess this is what East Coasters who relocate to Central Time go through.

Along the way, I caught a season premiere and a new show. I haven’t really been much of a fan of “The Office”…. I need a laugh track to watch a sitcom, so I can tell what the producers expect to be funny so I can laugh along accordingly. These laugh track less shows are hard to watch because I can’t take points off for missed jokes. And why don’t the cameramen ever laugh?? Are they required to keep a straight face? Do they reshoot a scene if the cameraman laughs? I guess the Office is ok… although Im not sure why its reruns bounced off Seinfeld from the coveted 730 and 11pm slot on Channel 5. I even caught the British version on Cartoon Network the other day, but I only watched 10 minutes of it. I would need to see more to give it a fair shot.

One new show that caught my attention was “Community” which got a rave review from Allen Sepinwall in the Star Ledger. I actually have found it to be somewhat amusing. Its about a guy who had a fraudulent college degree who has to go back to college and how he befriends a bunch of goofy characters in school including one blonde chic who he has the hots for. Its right out of the ensemble comedy formula of Taxi or Cheers, etc.

This past week’s show introduced us to the Spanish professor who is actually Asian who does a very funny shtick about why the students should ignore the fact that he teaches Spanish instead of Chinese or martial arts. But those of us who saw “The Hangover” during the summer might have been distracted by the actor since he is the same guy who was the naked guy in the trunk. You gotta give him credit… the guy has a iddy biddy teeny weeny little shmeckle yet had the guts to display it in the movie! Hopefully I’ll forget this fact one day and be able to focus more on his acting chops.

Chevy Chase is also in the show, and I am not sure if NBC would want the host of one of the worst talk show flops this side of the Wilton North Report to lead into Leno. And just to get this out of the way early, I am NOT a Leno fan, but I try to watch his new show with a fair attitude. I used to think Jay was hysterical in the 1980s when he would appear as a guest on Letterman’s 1230 NBC show. He also was a regular guest host filling in for Johnny Carson back then, although I tended to prefer Joan Rivers and Garry Shandling. But once Jay got the job, I started to like him less and less.

I recall watching the first episode when he took over the Tonight Show and Billy Crystal walked out as his first guest and went to shake “Ed’s” hand only to discover that there was no sidekick. And you have to give Leno credit for stepping into the shoes of a legend. However, when Bill Carter’s book came out detailing the lengths Leno went to screw Letterman out of the slot, I started to think NBC made a mistake. And when I realized that the Tonight Show Leno was a much more toned down version than the 1230 Letterman version of Leno, I really felt that the more talented Letterman really got the shaft and I was very happy when Letterman got the 1130 slot on CBS.

Leno’s ratings victories are well documented… and even though it started when Hugh Grant went on as a guest after he got caught in an embarrassing situation, one guest does not lead to more than a decade of ratings domination. I guess you can’t account for taste. The only reason I would ever watch a segment of Leno would be if he had a guest I really liked. For example, I remember a show with George Carlin where he was on the couch while Ann Coulter was as guest and you could just see that Carlin was keeping his mouth shut because he knew he could easily tear Coulter apart.

But Leno himself also got a raw deal at first when NBC pushed him out for Conan who I like but still really don’t watch. Once I discovered the incredibly witty Craig Ferguson I moved my late night attention to CBS. Nonetheless, NBC came up with a reasonable compromise by moving Leno up to 10 and probably saved themselves a lot of money in the process.

I have caught some of Leno’s early shows and I must admit I have laughed out loud a few times. I am hoping that now that he is not “Johnny’s replacement” but instead is “Law and Order; SVU”;s replacement that some of his late 80s early 90s edge would come back. The open of the show is similar to the Tonight Show.. Stuttering John is not the announcer any more.. but the band looks to be the same and the set is similarly laid out except there is no desk. Jay comes out and does his monologue and then the show steers away from the traditional talk show format.

I have noticed he has a revolving roster of comedians who prepare pre taped pieces. The first show featured the wedding singer from “The Hangover” and had him do a lengthy bit about a car wash that went just a little too long. Also, the other day a black woman did a bit about Harlem that also went a bit too long although it was sort of funny especially the way the black women were making fun of the new hoity toity white hairdresser who had set up shop nearby.

Having these guys are a good safety play for Leno.. if they bomb he just gets rid of ‘em and ultimately I think those pieces will be cut. Nightly news anchorman Brian Williams is also supposed to be doing a regular feature, but I haven’t seen it yet and Williams who I thought was so boring on Channel 2 many years back is actually quite witty in real life.

The talk segments are similar.. guests don’t sit on couches with Jay at a desk but instead sit next to each other on chairs. Jerry Seinfeld was on the first show and he was his usual funny self poking fun at Lenos “farewell” show compared to Seinfeld’s farewell show on NBC where Leno came right back to TV while Seinfeld did not. The segment also featured a funny appearance by Oprah. By the way, Seinfeld and crew will be on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” this season a show whose season premiere I also caught, although it was quite disturbing to see Jeff do the ol hoochy mcscoochy with Funkhouser’s crazy sister, and then deny it claiming she was crazy.

Leno also interviewed that moron Kanye West the day after his crazy appearance on the MTV Music Awards and really got tough with him, asking him what his dead mother would think about what he did the night before. Thursday night’s show featured Rush Limbaugh which was also a well done interview.. good to see Rush lost 80 pounds… his radio success has never translated to TV so you never really get to see him too often. Having him drive an electric car which had a cardboard AL Gore on a race course was quite amusing too.

But some of the segments don’t do as well. Pee Wee Herman was on earlier this week and a bit he did just was not as funny. And when Herman (who looks the same as he did 20 years ago even though he is 57) told Leno he had a new abstinence ring I was waiting for Leno to tie it in with a movie theater masturbating abstinence question.. but the question never materialized. And besides that happened in the early 1990s when Leno was doing funny shtick on Letterman and anybody under 25 probably doesn’t remember seeing Pee Wee’s Playhouse... nor do they remember x rated movie theaters... (how bizarre... there was no internet porn back then!)

So will I watch Leno? I will IF nothing better is on. I am not yet 100% well versed with the new Fall schedule. But what will happen if a CSI or Mentalist is on at 10? Will I watch Leno? Will I flip over to Wendy Williams on Channel 9? And will Leno return to his old edgy self? And more importantly, will this show be a colossal flop>? Or… will it turn into a brilliant programming strategy that will result in other talk/variety shows popping up on other networks? It looks like it could be an interesting season and kudos to NBC for at least trying to do something original and different.

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK

Pumpy lost last week to drop to 1-1. This week its the Indianapolis Colts Arizona Cardinals matchup on Sunday Night... the rare game that Pumpy will see as much as I will since our Jewish friends will be at Temple Sunday night for Yom Kippur and not watching the game. The Cards are 2 1/2 point faves. Sayeth the Pump: "Take Indianapolis since I will be chanting Colt Nidre"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICK OF THE WEEK:

Last week we were 3-0 to even our record at 3-3.

TAMPA 7 point doggies over The Giants - Don't worry Giants fans... Big Blue will win the game.. this just strikes me as a tad too high a spread for a road game.

Chiefs 9 doggies over PHILLY - Are the Eagles really that good to deserve a double digit spread this early in the season?

Carolina 9 doggies over DALLAS - After Rosh Hashana, I watched the Cowboys lose at home... now I plan to do so after Yom Kippur. Big spread here... and Im talking about all the lox and bagels that Trophy Wife will serve!

Thoughts for 5770 - Revisiting "Diary of A Crummy Day"

2009-09-17T11:24:00.003-04:00

Hey today is my birthday!

So when does the summer really end? Is it Labor Day? Is it September 22? For me, summer really ends when things get "serious" and I guess being Jewish that would mean the arrival of Rosh Hashana..... (although in the rare years that it comes out before 9-17, we still get a last gasp of summer at the shore on my birthday) And there have been some years that Rosh Hashana came out in October… and in those years my summer continued into October… I even recall the infamous 1994 RH which started the night of Labor Day! My mother was in the hospital that weekend and I remember walking quite a few miles from Linden to Rahway Hospital in brand new shoes. I had blisters on my feet till Thanksgiving!

But the solemnity of Rosh Hashana is where everything gets serious again.. It launches 10 days of repentance, and it also marks the first time that I start wearing a tie and jacket to synagogue again. The Jewish New Year also starts off a few weeks of religious holidays that ends with my favorite holiday of Simchat Torah. (It also marks 3 wks of coworkers asking “There’s another Jewish Holiday?”) Simchat Torah always wraps up with my annual proclamation of “Oh well, no more holidays till Thanksgiving”. I actually stole that line from the Cantor at my old synagogue in Linden; he said it off the cuff to me one year and I have used it every year since!

When looking back at classic columns in NWOW, one that stands out in my mind appeared here on 8/24/06… the day The Highland Park Conservative Temple and Center was damaged in a fire. I kept a diary of my thoughts for that day and decided to post a column that night with a narrative of the events of that day… unlike other columns that I work on for a few days… That particular column was one that I wanted to post at the end of the day to effectively capture my emotions. I remember attempting to upload that column…”Diary of a Crummy Day”… (see the August 2006 archives) to blogspot that night and got increasingly frustrated because I couldn’t get on the internet, and I very impatiently continued to log on until after what seemed like an eternity when I finally got the signal... I recommend you check it out if you had never seen it before.

In retrospect, the Crummy Factor of the day has diminished. Unbeknownst to me that day, a little baby was born in a nearby hospital that day… and now 3 years later Trophy Wife and I have become friends with that kid’s parents… And how crummy a day could it be if a little baby arrived that day? And also unbeknownst to me on that very day, a new family moved to town just 6 houses away from where we live now. That family had a baby this summer… but not in the hospital.. but actually at their house! The night the baby was born there was a nasty thunderstorm and I watched the rain coming down hoping that the loud noises weren’t scaring the newest member of our community. Over the last year, Trophy Wife and I have also became friendly with that family… and again, how crummy a day could it be if this nice new family moved here??

And this weekend, the Crummy factor will diminish yet again with the arrival of 5770. For the first few months after that August 2006 fire, the Temple building was totally unusable. The sanctuary wing needed to be rebuilt and the rest of the building had to be cleaned out from smoke damage. The office staff moved their operation to an office building that was kindly donated by a Temple member. Services were split up between that office building, The Y and the High School. After about 10 months, one side of the Temple was usable again and we moved everything into what was once the gym, a gym that was reinvented for 2 years as a repainted temporary sanctuary and general all purpose room. It is also the same room where I met Trophy Wife on December 29, 2001.

Now 3 years later as we begin the New Year, we will finally have the Grand Re-opening of the Temple’s sanctuary that was destroyed by that fire. If you saw the 2006 column, the very night of the fire, officials of the Temple held a meeting at the local Y (which has since been torn down) and announced that the rebuilding process would start immediately and a fundraising campaign was launched. That money has now gone towards a nice new addition that has resulted in a redesigned building featuring an even bigger sanctuary so the overflow crowd can sit in pews and not on temporary chairs. There are many other new features but they are a mystery to me because I haven’t seen them yet. The new Sanctuary wing has been kept under lock and key from curiosity seekers like myself, and until the New Year begins, nobody will be allowed in there, except for the Temple Officers who have been posting pictures regularly on Facebook. And I gotta tell you… these pictures really look fantastic!

This Saturday Morning as I wake up and wipe the cobwebs from my eyes… I’ll run downstairs to get some caffeine and I plan to tie my tie a little quicker; I’ll already have the jacket picked out and I plan to scamper off to synagogue with a little spring in my step. (Hopefully I wont step on any cracks or potholes like I did on Rosh Hashana 1999 when I sprained my ankle on my way to Temple!) And I plan to set aside a little extra time on my arrival to oooo and aaaaah as I check out the brand new sanctuary… hopefully I won’t sound too much like Merv Griffin because belting out "Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" at Temple would be highly inappropriate! But after those first few minutes Saturday as I reintroduce myself to the new Temple, I will also take some time to further downgrade that Crummy factor from 3 yrs ago.

And this should be the theme for 5770 - downgrade the Crummy Factor. And single people and ventriloquists should also rethink their dating habits and downgrade the Dummy Factor. Life is tough right now.. the economy has tanked, 401k's and wallets are hurting and everybody is sniping. Congressmen heckle the President… Serena Williams yells at referees… and Kanye West kvetches because his friend didn’t win an award.

Believe me, as a mortgage broker I see firsthand that people are having problems! But before you sit at services reflecting on all the problems from last year… remember the old Monty Python song…: “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”… Instead of spending time worrying about things, take the bull by the horns like our Temple crew did that August 24th and look to the future and see what you need to do to improve your situation. Nothing would be better if over the next several months we are all able to downgrade our Crummy Factors. And as tough as it might look right now, we don’t have the foresight to look into the future… so even though life might be crummy now, things have a way of working out… just like August 24, 2006.

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK

Pumpy is 1-0 after hitting it with the Jets last wk. This week we go to Georgia, the home state of Former President Jimmy Carter who may have started a firestorm this week by saying Obama critics are prejudiced against blacks. The Falcons are 6 point faves over the Panthers. Sayeth The Pump:

“First I want to correct the column’s last paragraph that we don’t have foresight to see the future… Second.. I too had a daughter this summer that you didn’t mention. As for the pick,. Let’s take the Panthers because my son "Little Pumpstradamus" likes The Pink Panther.

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK; Last week we were 0-3. Home teams are in caps.

Giants 3 point doggies over DALLAS - Looking forward to this one after 2 days of Rosh Hashana.

Saints pick 'em over PHILLY - The Cheese Steaks have some serious QB problems.

Rams 9 1/2 point doggies over WASHINGTON - The Skins didn't look that impressive last week even though the Rams looked that bad. Double digit spreads are a little dangerous this early in the season.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2009-09-11T13:35:00.008-04:00

Well for one thing, I was not blogging as I discovered while going through the August 2009 archives. But it’s good to be back.. and today is September 11th… and while there is a call for a national Holiday to remember 9/11 – which would be hard to do so soon after Labor Day - here is my proposal:

Flip flop Labor Day and Memorial Day and move Memorial Day to September 11th, although I am not quite sure how that would affect The Jerry Lewis Telethon…. I think it’s a great tribute that they read all the names of those who lost their lives and maybe something like this should also be done on Holocaust Remembrance Day too.

I Summer Baseball

I was busy during the summer doing some volunteering and spending too much time playing Typing Maniac on Facebook. I have also been working on a project that I will elaborate on in a future column. We didn’t do a Baseball Quarterly Report column at the 120 game mark, because for the first time since we started NWOW back in November of 2005, the Mets are having a pretty lame season so my attention to baseball has drifted off as the Met losses continue to pile up. My buddy Walter announced as the Mets dropped under .500 earlier this summer that he would grow a beard until the Mets were back to the break even point. Unfortunately that won’t happen until April’s 0-0 record… but Walter refused to give up and now looks like ZZ Top.

My fantasy baseball team is as lame as usual… but this year our league has a new rule that players can only be protected for 3 seasons, and the team that finishes 5th gets the first pick… which will most likely be Albert Pujols. My team actually rallied over the last month or so led by my nice Jewish boy pitching staff of Jason Marquis and Scott Feldman and pulled within 20 points of that #5 spot. That spot by the way is held by my Fantasy Baseball nemesis Bob Salvo who came from behind to knock me off the top spot in 2007…. Perhaps this year, revenge will be mine!!

Anyway, the Mets tsuris has been covered ad infinitum… and any team whose offense is centered around Jose Reyes and Carloses Delgado and Beltran would run into trouble if the heart of their lineup went down with injury. David Wright’s microscopic home run total didn’t help matters either… I bought new glasses a couple of weeks ago to get a better view of the box scores because I was squinting to see David Wright’s nonexistent home runs. The Mets recently announced that they are not planning to bring the fences in for 2010… maybe its too expensive after they lost so much money to Bernard in his Madoff scheme? Perhaps they should just keep the fences where they are, but just move home plate closer to the fences??

One interesting baseball story caught my eye recently when Reds 2nd basemen Brandon Phillips corrected the media about the status of his broken/fractured hand. Here is how he “clarified” his status:

"My wrist is not broken. I didn't mean to say broken, I know I didn't say 'broken.' I said 'fracture.' I didn't know 'fracture' and 'broken' meant the same thing. My wrist feels like it's fractured. Yeah. That right there.
"The last time I took an X-ray, it said there's nothing broke. Broken and fractured are the same thing. It feels like it's broken, fractured, or broken -- it's the same thing. But my wrist really does bother me."

And to his credit Phillips continues to play every day despite the injury even though his team is totally done for this season.

As for my preseason picks from back in April… memo to the Yankee fans..the team with the best regular season record does not always win the Series. I missed on my preseason pick of Tampa and Chicago going to the post season, but I was right on my Boston-LA Angels post season prediction. I took the safe route predicting the same AL playoff teams from 2008… but, if the Red Sox don’t get their stuff together soon, Texas could very well grab the Wild Card!

In the NL, the Dodgers and Phillies are playoff bound while the Mets and Cubbies are staying home… I think that an LA – Philly NLCS could be quite exciting and I will pick LA as my Mets replacement to advance to the Fall Classic because Philly’s bullpen is not quite doing the job and Brad Lidge has been quite crummy compared to his flawless 2008 performance. And if LA makes the World Series…. Wouldn’t it be cool for Joe Torre to face the Yankees?? Nonetheless, I am sticking to my preseason pick of the Red Sox going to the Series….

Here were my awards picks from the All Star Game…

MVP – Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer
Cy Young – Tim Lincecum and Josh Beckett
Rookie of the Year –Tommy Hanson and Andrew Bailey

I think the only one wrong here is the AL Cy Young…where many think it will go to Zach Greinke… But y’know what?? I’m going on a limb and picking Feldman for the Cy Young and in a different year, you could go with an all Yiddish Cy Young (or Sigh, I’m not so Young and my grandchildren never call me) but Marquis’ excellent season is no comparison to Lincecum or the Cardinals tandem of Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright.

II Where do you get your news revisited??

Some interesting news media trends this past summer… First, one newspaper I have stopped buying is The NY Post!! Their coverage of the Erin Andrews story was just hideous. The entire point of the Andrews story was how terrible it was that a peeping Tom snapped some nudie shots of her in a hotel room and posted them on the internet. The Post’s coverage include still shots of her naked tuchis that were taken from that video.

And isn’t it interesting how Phil Mushnick, the sports media columnist for the Post criticizes every media outlet when their employees don’t say anything about other less kosher aspects of their company? For years he has ripped into Mike Francesa for not publicly criticizing WFAN for running commercials for betting services as has been the case with a lot of others who have found themselves on the wrong end of his poison pen including competing newspapers. As much as he may want to criticize sports wagering ads, those are much less worse than the Post’s Andrews pictorial. And what did the high and mighty Mushnick, the self proclaimed King of all Morals say about those pictures in his paper? Absolutely nothing. What a hypocritical windbag.

By the way, there are some oddities about the story. Why did Andrews lawyer announce those pictures were of his client? It’s very easy to deny it’s her since there is really nothing on her body that would give it away that it’s definitely Erin Andrews. It’s not like she has an old ESPN tattoo of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann on her tuchis. Some skeptics think it’s a publicity stunt. I am still waiting for the announcement of an arrest of this culprit; you wonder if Charles Kushner might want to hire that cameraman next time he has a relative to screw over?

As I have discussed in the past, most of my News comes from Channel 4 and The Star Ledger but both of their days are numbered as my source for news. I have already switched to channel 7 Eyewitness News on weekends since Channel 4 got rid of Carol Anne Riddell… and now I will also watch Channel 7 at 5pm now that Channel 4 is getting rid of its 5 o’clock news hour in favor of some dreck-y magazine show. Channel 11 is also adding a 6:30 pm newscast (My former radio intern is a producer for that newscast!) competing against the network newscasts. How original… why didn’t anybody think of that sooner? Actually for a long time the “6:30” network news used to air at 7pm and the 6 o’clock news used to run for a full hour back in the days of Dan, Tom and Peter airing at 7 after an hour of Jensen, Scarborough and Beutel.

And the Ledger… I’ve read it since childhood but the quality continues to drop… They got rid of their beat reporters for all the sports teams except the Giants, Jets, Nets and Devils… and pick up the other teams reports from the Daily News and Associated Press. They have no more Sunday sports columnists yet oddly have a Tuesday Soccer column. And worst of all they destroyed the comics over the summer getting rid of several decent ones and then breaking them into regular comics and “Classic” comics… the “classic” comics consisting of the older strips and they are usually tossed in somewhere in the auto classified section… (although for the last wk they have been easier to find in the Today section) They also dropped Frazz when they did this silly move, but then they quickly came to their senses and reinstated it 2 wks later. Frazz happens to be a very clever strip about a guy who is very rich yet works as a school Janitor and has amusing exchanges with the students and teachers at his school…. usually consisting of incredibly clever word play.

And finally, a few weeks ago CBS broke into Craig Ferguson’s show to announce the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. I flipped channels to see how the other networks were covering this breaking story. CNN had its usual post 1AM breaking story blues as the CNN International Team again struggled to cover an American story… However I flipped to Fox News… and nothing!! They were running a repeat of that evening’s Greta van Sustern show and didn’t say a measly peep about Kennedy.

I was never a big fan of Ted Kennedy’s… but I admire his longevity in the US Senate. I am also too young to understand the popularity of JFK and the rest of the Kennedys… but there is one important fact about them – here is this family that is rich beyond comprehension, and they decided that they would dedicate their lives to public service! Yet here we have Republicans who politicize a simple “Welcome Back to School” speech by President Obama… and sneer at any kind of health care reform that would dare take their money and give to the poor in some kind of Robin Hood scheme.

Republicans like to talk about how much they hate the idea of giving their money to able bodied people who are lazy and refuse to work. Even liberals like DAS don’t believe in subsidizing that lifestyle, but the reality of life is that there are more people who are less fortunate due to circumstances beyond their control. And when Facebookers put up a status about nobody being without health care, it’s the Republicans who point out that they want no part of funding illegal Mexicans… as if Illegal Mexicans are the only people who are going to benefit from this.

Perhaps Kennedy’s legacy will be that he ended up richer than all these other Republicans, yet he makes them look bad because he decided to dedicate his life to using his power and money to help make others lives better who are less fortunate.

I was talking to Trophy Wife about the idea of segregating ourselves from the Republicans and having them take half the country and we take the other half… Then they can live their happy lives and figure out ways to keep from paying reasonable taxes and buy their expensive cars and drive to work in them…. But be careful of the bridges, (and no this is not a Chappaquidick cheap shot) as Minnesotans discovered when Governor Pawlenty’s severe tax cut affected budget left them without enough tax revenue money for important bridge repairs!

PUMPSTRADAMUS NFL PICK OF THE WEEK

Pumpy is back for another year of pigskin picks. Last year he went 11-6 and once again despite his total lack of knowledge about anything related to sports, his uncanny picks are usually right on especially early in the season. This year we go with our Met fan Walter's favorite team - The Jets who are at Houston to play the Texans. The Jets are 4 1/2 point doggies. Sayeth the Pump:

"I'm going against the Texans because most of them were so wacky this week when they kept their kids home from school so they couldn't see the Presidents speech about staying in school. Take the Jets!"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICK OF THE WEEK

Last yr we went 31-19-1... definitely our best season picking games on NWOW.

GIANTS 6 1/2 faves over the Redskins - You gotta love how the Skins sued some fans who ran into money trouble and couldn't pay for their PSLs.

PANTHERS 2 1/2 doggies over Philadelphia - I don't like using the word doggies in a sentence involving the Eagles new QB Michael Vick.

BUCS 6 doggies over Dallas - I am really liking the home team cooking this week.

Baseball Quarterly Report - Healthy Met Wishes and 20 year old Knishes

2009-07-17T12:52:00.003-04:00

Well here we are folks.. at the official midway point of the 2009 season. After last years Yankee Stadium extra inning marathon that ran until close to 2 in the morning, this year's All Star Game was a much shorter contest. It was close, but sadly for us National League fans, we lost again, and thanks to that silly rule imposed after the infamous 2002 tie, it means that the AL will get home field advantage for the World Series, not that this really should be an issue for my fellow Met fans!

Once again we also survived the boredom of All Star Week… I checked in for a few minutes of the Home Run Derby and Wednesday’s day of no sports was definitely bailed out by an incredible Letterman with Paul McCartney delivering an outdoor concert from the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater, the same building where he and the rest of the Beatles took America by storm in the mid 1960s. McCartney did 2 songs for the TV show and apparently 5 more for the hundreds of people who watched from the street. If you watched closely, the street was not closed and occasionally a cab would try to maneuver itself down Broadway.

The McCartney performance was a great warm up act for his appearance this weekend at CitiField. The concerts there this weekend send the Mets off to the road which is not necessarily such a bad thing because they have been hitting quite poorly at their home ballpark.

This year the NY teams have new stadiums and each team is going in a rather different direction. The New Yankee Stadium has become a hitter’s paradise with balls leaving the stadium as often as personnel used to exit the building during George Steinbrenner's heyday. CitiField on the other hand while just miles away from that crazy Yankee ballpark, is NOT conducive to the long ball.

David Wright who hit 33 home runs last season, has only hit a measly 5 during the first half, although he also has not been hitting 'em on the road either so maybe its not entirely due to the ballpark. While Wright has lost his power stroke, he has improved his speed game and has been stealing a ton o' bases bringing back memories of Lenny Dykstra.

It was 20 years ago that the Mets acquired their new centerfielder - Juan Samuel... after we traded away that sparkplug in one of the sillier trades in Mets history. Nowadays the terms Lenny Dykstra and trading take on a murkier meaning. Dykstra fancied himself as a post baseball stock expert touting his success on various financial shows... But now that the market has taken a dive, so has Lenny's reputation. He recently filed for bankruptcy and a recent episode of Real Sports with Bryant (Gumbel to) Gumbel showed a very dark side.

The reporter on the piece interviewed several people who had recently worked for him and each person talked about how Lenny had stiffed them out of thousands of dollars. All of them had filed suit against the former ballplayer. The reporter went back to Lenny's unlocked and barely furnished mansion, and finally found Dykstra wandering around the house. Lenny spoke to the reporter with both eyes on some computer screens as if he had something more important going on than that interview, and when the reporter mentioned the numerous lawsuits and asked Lenny if he had anything to say to the people who claim he owes them money…. Dykstra's words were "Fudge ‘em all" except to paraphrase Ralphie in A Christmas Story... he did not say "Fudge".

Maybe I should have compared David Wright to Mookie Wilson instead.

Today, we’ll pick apart my preseason predictions.. but first an amusing anecdote.

With all this talk swirling around about Facebook wisecracks coming back to haunt you years down the road, I was sitting at my office Tuesday afternoon when I got a call from a lady who asked me if I had been involved in a knish eating contest in 1988. She was right… I had participated in one, and the woman on the phone informed me that she is a knish expert and is doing research on the History of the Knish… possibly for an upcoming book.. It turns out the contest was held back in March of 1988 at the Carnegie Deli in honor of the newest member of its well stocked artery clogging menu – The Knish.

I actually wrote about that event right here in NWOW in a column from last July 7th . Here is what I wrote:

“I ran into this guy I knew from college a few years ago and he told me that he had launched a side career as a competitive eater. I actually did the Carnegie Deli Knish Eating Contest approximately 20 years ago and after meeting Henny Youngman and hearing him say “Take My Knish Please” and having Vic Miles stand over me as I took an early lead… I knew this type of craziness was not for me. I blew my lead, but not my lunch… lost to a skinny guy and finished in the middle of the pack. This other guy from college subsequently won a knish eating contest on Jewish Night at a Brooklyn Cyclones minor league game.”

And here I was on the phone 20 years later with a knish expert facing down my sordid past! I was most curious how she got my work number and figured out that I had been in that crazy contest… surely she didn’t read it here on NWOW. As it turned out, she had obtained info about the results of the ’88 contest and tracked down the winner. When she interviewed him, he showed her an article in the Star Ledger which showed my cute punim… ( and clean shaven!) and she googled my name. But instead of snagging my phone number off my podcast… she took the longer route… found me on Linked In and got my number from there… I guess leaving my work number on my Linked In profile really does generate calls to my office!

We chatted briefly about that fateful day… I corrected an error in the Ledger article that said prior to that day, I had never eaten a knish, when in reality I had said I had never eaten a “Carnegie Deli” knish. She also asked me if I still eat knishes… I’m trying to lose poundage so I rarely eat them.. and there was a long disapproving silence on the other side of the telephone. She then asked if I was thinking of getting into competitive eating, I laughed… telling her that the Knish Eating Contest was a one shot deal. I mentioned my college friend Joel who does the competitive eating circuit,…. and it turns out she knows him!! And wouldja believe.. exactly one year to the day that I mentioned college chum Joel in last July 7th’s column….he was at the Knish Eating Contest for the Brooklyn Cyclones Jewish Heritage Night…. And he won!!

Contrary to my preseason picks…this year's World Series will probably not include the Mets.. .Too many injuries have done them in for '09 and it looks like they might just have to compete for 2nd or 3rd place in the NL East as the much improved Giants continue to chug along towards the Wild Card with the excellent rotation led by Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain. Even non descript Jonathan Sanchez made baseball history on the late West Coast game last Friday, when he tossed a rather improbable no hitter. He actually had a perfect game going to the 8th but his shortstop made an error and when Sanchez retired the remaining batters, he achieved the oddity of throwing a no hitter with the only baserunner reaching due to an error.

As for my 14 most relevant teams from the spring – I picked 6 from the National League and with mediocre teams still contending in both the East and Central Division…. It looks like all 6 (The Mets, Phils, Reds, Cubs. Cards and Dodgers) are all in contention. But the Mets are ready to drop into a 4th place no mans land due to the injuries to 5 key players.. Reyes, Delgadio, Betraaaaaaaan, Putz, and Maine. But all of the other teams still have a decent shot.

This year we also started a “Player to Watch” feature for each team.. the Mets player was Brian Schneider for catching the pitching staff including the improved bullpen. I said Hong Chih Kuo would be the player to watch on the Dodgers… but honestly who east of the Mississippi pays attention to Dodgers other than the ones you have on your fantasy team? I just looked it up.. he has pitched 5 innings in 2009… and hasn’t been in a game since April 29 and is on the 60 day DL with an elbow injury. Yet despite that, the Dodgers have a big lead in the division.

My four playoff teams in the NL were the Mets, Phils, Dodgers and Cubbies so I have a decent shot at getting 3 outta 4.

In the AL, I picked 8 relevant teams and with the exception of those dud Indians and A’s, we seemed to be going in the right direction. My 2 laughable “Players to Watch” were David Price of Tampa Bay who has not been able to duplicate his 2008 post season heroics… and Carlos Quentin of the White Sox who has been sidelined by injury for most of the season. My Rays, Red Sox, White Sox, Angels playoff predictions could be on the money.. even though Yankee fans may beg to differ, but after a slow start the Rays look very strong and the Yankee pitching looks very suspect. Has anyone thought of flip flopping Joba and Hughes from their current starter-8th inning roles??

Here are my midseason post season award predictions:

MVP – Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer
Cy Young – Tim Lincecum and Josh Beckett
Rookie of the Year –Tommy Hanson and Andrew Bailey

And there you have it… I wont change my Mets pick for the World Series although the Dodgers look pretty worthy of being their replacement, but for now I will just stick to my guns that people will be leaving Citi Field with happy memories,… and Im not just talking about the ones who get to attend the Paul McCartney concert!

CLIP OF THE WEEK:

Here is Paul McCartney from Letterman – and this clip also explains how he got up there too!!

The Day the Nets Traded Vince Carter - Recapping a Wild Show Biz News Day

2009-06-26T00:08:00.006-04:00

May 16th 1990…. Shortly before Noon.

I was working in radio at the time and as I was gearing up for a Noon newscast, I looked at my script and realized I was about to do yet another exciting newscast about local nonsense that only the cows and chickens cared about in rural Sussex County. Then just a few minutes before airtime, my AP machine started beeping wildly which meant an urgent story was coming over the wires… It was then that I saw the shocking news that Jim Henson the creator of The Muppets had died! Wow, I thought…. the local police report has just been relegated to back burner status…and I get to lead with the death of a celebrity. I quickly did a little paper shuffle and prepared to go on the air with the lead story announcing the death of the voice of Kermit the Frog.

And just moments later, as I was about to stroll to the news studio to deliver my news cast….the AP machine started beeping and humming again… I figured it was just more follow up to Henson’s death, but I went back to the machine just to make sure. It was then that I saw the news that Sammy Davis Jr. had died too! Sammy's death was less of a shocker... his suffering from cancer had been well chronicled over the prior year. But with the clock ticking away and with just seconds to spare, I had to figure out how to lead off the newscast!

Ultimately, I “split the lead”… proclaiming that “2 Show Biz legends have just died… we’ll have more on Jim Henson’s death in a moment, but first we have just gotten word that former Rat Packer Sammy Davis Jr. has just died!”. The DJ was shocked to hear about Henson and Davis when I announced it, so at the end of my newscast as I recapped the top stories, she popped on her mike, and we had some newscaster-DJ “small talk” about the 2 deaths. She even opened the phone lines so listeners could call in to speak of the show biz legends. One call came in from the young psychic Pumpstradamus who noted the oddity that 2 famous people died on the same day, and proclaimed that we should watch out for June 25, 2009.

June 25, 2009… Shortly after 1pm

I worked from my home office this morning… and meandered to the office at approximately 1pm. The second I got there… my coworker John (Facebook followers will know we nicknamed our office John and Nate plus low rates) told me that he just saw on the internet that Farrah Fawcett had died.

It was not really a shocker.. she has been sick for awhile and frankly I was growing increasingly disgusted by how she had been exploited during her illness. I liked Farrah.. not a huge fan.. but liked her. She was the perfect looking woman during my early teenage years… but as she got older… not only did she age quite well… but she also turned into a dynamite actress… see The Burning Bed if you don’t believe me that she was more than just a pretty face. Granted she had her ditzy moments on Letterman, but she seemed to be a special part of those late 70s in that Suzanne Somers, Cheryl Tiegs kind of way,

But these last few months, I have grown increasingly disturbed by the media coverage of her illness. The NBC documentary was very well done.. but I was growing a little tired of the Swayze-esque coverage that always seemed to have some kind of connection to Ryan O’Neill. This week he was supposed to appear on 20/20 to announce that he would marry Farrah as long as she could mumble a yes to his proposal. Why do I find this absolutely sickening.

Hearing about Farrah’s death meant the end of that hyped ABC interview and also a moment to ponder whatever happened to Lee Majors? As I started making some business calls, I started to think about news I had read earlier in the day (I think it was in Linda Stasi’s column) that a relative of Walter Cronkite’s had confirmed that not only was the newsman seriously ill as was reported last week, but the 92 year old news legend was not expected to recover.

This raised an interesting topic of discussion during most of the afternoon. I remember that in the late 1990s when Princess Diana and Mother Teresa both died within a few days of each other. The Diana coverage was wall to wall and over the top… and once Mother Teresa’s death was announced, the media realized that they had painted themselves into a corner and there was no way they could air tons of Diana coverage without dedicating a lot of time to Mother Teresa too. Which made me wonder…

Even though I hope he lives to be 120, if Walter Cronkite were to die Thursday…. would his death bump Farrah out of the lead story? And so began the debate.. I thought for sure Cronkite was more important historically and would take the lead…. But my coworkers didn’t necessarily agree… which led to a long drawn out debate about what would have to happen news-wise for Farrah to be bumped off the lead off spot.

June 25, 2009 - Around 5’ish

I was gearing up for a typical Thursday evening of calling my mortgage clients. It had been a somewhat quiet day and as usual I was periodically getting my news fix by checking out CNN.com, and grumbling that the NJ Nets had traded away Vince Carter. I must have seen a “Breaking News” flash that Michael Jackson was in cardiac arrest and really didn’t think much of it. Then I started seeing people mention it on the recently restored Facebook live feed.

It was shortly thereafter when I saw that one of my FB friends had posted word that Perez Hilton’s Twitter was announcing that Michael Jackson was dead! Huh? Nobody else had this story and why oh why would one of my FB friends even bother caring to subscribe to his twits or whatever they are called… I am so sick of Perez Hilton. His stupid irrelevant question cost Miss California her title… who cares what a beauty queen who agrees with President Obama thinks anyway…. But his pathetic cries for help when one of Will.i.am’s entourage beat his sorry little ass after he dared use a gay epithet towards Mr. i.am! And now it appears Hilton didn’t make the comment to Will.i.am but it was actually directed to his CNN hologram…

Nonetheless, that update about the Hilton twit prompted this wishful thinking response:

Nate Kean at 6:15pm June 25
Hopefully this inaccurate irresponsible reporting by Hilton will end his absurd career once and for all.

And then moments later, I noticed after many more refresh hits on my browser that the LA Times was also reporting that Michael Jackson had died… Some facebook friends were updating his cardiac arrest.. some said coma... and a buddy who was at work at Channel 11 was confirming that the story was true. CNN held out official confirmation for about another hour... even asking a family lawyer who himself said he could not confirm it although he slipped in some eerie comments that Jackson's lack of care was reminding him of Anna Nicole Smith.

Jackson was the topic of conversation the other day. A friend of mine bought a new house and told me that a prior owner of that house was a Michael Jackson CPA! However, after a few minutes of Three’s Company-esque confusion, I realized that I had wrongly assumed that my friend had been talking about the LA talk show host!

I really don’t know what to say about Michael Jackson… I always thought of him as one of the most incredibly talented musical artists of my generation…and it seems like we know his whole family. I grew up watching the Jackson 5. And Michael's sister Janet was part of a huge controversy several years ago at the Super Bowl when she bared the same body part that Farrah winkingly teased us with in that bathing suit in that infamous mid 1970's poster. And Michael Jackson's Thriller was an incredible piece of work… and I was impressed that my friend in Clark lived so close to me in the mid 1980’s that I could drive to his house door to door to coincide with the start and end of that song. It’s an odd memory that always stuck in my head

I only saw him in person one time.. as I wrote in a previous column I worked at the 1988 Grammys and got to see the rehearsals and live performance of Michael performing my favorite of his songs… Man in the Mirror. The rehearsals were incredible… he would stop mid song and make small talk just to tweak a little detail so it would be just right. That phenomenal performance is Today’s Clip of the Week.

And yet I felt that he too had been exploited when he was a kid and was really deprived of a childhood. I don’t know if these child abuse allegations were true but it’s troubling to again see replays of the tv interviews where he says there is nothing wrong with an adult sharing a bed with a child. Yet this child in an adult’s body was just really crying for help to regain something he never seemed to have – youthful innocence. Up until recently, he stopped parading his kids around in those crazy surgical masks... now I hope their mom Debbie Rowe is able to get custody before they end up in South America with that crazy Brazilian family that stole David Goldman's poor little kid.

And oddly enough the moment we were informed that Michael Jackson’s heart had stopped beating, Ryan O’Neill’s 15 minutes of fame came to an abrupt end…. And like that day in May 1990, we once again lost 2 incredibly famous show biz legends during one crazy afternoon.

CLIP OF THE WEEK;

A Father's Day Column about.... Mother's Day!

2009-06-21T14:00:00.008-04:00

Happy Father’s Day to all you baby daddies out there! Once again the ol’ blog seems to have inadvertently been relegated to Back Burner Status. Work seems a tad busier lately… plus I have a lot of other stuff going on in my spare time that has decreased my computer time including a lot of walking around town, and I am also helping our synagogue recruit Torah readers for the summer! One other activity taking up my time is my fantasy baseball team which oddly this year consists of many west coast players including my 2 stoppers which means ol’ Nate has been spending many late night hours watching the last outs of otherwise insignificant Seattle Mariners and Oakland As games. Just last night I finally finished watching my season finales when I caught the Heroes episode.

Even though the critics have been ripping into it...I was actually impressed with how Heroes wrapped up its season with the "demise of Sylar"… It also further showed that the Petrelli family really is one kooky family with dead relatives being resurrected and other dead ones living on through other wacky methods! Just in case you don’t watch Heroes… Sylar is a shifter who can assume the persona of another person and grab his memories too… Matt Parkman has hypnotic powers, and Nathan Petrelli is a US Senator. Petrelli gets killed and his family decides to cover it up, so they have Parkman force Sylar to shift to Petrelli’s persona and then hypnotizes him so he thinks he really is Nathan Petrelli. Sounds like a plot from a soap opera?

Last month on Mothers Day, I made my inaugural trip to CitiField. My friend Steve K. who lives in town has a season ticket plan and arranged to sell ducats to games to several people. Trophy Wife and I picked out Mother’s Day’s game against the Pirates… plus at the time I had 3 Pirates on my fantasy team although one of ‘em has since been traded (Nate McLovin’ McLouth) and Ryan Doumit is injured.

Nonetheless, we got a terrific deal… the tickets were only 15 bucks each and Sunday morning we were on our way. We went to the Edison train station to grab the train to Penn Station, and then caught the subway to the 7 Train. In the old days, we knew that we were at Shea because you can see the stadium approaching from the above ground train… But now that Shea is gone, we had to just wait for the Willets Point stop to arrive… and watch other Met fans eagerly wait for the train doors to open so they too could take their first trip to CitiField.

However… whereas in the old days you had to shlep off the train and walk down to the park and then around half the stadium to your entrance… now all you do is walk off the subway and there it is… in all its majestic beauty… CitiField! A sparkling new, clean stadium with sinks that have not been pished in!

As soon as you walk in, you see that the park has set up a main grand entrance that includes a pavilion dedicated to Jackie Robinson. It’s a nice touch, even though Robinson never played for the Mets, but I think its important that minority ballplayers (and fans) appreciate the sacrifices that Robinson made and enabled future generations of ballplayers to get paid millions and millions of dollars. Included in that area is a giant #42…. which on my facebook contains the caption… “Here I am getting ready to watch 24 with the dyslexics club!” Yeah yeah.. I know.. I shared this stuff on facebook before my blog readers.

By the way, to go off on a tangent… is Facebook inadvertently killing off blogs? The New York Times had an interesting article about this topic recently that was emailed to me by Pumpstradamus… (with a sidenote that he predicted this…). It could be somewhat true. Back in the pre FB days, if I thought of something funny, I would just write it down and incorporate it into my blog… now I just put it in my status update..but a few days later I forget about it. At least with the blog, there is some sense of permanence to these wisecracks… For example, a FB friend put a status update recently…: “I should have listened to warnings against opening videos – I opened the American Idol Box Set, and now I’m stuck with it”.. I think that’s very clever.. but it gets forgotten pretty quick when its lost in the shuffle with other FB silliness such as quizzes and How Bitchy Are You questionnaires.

Getting back to the trip to Citi… Trophy Wife and I walked around a little bit… on this inaugural trip the game was secondary to the actual adventure of seeing the park for the very first time.. because like losing one’s virginity it is something that happens only once… and stadiums are built to last for approximately 30 years, so it will be until 2039 before I have another first trip to see the Mets play in a new home stadium.

Our seats were way up….. check out this pic to see how close I am to the top… By the way, I actually took this pic on my cellphone.

However getting there was another story. Finding a seat at Shea was like finding the beer at your house.. you know where you keep ‘em and you know where to go to get ‘em. However, like most of the other fans there, we walked around like zombies.. not knowing our way around our new ballpark. The ushers were extremely helpful to point us in the right direction… but most of these guys were in the concourse guiding all the lost souls and there were few of them at each section to show you to your exact seat as we discovered when we found someone else in our seats. Instead of tossing them out… we decided to sit elsewhere in the somewhat vacant section and after being kicked out a couple of times, we finally settled on some other seats around the 4th inning.

The stadium is designed so you can see almost the entire park except for the corner of left field right under where those seats are. This was similar to the location where I saw Tom Seaver win #300 at Yankee Stadium in 1985… I couldn’t see the last out… but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment! Likewise I was at an odd angle to the out of town scoreboard.. but nowadays with smart phones, it was very easy for me to look up any out of town scores that I wasn’t able to see. Also, the upper deck doesn’t appear to be as high up as the upper deck at Shea… you don’t talk a loooong escalator all the way up.. but actually ascend a series of shorter staircases to get to the top of the park.

I don’t remember much else about the game other than the Mets won by a pretty decent margin. The kosher food guy was right near out seats so it was convenient to grab a hot dog. I found it kind of odd that some religious guys approached me at the kosher concession during the 8th inning to ask to join for Afternoon prayers… I asked them why don’t we wait a few minutes till the game ends since those prayers can be said up until around 745 and it was only approx. 3:30 at that point.

Here are some more pics from our upper deck seats…

Steve was also at the game with his teenage son… they had box seats for the game and as the 5th inning rolled around he came up to visit us. I thought that was very nice of him… but even nicer than that… he offered to switch seats with us for an inning or two. Trophy Wife and I took a nearby elevator down to field level… the elevators are (wo)manned by leggy young women sitting on stools wearing little miniskirts that press the buttons for you. As we got down to the field level, we were quite impressed by the incredible view.. as you can see from these pics.

We thought it would be funny to stay down there the rest of the game.. nah just kidding.. we stayed for an inning and then meandered up to our seats. We sat there the rest of the game just soaking it all up…. And even though the Mets were winning, I was hoping the Pirates would tie it up so the game could go extra innings so I could spend even more time at the park on this incredibly special day. The game actually ended after the traditional 9 as the usually reliable K-Rod recorded the last out. Here is the end of the game..

After the game, we lingered at the park for a little while.. checking out a gift shop.. not the main one but one in the upper levels of the park near a nice outdoor plaza.. I’m not a big souvenir guy, but for this one day I decided to spring for a scorecard, and some other stuff like a CitiField keychain and a CitiField baseball hat along with a banner, a bumper sticker and a free All Star ballot which I forgot to vote with. We actually met a nice family from Pittsburgh outside the gift shop who were traveling with a handicapped child, so we took the elevator down to the exits with them so I don't know if they have the traditional exit down the ramps like they did at Shea with the traditional chants of "Let's Go Mets... Yankees suck!" Incidentally the elevators exit is right near the main one and it looks like the park has a lot of the accomodations necessary for people who use a wheelchair.

Overall it was a day I will never forget.. and hopefully there will be many more happy memories there.. and hopefully the sinks won’t get pished in.

By the way, I have never done a column with so many pictures... Gosh is it a pain in the neck to upload all this stuff... I don't know how the amateur porn bloggers do it.. not that I would know about those types of sites. Here is one last shot of Shea taken there during our last game there in 2008.

Rivers, Islands and Sun

2009-05-19T01:23:00.009-04:00

In the 1st few years of NWOW, every 3 months we did a “TV Quarterly Report”. This year I decided to do away with that format.. (although the baseball quarterly reports will continue) and just write about TV whenever I am in the mood to do so. Now that we are into the final week of the 08-09 season, I realize there is no way that I could maintain that format even if I wanted to… I still haven’t watched the last 2 hours of 24, the last 2 hours of Desperate Housewives and the last 2 hours of Heroes. Somehow if we get some rain during the Memorial Day wknd, I may just sneak on the computer and get me some Hulu.

This season I only followed one reality show – The Celebrity Apprentice. There was something about watching these celebs show up at a job and bust their chops to win the competition. All of these competitive reality shows are really game shows anyway, but the crazy feuding that went on during Celeb Apprentice was quite amusing. First it was Joan Rivers battling with Clint Black… then she was friendly with him. Did she really like him… or did she find him to be such a douchebag that she decided to help him get into the finals so she would have an easier victory? This has always been the popular strategy on Survivor… the mother of all competitive reality shows.

One aspect I noticed was the comedians playing the game are very smart. There really is no such thing as a dumb comedian because you need a brain to observe the nuances of life that is written into a comedy routine. Tom Green's comments to the camera during the final episode were incredibly astute and he was right on the money when it came to analyzing the game play. Likewise, Andrew Dice Clay played his strategy of staying in character as "Dice"... letting people know that he is still out there and available for weddings and bar mitzvahs!

Ultimately it came down to Joan Rivers vs. poker player Annie Duke and when it was all said and done a wk ago Sunday Joan was declared the winner, I couldn’t have been more pleased… even though I was born the same week as Duke… (she was born on Monday preceding my Friday arrival) I wonder if a 75 year old Apprentice winner is expected to show up for work the following Monday to participate in one of the projects within Donald Trump’s constantly bankrupting empire. Now I see Trump is suing a journalist for calling him a millionaire because he says he is actually... a billionaire. The thing with Trump is I really don't like him, yet he is such a media whore, I actually find him amusing.

I have always liked Joan Rivers and career-wise she probably would have been better off not taking the late night Fox show in the mid 1980s because she seemed destined to take over The Tonight Show after she became Johnny’s permanent guest host. (Remember the days of guest hosts on talk shows? Is there such a thing anymore?) I still think Joan Rivers is very funny, but I am not exactly thrilled with how she has reinvented herself with all those crazy plastic surgeries.

But as much as I like Joan…. I have never liked her daughter Melissa. She is a poor man’s Paris Hilton/Kardashian sister... achieving fame for no reason in particular. Melissa doesn’t tell jokes, act, sing or dance.. but she is a celebrity because she is her mother’s daughter and as far as I know only acted in that one horrible TV movie about her father’s tragic suicide. And when Melissa was hired to be on the Celebrity Apprentice this season… all I could wonder was… Why?

And ultimately Melissa’s time ran out… she was fired after she ran into a strong alliance between Playboy model Brandy Broderick and Poker player Annie Duke. That is how the game is played… but young Ms. Rivers took offense that she had been outplayed and went ballistic after she was fired. Joan, who has a skin as thick as Don Rickles seemed to get quite upset by the rough treatment of her precious Melissa, even though the younger Ms. Rivers is a grown woman in her early 40s.

As soon as Joan saw that Melissa got fired, she stormed into the room where Duke was sitting and in one of the most incredible “real” tirades I have ever seen…started berating Duke because she is a poker player… Earlier in the episode Joan had a great line about Duke.. (and thanks to Poker NewsDaily.com for the quotes)… “She’s so duplicitous. I can’t wait for her to get her first facelift….. because she’s going to need two doctors.” Ultimately, Joan launched the best line of the TV season,.. when she looked at Duke with fire in her eyes and proclaimed…“Your people give money with blood on it. I met your people in Las Vegas. None of them have last names. You’re a poker player. A POKER PLAYER!!!”

And Donald then realized that in order to continue his typical publicity hungry way of life… the only way to crown this season’s champion would be to get rid of everybody else and pave the way for Joan and Annie to battle it out. And so the stage was set for last Sunday capping off a wonderful day that started off with my first ever trip to CitiField…. (I’ll write about the trip next week!) Joan was the winner and here is why…

The task they had to do was this complicated multi marketing project where both Annie and Joan had to use a professional designer to decorate a room where a silent auction was to be held. Joan however did not like the company that the producers had chosen for her, and apparently ticked off the owner of the company. When Duke’s team wanted to speak with their assigned designer, they realized that their phone calls were not being returned…. and with the deadline quickly approaching, Annie was in deep trouble.

Duke decided to go directly to the office only to find out that the cameras were not allowed into the building. The people at that company allowed Annie to talk with them off camera. Once Annie came out she told her teammates that the designers were quitting their involvement with The Apprentice due to problems working with Joan. Now the Poker playing Annie was screwed due to Rivers and had no river to bail her out.

Once she got to the boardroom. Annie proved to Trump why she did not have what it takes to be “The Apprentice”. As soon as she brought up the fact that Joan’s big mouth caused her to lose her designer at the 11th hour… Joan clinched the victory by shooting off more venom in Duke’s direction… Duke was distracted by Joan’s anger, and complained to Donald that Rivers had compared her to Hitler.. to which Joan barked back…”No darling … Hitler never had PMS….”

And so it went…even though Donald likely knew why the designer's departure was Joan’s fault, he kept asking Annie to explain why... but Joan had gotten under her skin and Annie couldn’t shake off the distraction of Joan’s mouth.… And when Annie couldn’t stay on topic with Joan constantly barking at her, her lack of focus, made for a convincing argument that if Annie can’t stay on topic in an Apprentice boardroom, how can she focus when dealing with adversarial conditions in a business setting? And even though it seemed to be Joan’s fault, a corporate faux pas pales in comparison to allowing an enemy to distract you during the heat of battle.

By the way, next Halloween I am dressing up as Joan Rivers and I am going to go to the poker room at a Trump Atlantic City Hotel and yell out..."You're a POKER PLAYER!"

It really amazes me how popular the TV show LOST has become. As the show enters its final season, its ratings may not be American Idol-esque.. but its loyal followers continue to stand behind it and debate it and debate it and then debate it some more. It’s almost like the Talmud based on how many different experts weigh in on this show. Every post Lost Thursday, I go through the same routine. I read the blog posted by Star Ledger TV critic Allen Sepinwall, followed by the recaps posted on TV Squad, TVGuide.com and Jeff Jensen’s remarkably popular column on EW.com. His recaps elicit approximately 2000 comments on Thursdays! Even the ESPN Thursday Fantasy Baseball Q and A’s have people posting questions as Lost characters!

Last weeks season finale was as amazing as always… but an incident near the end of the episode distracted me and I had to spend the next few days finding the answer to one plot point that puzzled me. I also wondered how Rose and Bernard knew they went back 30 years since they chose to retire as hermits on that wacky island, but I decided to suspend my disbelief. To figure out the other plot hole, I went to ABC.com and started watching the last few episodes, but I eventually got my answer when I visited TVGuide.com to reread an early April episode recap.

Just to recap.. aside from the mashugas about blowing up a bomb to change history to keep the plane from ever crashing… the other plot involved “Locke” getting Ben to kill the mysterious Jacob. Jacob had been established as the Wizard of Id or Oz on this particular island.. and until the last episode he had never been shown. He actually looked like the guy from The Journeyman… and during the episode we discovered how he traveled freely through time to interact with various Lost characters at key turning points of their off island lives.

In the beginning of the episode we see Jacob at the shore of the island talking to another guy in a time that looked to be very very long ago. The "other guy" tells Jacob that he wishes he could kill him and one day he will find a loophole to do so. Meanwhile in present day Lost, Locke has dragged ol’ beaten up Ben…(he really should have just pursued a career in plastics Benjamin, plastics) to kill Jacob in Jacob’s little hideaway. Just before Ben stabs him, Locke mentions a loophole…. And outside the little murder scene the survivors of plane crash #2 are stunned to discover that a corpse has been discovered inside a box that is the body of…. John Locke.

Finding the corpse is a true watcha talking about Willis moment for the islanders… How can Locke be a dead corpse and alive on the island simultaneously? The viewers then realize that living Locke is not the same as dead Locke! And Dead Locke was supposed to have had a great mission but in reality maybe he didn’t. After all, we saw how Locke was told by Richard that he would have to die to save everybody… but Richard was told to say that to Locke a few moments earlier by the Time Traveling Lockelganger. So now instead of seeing events of the past affecting the present, we are seeing events from future time travelers affecting the present. And the Lockelganger used Richard to convince Locke he had to ultimately die…even though his Shawshank Redemption hanging was stopped by Ben who ended up killing him anyway.

So now we see that the guy who was after Jacob discovered he could use some kind of Sylaresque technique to take over Locke’s body… but only if Locke was dead. But that whole scenario raised one big question for me…

If Sun was on the 2nd plane with dead Locke… why was she so surprised to see his dead body? She knew he was dead. And it was then that I realized that I could not recall her reunion with “Locke” (the Lockelganger) and how it was explained to her that Locke was alive. So after my long journey through old episodes online… I finally found this in the TV Guide.com recap from an episode in early April…

“Along the way, Locke lets Ben know that he knows why Ben wants to be judged: for his role in Alex's murder. Ben is clearly irritated by Locke's newfound omniscience. Arriving at Casa de Linus, they discover that someone, a silhouetted woman, is in Alex's old room. Obviously, it's Sun and Lapidus. They show Ben the picture of the Oceanic 6 in the 1977 Dharma photo, and tell them that a man named Christian told them if Sun ever wanted to see Jin again, she was to wait for John Locke. It's then that Born-Again Locke makes his entrance, without much fanfare, for now anyway.”

Hmmmm… Christian was on the original flight in a body bag and yet he has “lived on” the same way as The Lockelganger. And here is Christian going to Sun and telling her that if she wants to see her husband alive she should wait for Locke… even though Sun thinks he is dead… and she actually later second guesses Jack’s assertion that Locke’s body was really on the plane. Then when she sees Locke.. she is so concerned with reuniting with her husband that she doesn’t really think twice when she sees a man she thought was dead..

And so it goes with the latest theory… is the show a battle between Jacob and The Other guy? And is the other guy trying to defeat Jacob through the use of time travel and possessing bodies?. Locke who was supposed to be such a big character… was really just a pawn whose death had to happen in order for the Lockelganger to assume the persona because it seems he can only do that when the person is dead.

That raises a theory that if Locke was "possessed" by the Lockelganger because he arrived on the island after his death... perhaps that is the way The Other Guy possesses a body... the person has to be DOA when they get to the island. If that is the case, then he must have assumed Christians ID because Christian was also lying dead in a coffin when the plane crashed in the very first episode. And who showed Locke how to get off the island so he could die and come back? Christian... possibly aka the other guy.

And then lets go back to Day 1… did the plane crash so Locke would become the leader who would bring Ben in to stab Jacob? Would anyone really listen to Christian if he tried to recruit someone to do the dirty deed? People would say "Hey who's that guy?" and Jack would say... "Oh that's my dead dad." And if that is the case, then the other guy was motivated to see that plane crash,… but wait a minute.. the Losties are blowing up a bomb in the 70s to prevent the plane crash… and if the plane doesn’t crash… then Locke is never told he has to die and Ben doesn’t kill Jacob. So doesn't that give Jacob a motivation to prevent that first episode plane crash?

And so it appears that Jacob is somehow involved in manipulating the Lostaways to change history in the other storyline. Jack’s decision to prevent the crash by detonating the bomb is inspired by an idea pitched to him by Daniel Faraday. And its his mom who was in cahoots with Charles Widmore who controlled Daniel’s life so he would grow up to travel back in time so he would be shot by his own mother. But then again his mother also encouraged the gang to bring the Locke corpse on the 2nd flight. But wouldn’t the older version of the mother want to prevent her son’s death and do everything in her power to keep him from fulfilling that destiny?

If Faraday is the guy who planted the thought, he was recruited to the island by Charles Widmore. Does that mean Widmore is actually... a good guy since he is engineering the events to prevent the plane crash? Is that why he is so obsessed with finding that island? To save Jacob? Is he Jacob? Could it be that one of these characters was killed off the island and was possessed by Jacob who knew he had to change history to save his life? Some think that Charlie is a young Charles Widmore.... and Charlie died off the island when he drowned... could he have floated back to be possessed by Jacob who is setting up a series of events to keep the other guy from stabbing him? The damage may have been done but in the world of Lost, it can be un-done with a little time travel switcheroo. Perhaps they could do likewise with Monday night's Met game and this time around make sure Ryan Church touches 3rd base.

And how is it that it took us to the final episode of Season #5 for us to realize that the show is really about a chess match between 2 supernatural characters and all these so called main characters in the plot appear to be just mere pawns in a much bigger contest?

And why the heck do we have to wait till January for this craziness to start again. Actually my buddy Albert had a very good idea.. Lost should take an example from 24’s playbook and show a 2 hour movie in the fall so we don’t have to wait so long for more! Now if you will excuse me I need to go to Hulu to watch the season finale of 24… Last time I checked Kim Bauer was at the airport… hey look behind Kim… Isn’t that Sawyer and Kate getting ready to board a plane?

Rate Drops Keep Falling on My Head

2009-05-06T01:24:00.005-04:00

Where the heck has Nate been?

Gosh wouldya believe that it has been about a month since our last visit here at NWOW. Wow,… life seems to have taken a turn in the busy direction… and it seems that my late night computer hours have been taken up with catching up on my fantasy baseball team and missed episodes of Heroes and Desperate Housewives. My team is already deep in last place and I may have been mathematically eliminated on Cinco De Mayo! Amazingly, I still have not caught up with my shows, since I’m still 2 episodes behind on Heroes! It's a good thing those 2 along with Lost and 24 are my only can’t miss shows on my schedule…otherwise I might not be back here till July!

Speaking of Lost…as always. I remain totally confused. I see that the story has evolved into a tale of traveling to the past to change the present. The first episode in 2004 started out with people on a plane, crashing into the island due to the release of some electromagnetic energy caused by a human/computer malfunction. Will traveling back and changing history mean that the end of the show will show the plane flying on its merry way with NO release of that energy. Will the unhappy passengers on that flight get a mulligan and never even realize what transpired when the plane "crashed"? I guess they will just show Ben and Juliet hanging out at a book club meeting while up above the plane passengers sit watching a lame-o 2003 movie as Sawyer, Kate and Jack are oblivious to the craziness that has entertained us the last 5 yrs, and we would all know Michael Emerson as a buggy eyed actor who did a fantastic job on "The Practice". Of course by next week I will change that theory too.

Nonetheless… it was raining this past Sunday.. and Trophy Wife was at a Hadassah shindig… so I grabbed my laptop, popped on my earbuds to listen to American Top 40 with Casey Kasem.(from the 80s on satellite radio via my cellphone), and went off to Panera to catch up on some out of town baseball and begin my revisit to NWOW.

Today’s column is one of those synergy (not the energy that Desmond has to press codes to prevent) cross promotional columns in connection with my Mortgage podcast. If you have noticed I also have been a bad boy and not updated my podcast in quite awhile. I started the Podcast a few years ago as a vehicle to discuss different mortgage products. A guy I used to work with taught me how to maneuver my podcast to be listed first when googling the term "mortgage podcast". Interestingly enough I discovered another mortgage podcast that lists first when you google "mortage" podcast, because his references to his expertise are the "mortage" field!

The idea behind the original concept was that the episodes would not be timely so that stuff that I recorded in 2006 would still be relevant in 2009. However, once we had the infamous mortgage meltdown, the entire lending process changed. Banks took away all of their "creative" programs leaving us with basically Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans and FHA government loans. It’s very difficult to do podcasts about different products when they really aren't there anymore.

However I have branched out and podcasted about other not timely mortgage related issues which brings us to today’s column and future podcast topic that I would like to call... … “Rate Drops Keep Falling on My Head”.

Rates are usually dictated by the movements of the Treasury Bond. Rule of thumb is that if the stock market has a rough day, the rates will tend to improve. However nowadays there are really only 2 loan categories – Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac (also known as conventional) and FHA. All FHA loans involve a monthly mortgage insurance premium, even if you have more than a 20% equity position in your house. On top of that, those loans include an upfront insurance premium payment that is financed into the loan. That is why, a lot of people would prefer to take a conventional Fannie/Freddie loan so they can avoid paying the extra insurance.

However, as we hear breathless news announcers bellow with glee that rates are dropping there is of course a catch. Fannie Mae decided last year to institute “pricing penalties” on borrowers… so when you hear about these great low rates in the high 4’s. you better have a 740+ credit score and own approximately 40% of the value of your house to qualify for that wonderful low rate.

And just like the saying that 40 is the new 30… credit scores have a similar 120 point swing. In the old days, a 500 score could secure you a mortgage loan; now the minimum score is 620. And on top of that, in the old days where 620 could basically get you virtually any type of loan – now you need a 740 to get the best of what is available.

Interestingly enough, one byproduct of this latest downward trend in interest rates has been a rise in fees. Before this recent rate drop, I rarely thought it was a good idea to pay points on a mortgage loan… because usually paying a fee of 1% of the mortgage loan usually got the rate down by about 1/8 to ¼. But the conventional rate sheets are quite clever… they have changed the spread on how mortgage loans are designed.. now people have a chance to pay a point to knock the rate down approximately 1%. Nowadays, qualified borrowers actually benefit from paying the point – since it can now bring you a substantial discount in your final monthly payment. Fannie and Freddie cleverly set it up this way, because not paying the point gets you a higher undesirable rate.. and if you are not a “desirable borrower”, they don't want your business and want those people to be tempted to go towards an FHA loan which has a much lower rate, but usually a similar payment once you add in the mortgage insurance.

Now that May has arrived the latest curveball is coming our way. One conventional pricing penalty involves loan to value – how much your loan is divided by the value. In the old days, loan originators had a roster of qualified local appraisers who knew the area well and could do the proper detailed research needed to find the correct value… many times those values have flown in right under the wire.. reaching the amount needed to avoid one of those pesky penalties. And once a loan officer builds up relationships with his appraisers – those appraisers will do a search of comparable properties in advance.. just to make sure that the value is going to be there. It’s a terrific courtesy to save your customers the expense of an appraisal if the appraiser knows in advance that the value of the home is too low to make the loan work.

Well that luxury is now … gone! Starting May 1, banks are now in charge of hiring the appraisers for conventional loans… (FHA is not a part of this). And, the days of comp searches in advance are how history, which kind of sucks if you are the kind of mortgage guy who doesn't like surprises and prefers to know the value in advance. Unfortunately, I also have encountered a few lousy appraisers in my day… and it makes me nervous that some of these shlubs are going to now be appraising houses for my customers. Luckily there is an appeals process, for appraisals that come in way off...but nonetheless this should be an interesting next few months.

Now if you'll excuse me I am going to see if turning that wheel will push me back in time before all this mortgage craziness started!

CLIP OF THE WEEK

Here is the original song that inspired the title of today's column.

Baseball Preview - Top 14 Teams of 2009

2009-04-05T15:22:00.004-04:00

Well folks.. its that time of year.. Opening Day has arrived and today we present our Annual Baseball Preview… We will get to that in just a moment, but I wanted to write a little follow up to the previous Paul Harvey column where news about radio newscaster George Weber’s death was being announced just as I was finishing up the column.

After learning the sordid details that Weber went on Craigs List looking for sex and allowed a 16 year old into his home to perform sex acts on him, I have done a considerable 180 in this story. I wonder what would have happened if the father of the minor that Weber was molesting had stabbed him? And… what happens if George had survived that brutal attack? I am pretty certain that his radio career would have been finished and he would have gone to jail, and upon his release he would have signed up as a registered sex offender. Surfing the web for sex with people under age 18 is a serious offense, and as much as I like reading the WABC New York radio bulletin board, I am quite surprised how so many people are so supportive of Weber on this matter. Granted he was an excellent radio newscaster, and it is unfortunate that he is dead… but I really wonder if any of those pro-Weber people would ever allow their children to be alone with him if they knew that in reality he was a child molester.

This year’s baseball preview is a little different than the ones we have done in prior years on NWOW… Usually my fantasy draft is held on the ESPN-created Opening Sunday.... but this year, our draft was moved up a week earlier. This means instead of cramming all this info to my brain for my draft today, it is over and done with and I can write about specific players without worrying that members of my league will find NWOW and steal my trade secrets.

I was reading a magazine article about a guy who belongs to my Temple, who has been advocating for a certain cause and has turned into a bigshot and even recently got to hang out with President Obama. In the interview he commented about certain idioms that he finds to be very odd and frankly I couldn’t agree more.. For example… why are there so many phrases involving horses… “put the cart before the horse?”… “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”.. and even the incredibly offensive “you can’t beat a dead horse”…. Why would somebody beat a dead horse?

In light of the all the wars, the military term of “firing a salvo” puzzles me when it is used as a phrase concerning a debate or argument where somebody unleashes a verbal volley. And as I gear up for the 2009 season, I start to remind myself of Uncle Rico, the character in Napolean Dynamite who looked back with nostalgia at his high school football team that he feels he could have led to a championship if only the coach would have brought him in off the bench. (By the way, the actor who played Uncle Rico is Ben Linus’s father on Lost.) I am the same way when it comes to the 2007 season where my 1st place fantasy team was cruising into September towards a championship until a guy in my league named Bob Salvo acquired a red hot Kevin Kouzmanoff and blasted right past me to the championship. Bob Salvo is my Newman.. and since that day I cringe when I hear anything involving “Bob Salvo”…because it was Bob Salvo who cost me a victory. Last week I had to sit at the draft table opposite Bob Salvo and grind my teeth because I was so close to my adversary. And as I gear up for this season and write today’s blog…. I have one last thing to say on this topic…

April 5th Fools Day Bob! I heard that you read the blog and I just wanted to congratulate you for winning and wish you best of luck in 2009.

So as I prepared a list of 14 teams to watch for in 2009, I started to wonder if there are really 14 good teams this year. I checked out the SI Baseball Preview (which is picking the Mets to win it all) and if you look at their predictions, they think that only 12 teams will finish better than 2 games over .500. Could this be the season where we move farther away from parity… sort of like the NBA’s Western Conference where it’s either feast or famine? Lets take a look starting with …

THE METS – The powers that be seem to think that the bullpen was the sole source of last years late season collapse… the pen may have been the sole scapegoat.. but there were other problems as well. The team swiftly fixed the pen, cutting players they didn’t want to see booed at the new Citi Field and adding K-Rod and JJ Putz. But even though they have an exceptional left side of the infield and centerfielder, there are question marks about Carlos Delgado’s abilities at his advancing age and the fact that the corner outfielders consist of a rookie, Fernando Tatis and a guy with a concussion. But teams evolve over the course of a season, and the Mets may have taken a step in the right direction by bringing on Garry Sheffield.

Player to Watch – Ryan Schneider – nobody expects him to hit, but he has to catch the bullpen and starting staff which could be a bit shaky beyond Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey.

THE PHILLIES – Last year’s world champs return almost intact…. Pat Burrell has been replaced by Raul Ibanez. Otherwise they still have that winning formula with an exceptional offense. Nobody expects the pitching staff to repeat last year’s success especially Brad Lidge who never blew a save. The starters also are questionable with Cole Hamels looking a little injured, the ageless Jamie Moyer starting to age, and the fact that Joe Blanton… is Joe Blanton.

Player to Watch – Ryan Howard – possibly the premiere power hitter of this decade as we enter into the post Steroids era where almost nobody else except Adam Dunn appears able to crack the 40 home run mark.

THE CUBBIES – Now that the World Series drought is past the 100 year mark, everybody is ready to see if the Cubs can get a little farther in the playoffs after last year’s first round shocking 3 game sweep by the Dodgers. The team is also pretty much intact plus they get a full year of Rich Harden who seems to be a little fragile. (No fragile it must be Italian jokes are allowed after April 1.) Some question marks come up concerning Carlos Zambrano and newcomer Milton Bradley’s attitude and ability to get along with fiery manager Lou Piniella. The bullpen is anchored by Kevin Gregg who was imported from Florida to replace Kerry Wood, and with the Cubs playing a very weak division, another NL Central Title should be a piece of cake.

Player to Watch - Aaron Heilman. Watch the close-ups on WGN to see how happy he is to be out of NY where he went from 2006 post season almost playoff hero (until that pitch to Yadier Molina) to 2 yrs of constant booing at the late lamented Shea Stadium.

THE REDS – One of my surprise teams for this year.. I really dig this rotation of youngsters Edinson Volquez and Jonnny Cueto and veterans Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo. Fransisco Cordero is extremely reliable in the pen… and the offense is solid down the middle of the lineup. The division seems a little weaker this season and if Harang can bounce back from last season’s 6-17 disaster, they have a chance to make some noise this season.

Player to Watch – Brandon Phillips. Literally stolen from Cleveland a few years ago for a minor leaguer nobody hears much about, Phillips has a shot at moving up in the ranks of all time 2nd baseman. He had a 30-30 in ’07 and slumped a bit last year in a season cut a bit short due to injury. But.. if he can bounce back to another 30-30 this year, he could move up to the ranks of superstar.

THE CARDINALS – They always seem to make their way into this list…due to the genius of manager Tony LaRussa. I don’t know he does it, and his motley crew this year again looks rather unimpressive. But, when you play in a division with the Astros, Pirates and Brewers (who will really miss Sheets and Sabathia) interesting things can happen to .500 teams in August. Albert Pujols remains a superstar… and even though he hit 58 points lower, Ryan Ludwick had similar power numbers. And even though Kyle Loshe has no chance of another 15-6 season… La Russa is bound to pull something else out of his bag of tricks.

Player to Watch – Ryan Ludwick – He came out of nowhere to hit .299 with 37 homers and 113 ribbys. His ability to have another similar season will take a lot of pressure off Pujols.

THE DODGERS – Last year’s team changed its whole approach after they acquired Manny Ramirez. And who exactly did they give up besides Andy LaRoche? Talk about another steal of a deal… But in reality a lot of other guys chipped in late last season to help this run including outfielder Andre Ethier who was on fire in August and September. I’m not exactly thrilled with the rotation… but since they will play a lot of games against the weaker Giants, Rockies and Padres… this non parity year will considerably help LA… especially as their young lineup with Ethier, budding superstar Matt Kemp and James Loney continue to hit well.

Player to Watch – Hin Chuo Kuo… LA got rid of most of its bullpen.. and now Kuo will be the set up man. Hes had a lot of arm injuries including 2 Tommy John surgeries which Asia may rename Hin Chuo Kuo surgery… Nonetheless, he barely allowed a baserunner per inning and his success in the late innings will be key for the Dodgers probable return to the playoffs.

Now over to the American League…

THE YANKEES – The New Yankee Stadium looks very much like.. The Old Yankee Stadium.. and the Yankees might be getting old as mainstays Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter all celebrate another birthday this year. Nonetheless, the Yankees are looking to return to their late 90s early 2000 success as they remade the rotation with the initals boys.. AJ Burnett, and CC Sabathia. Last year’s team missed the playoffs so to avoid history from repeating itself the team also added Mark Texiera, but with both Tampa and Boston in the division, a playoff spot is gonna be tough.

Player to Watch – Arod. His hip surgery sidelined him for the Yankee home opener so his controversial presence wouldn’t upstage the opening of the new Stadium. But.. once he is back will the distraction of the steroids saga and Madonna’s inability to adopt another African baby from parents who didn’t want to give up the baby affect him?

THE SAWX – My friend Barry’s favorite team and I haven’t heard the end of how good the ’09 team since around early November. The outfield is JE (Jacoby ellsbury) JD (Drew) and JBay (Jason Bay) and the rest of the lineup is pretty intact although Jason Varitek continues to chug along. Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis have established themselves on the infield and the rotation is pretty solid. Could be another interesting battle in the AL East this year.

Player to Watch - Dice K – Not the comedian who couldn't last longer than Dennis Rodman on Celebrity Apprentice. It's amazing that Dice-K goes 18-3 with a 2.90 ERA and Red Sox nation thinks he is awful! Whats with these people? Not a bad record for a #3 starter and hopefully he won’t learn English to understand what the fans are saying about him.

TAMPA BAY – The success story of 2008 and the team all my fellow Mets fans rooted for during the World Series, especially now that Scott Kazmir has not established himself as a great pitcher and the one that got away in that illfated Victor Zambrano deal. The D-Rays built themselves with a solid offense with draft pick Evan Longoria and Carlos Pena who has a shot at being the AL HR king in ’09 now that ARod is going to miss some time. The rest of the offense is solid with Pat Burrell bringing his 33 HRs over from Philly and the pitching staff is solid. This could be the best team in the AL.

Player to Watch - David Price. Not the CBS Weatherman. Did you see this guy in the playoffs? He was amazing.. and now he is in the minor leagues as the financially challenged Rays exploit a little loophole to delay salary arbitration for another year. Once this guy comes up as either a starter or reliever, the Rays are going to be awesome which is incredible considering how lousy they used to be… sort of like the 1986 NJ Devils.

THE WHITE SOX – They showed a lot last year with their amazing run to win 2 extra games to punch their ticket to the post season. The middle of their lineup consists of 3 guys who hit more than 34 homers… Carlos Quentin, Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome. The rotation looks pretty decent 1-3 but you get nervous when the 4-5 spots are anchored by Jose Contreras and Bartolo Colon. They probably would have had an easier run to the playoffs last year if Quentin didn’t get hurt at the end of the season.

Player to Watch – Quentin – Is this a trivia question for what street is between Avenue P and Avenue R in Brooklyn? A budding superstar or a one year wonder? So far it looks like he is the D-Rays fans version of Scott Kazmir! They traded him for a guy named Chris Carter. Didn’t he create the X-Files?

THE INDIANS – A late addition to this year’s list.. I am adding them and deleting Arizona. Cleveland doesn’t quite have the offense from the glory years, but Grady Sizemore is a superstar and if Victor Martinez and Travis Hafner can bounce back from injuries, it might be enough for them to have a good season. Kerry Wood comes in to anchor the pen but how many saves he will get will depend on Cliff Lee and Fausto Carmona. Lee won’t repeat his 22-3 2008 season but 15-16 wins wont be too shabby. And Carmona was awful last season but could have that Bret Saberhagen-esque ever other year success.

Player to Watch – Carl Pavano – see Aaron Heilman above. However, in Pavano’s case I never saw a pitcher so hated for being injured except for maybe Victor Zambrano. Check out the broadcasts on ESPN and MLB to see how happy he looks to be away from The Bronx.

THE TWINS – It seems like their offense is Justin Morneau and a bunch of young guys who keep them competitive. Last year Morneau had an “off year” with only 23 home runs but he did drive in 129 runs. Catcher Joe Mauer is out for awhile with back problems and that loss will have to be made up by solid pitching led by their solid young rotation. It’s amazing that this pitching staff kept them in contention last season after they traded Johan Santana and Matt Garza! Joe Nathan is solid in the pen and with enough mediocrity in the AL Central, they have a chance for another good season.

Player to Watch – Joe Mauer – not only is he a reliable .300+ hitter…. but his value in catching the pitching staff has to be taken into consideration when it comes to weighing the chances of this teams success. If Mauer is out for too long, it could be a long season in Minnesota.

THE ANGELS – I thought they made a great deal when they signed Bobby Abreu as a free agent. He joins a solid lineup along with Vlad Guererro and Torii Hunter.. They may have Angels in the outfield, but their rotation is on the DL… and there is concern since they won’t have John Lackey, Ervin Santana, and Kelvim Escobar to start the season. They also lost K-Rod to the Mets and Texeira to the Yankees.. but they should still contend in the weak AL West. Brian Fuentes comes over from Colorado to replace K-Rod and he is good for at least 30 saves for a team that probably will have a pretty decent lead all season.

Player to Watch – Joe Saunders. He went 17-7 last season and with all the injuries to the starters moves up to the top of the rotation. Despite his record and 3.41 ERA all the fantasy websites are not predicting a good year for him. He might be the man that keeps the staff together until the injured players return.

OAKLAND – My 2009 surprise team… With Justin Duscherer on the DL, the rotation is a bunch of no names, but as is the case each year, these guys tend to keep the A’s in contention, and with the Angels looking a bit vulnerable this might be a good chance for the A’s to do well if they get off to a good start. The bullpen is solid with the virtually unhittable Brad Ziegler and I am one of the few people impressed with the offense with Jack Cust, and newcomers Matt Holliday, Jason Giambi, and Orlando Cabrera. Giambi isn’t really such a newcomer since he was in Oakland before his Yankee days… but I have a feeling this offense will make life a little tougher for LA this season.

Player to Watch – Matt Holliday – Not only for the tongue twisting games against Toronto…(And Halladay’s pitch to Holliday)… but also for the fact that he is in a walk year and if the A’s contend he will be a big cog for them, or a cog somewhere else if the A’s don’t do well and another team decides to take him for a September spin.

Predictions
Surprise Teams – Reds and A’s
Disappointments – D’backs and Yankee fans who expect the playoff drought to end.
NL Division Winners – Mets, Cubbies, and Dodgers
NL Wild Card - Phillies
AL Divison Winners – Rays, White Sox, Angels
AL Wild Card – Red Sox
NLCS – Mets vs. Dodgers
ALCS – Tampa vs. Boston
WORLD SERIES - It won’t be Shea and it won’t be Buckner and Mookie.. but Youkilis better be careful on any sharp ground balls hit by Carlos Betraaaaan. Mets in 6!

Enjoy the season and check the sidebar for updates on all of the games.Now excuse me while I order the MLB network from the cable company and think of a clever name for my fantasy baseball team! I'm thinking of something with a (2)007 theme.. if if weren't for that Bob Salvo...

CLIP OF THE WEEK: Before Citi Field opens next week, here is one last look at our beloved old dumpy Shea Stadium!

News and Comment... And The Rest of the Story

2009-03-22T22:58:00.005-04:00

Hello again everybody…

A few Saturday Nights ago, Trophy Wife and I were at home watching Momma Mia for the umpteenth time, and as Pierce Brosnan pierced my eardrums with his horrific singing, I took the opportunity to pull out my cellie and check the news update on CNN. That was when I found out that radio legend Paul Harvey had died. This column would have been more timely a few weeks ago, but this is the time of year when my late night computer time is spent scouring the web looking for baseball nuggets to prepare for my annual fantasy draft(s).

It’s amazing how Paul Harvey's commentaries were so popular for so long.. yet nobody else delivers that type of radio broadcast anymore... But you can bet that his style has inspired quite a few blogs and podcasts… So without further ado, let’s launch today’s column with a salute to Paul Harvey’s format of news and comment, and feel free to insert a dramatic pause wherever you feel necessary…

FACEBOOK – It’s interesting to see how many people truly loathe the new format they dumped on us a couple of weeks ago. I'm not that annoyed by it (although I just sent out a group email through it that I thought was just going to one person), but there were 2 features they removed that have basically moved it to the backburner on my favorite website list. First is the live feed that changed automatically every time one of your friends posted anything whether it was a status update or posting “Halloween” cross dressing pics as one of my buddies recently did…. The live feed was like a private real time newscast…

And the new friend announcements are also puzzlingly gone. For those of us in our very late 30s its fun to watch the updates to see names from our past pop up that are long forgotten, yet have suddenly rediscovered a mutual facebook friend. Others use it as a warning about people they want to avoid from their past who have just climbed aboard FB.... giving enough warning to adjust the settings to “block” the offending person from seeing your Facebook profile.

This may have been a very smart or very stupid idea. One friend suggested that FB is obsessed with Twitter. I am not a twitter-er, but I hear that the new FB is very similar to its competitor. But just because a website wants to remain competitive doesn’t mean it has to destroy itself to copy somebody else. Google acquired blogspot and it competes with Wordpress, but Google incorporated Blogspot into its own site and didn’t totally redesign itself to try to beat its competitor.

Also, FB has ads along the right column, so if you watched the old live feed, the ads never changed. But if you watch the new format, you have to refresh the page to update the feed which means – a new batch of ads! And if you want to see whos friending who… (sort of like Whos Zooming Who… a tune that will now crawl into your brain and haunt you for the rest of the day)… you have to go to each friends individual page and get that info there instead. Which means – more fb ads! Or… maybe these young 23 year old whippersnappers who run Facebook should be more focused on drinking and chasing chics instead of sinking the website with constant unnecessary changes.

Page 2

NBC? – Whatever happened to the TV network that used to rule the Nielsen ratings in the days of Seinfeld, Friends and Cosby?

While NBC falls apart,… CBS continues to amaze me with its incredible prime time lineup this season. Even Fox which has the American Idol juggernaut tweaks its lineup every few months. But CBS? I don’t think they have cancelled a show since they took away that fantastic Swingtown in September. Even that crazy Jennifer Love Hewitt talking to ghosts show chugs along and I don’t recall any changes CBS has made to its lineup this season.

ABC was in a similar NBC rut in ’04 but then they started airing Lost and Desperate Housewives and started having some water cooler shows. ABC may have taken a major step in the wrong direction by cancelling the amazing Life On Mars.. LoM is a remake of a BBC show… and the BBC original inspired a spin-off…. Perhaps ABC could undo its dopey mistake and do likewise?

But when it comes to NBC…. its prime time lineup has virtually no buzz. Its incredible how NBC gets great ratings from The Today Show and Jay Leno… yet nothing in between. By the way, did anyone catch Letterman this past week with the bit about the Madoff sitcom? The actress playing Mrs. Madoff wore a Trophy Wife T shirt and the “credits” showed that the sitcom was written by my Trophy Wife’s cousin Sheldon Leonard! Even NBC's daytime lineup is in the crapper with its lone soap opera Days of Our Lives on life support. (If NBC cancels it, the ghost of my mother will haunt that NBC executive and I don’t even think Jennifer Love Hewitt will be able to step in to help!) The only shows on that network that people talk about now are Heroes and Celebrity Apprentice.. with a little mini buzz buzzing about for The Office and 30 Rock. And even Heroes is taking a beating from its fans for losing its original charm and most people TIVO, VCR it, or watch it online since 24 is soooo much better!

Last week on Celebrity Apprentice,… Dennis Rodman got drunk, picked up some chics and didn’t bother showing up the next day at his team’s assignment at the Bridal Shop. Teammates knocked on his door and he refused to respond. He later said he had an “eye infection” due to an allergy to “cats”…. This was quite ironic because I happened to have a real eye infection and realized that when I called in sick on Monday, nobody who watched The Apprentice the night before would believe me… But… it was really an eye infection!

So what happens? Its time for Donald Trump to fire someone… and who gets canned? Tom Green! How does that make any sense if Green did what he was supposed to do, yet Rodman gets spared even though he was definitely not a team player. Rodman actually told Trump that if he was still a Chicago Bull, he wouldn’t have answered his hotel room door even if Michael Jordan was knocking.

I don’t like the regular Apprentice show, but I like the Celebrity Apprentice because its neat to see these famous people doing all these silly tasks. But as Trump was getting ready to make his decision, he realized that Green has fallen way off the radar, while Rodman remains a very interesting bizarre personality. And that was when Donald realized he had to make a decision… With the ratings for his show and the current fate of NBC riding in the balance, he realized that the show would be more entertaining with the former NBA star and that is why Rodman didn’t get the ax. Now, if The Apprentice was on CBS… would Green have been spared?

PAUL HARVEY – I bought a clock radio approximately 20 years ago at a store called Consumers Distributing. If you remember this odd store, they had catalogs in the store… you would check off what you want.. bring your sheet to the counter and then get your merchandise. Then, they got rid of the format and changed it to Consumers Express and turned it into a regular Kmart type store. At the grand reopening of the Roselle, NJ store in the late 80s, I was one of the first customers that very first day and I purchased a Sony Dream Machine clock radio that I continued to use for many years.

At one point around 2000, the AM stopped working so I started waking up to FM radio… mostly Howard Stern. But once Imus got fired by WFAN, and then rehired by WABC, I decided to buy an alarm clock with a functioning AM band to hear the new show. That Sony clock lasted almost 20 years, but it was time to ditch the last souvenir of the long closed Consumers Distributers/Express Stores. And once AM was back, I rediscovered Paul Harvey., whose News and Comment I used to listen to before my radio broke.

Every morning the new alarm clock would wake me up to the Imus show, and on Saturdays it would be Mark Simone’s weekend show. Paul Harvey’s commentary always came on at some point on Saturdays… as I tried to shake off the cobwebs of yet another crazy week at work in my weekly attempt to wake up for Saturday Morning synagogue services. The hourly ABC network newscast on Simone’s show was anchored by George Weber whose shocking brutal murder was announced on Sunday as I was finishing up today's column.

In recent years, the elderly Harvey’s appearances were not so frequent. I remember one morning Scott Shannon, a radio legend some notches below Harvey, filled in and with the glee of a school boy, happy that he was privileged to fill in for Paul Harvey. And over the last year, it was usually Paul Harvey’s son anchoring the broadcast.

On the Saturday that Paul Harvey's death was announced, I again woke up that morning half asleep and as I got the cobwebs out of my eyes, I again heard Harvey’s fill in. I did not know that this was the day that Paul Harvey would pass on, and more than likely he was somewhere up with the angels getting ready to broadcast his News and Comment over Heaven’s radio airwaves.

The Friday night before that fateful Saturday, as Trophy Wife was cooking yet another gourmet dinner… a little voice started chirping from the ceiling…. It was our detector announcing that we had a dangerous amount of carbon monoxide. I thought nothing of it.. maybe a battery issue? I opened a window and the woman’s chirpy voice stopped… But moments later… it started again. We called the fire department, and it turned out we had very high levels of carbon monoxide in our house due to a now discarded faulty appliance. The house was aired out, and the levels came down and it was time to eat dinner.

It’s a good thing we have those carbon monoxide detectors… and you should have them too. If we didn’t have one, we would never have woken up the next morning. And yet as thrilled as I would have been to wake up that Saturday morning to hear Paul Harvey News and Comment... I must admit that in retrospect, I am quite happy that on that particular morning… it was NOT Paul Harvey we were listening to!

And there you have ….. The Rest of the Story!

Now go check your carbon monoxide detectors!

American Psycho - A Movie Club Column

2009-03-06T12:00:00.007-05:00

Well now that Christian Bale’s reputation seems to have survived his recent on set meltdown, it is time for a Movie Club column. Today we present Part II of our Bale movie series – American Psycho. It took me some time to write today's column, because after several trips to Blockbuster to rent this movie, I left with a different movie instead, because the only copy was always rented out… apparently by the same person! At one point, I asked the Blockbuster counterperson/resident film expert if this person believed in returning videos. Ironically, the main character in this movie – Patrick Bateman uses the concept of returning videos as his alibi for everything… including Murder!!

Here is a clip of the trailer…

It's tough to write a spoiler free column about this movie, but since it is about 9 years old, I am sure I won’t be giving away too much by revealing certain plot aspects. This is the Bateman portion of the Bateman to Batman trip through Bale’s career, and I think this movie cements his reputation as being the rare combination of a great actor AND a movie star… Unfortunately… there have been a lot of great actors who have not become stars.

The plot revolves about Bateman, a Wall Street rich boy who has been handed a silver spoon and a cushy six figure job although his mornings seem to consist of finding lunch reservations and his afternoons are spent finding dinner reservations – all of these at very expensive hoity toity restaurants. The shallowness of his dial-a-restaurant existence is not lost on Bateman. He admits he is a man devoid of emotion except for greed and disgust.

In the movie (and the book the movie is based on) Bateman “kills” a number of people… but I put that in quotes because despite numerous debates I have seen on this topic…. I don’t think he really “kills” all these people… I think its all part of a fantasy life he lives in his vivid imagination.

The first time I watched this movie… several months ago before I decided to write about it for NWOW, I spent most of the movie thinking he was to paraphrase Larry David and Mel Brooks, f'ing n-v-t-s. But when I watched it the 2nd time, I started looking at this as more of a dark comedy. My logic which some may disagree with, is based on a comment made by another character about seeing one of Bateman’s victims “alive”… although the argument could be made that within the context of the storyline, that person was really not seen alive. Incidentally, the American Psycho book is nowhere near as subtle, it is very clear that Bateman is a mass murderer.

The first time I saw this I was mortified… the 2nd time more amused, and I started to take notice of the incredible shallowness of these characters. These rich 1980’s Reagan-era Wall Street young hot shots sit around showing off their hoity toity business cards as if the quality of the ink and paper they are printed on are their status symbol mid life crisis convertibles. Bateman at one time tries to pick up a little money hungry lolita and when asked about his career, slips it in that he is into "murders and executions"; the woman's reply indicates that in her half listening state she thought he said the more common "mergers and acquisitions".

Bateman’s arrogance is breathtakingly incredible. He has a fiance who strangely wants to marry him while he carries on an affair with the mentally ill girlfriend of a guy named Louis whose beard is not necessarily on his face, and carries a little man crush for the muscular Bateman. Bateman runs into a hungry homeless guy in an alley and instead of tossing him a few bucks or a doggie bag,.. plunges his unused kitchen cutlery knife right into the poor shlub’s chest. . He later has dinner with a shallow colleague who never seems to be get Bateman’s name right… the two subsequently end up at Bateman’s apartment where he meets a bloody demise. Or does he?

When it comes to murders…. this movie sure knows how to make them look stylish. In the pre Ipod 1980’s, the rich people were discovering the evolving technology of cd’s… back in the early days when they were sold in bulky large packaging, I guess so they could fit into the old record bins at Sam Goody’s and all the other now defunct record stores. I remember a party on Long Island in the mid 1980s, these people were so rich that despite the fact that the house had an indoor pool, soda fountain, and futuristic computerized security system, what impressed me most was their incredibly large collection of these newfangled compact disks!!

When Bateman invites Paul Allen over to his ritzy Manhattan apartment that fateful night, he pops in a Huey Lewis CD, and goes into a Casey Kasem-esque monologue that actually provides a historical perspective behind the music selection being played. That is followed by Bateman attacking the poor guy, and then taking steps to cover up the crime. Later scenes will make you cringe the first time and chuckle during the 2nd viewing when he invites hookers and a co worker to his home and launches into Kasem-esque monologues about Phil Collins and Whitney Houston.

In one scene, Bateman is trying to squeeze a corpse filled bag into the trunk of a cab… only to have a shallow pal stroll by and remark about the expensiveness of the designer bag. Willem DeFoe portrays Detective Donald Kimball, whose investigation goes according to Bateman’s schedule… such as Bateman’s need to take his time pondering his alibi for the night of Allen’s disappearance… Bateman later agrees to meet the detective for a lunch date, at his convenience to discuss that aforementioned alibi. His total manipulation of the detective’s crime solving schedule, is the first big sign that these so called murders may not have really happened. Even the "Peace of Chaleef" on Soap was more efficient than this cop! Bateman also has a tendency to use the term “returning videotapes” as an alibi for murder... and also as an excuse to cancel plans with his long suffering fiancé.

There are also some amusing scenes involving hookers who Bateman hires to act out his sexual fantasies. But not before more cringing lengthy music monologues, a Hitchcock-esque story telling device which evokes dread like the Jaws shark music… you know that something bad is going to happen. He also spends a lot of time looking in the mirror flexing while he engages in his 3-somes… those scenes by the way are more graphic on the DVD since it was cut out of the theatrical (and HBO) versions in order to get an R rating. And it really makes you wonder what hookers think of their crazy clients and all their strange requests. One hooker bolts out of the apartment when she realizes she is dealing with a freak... who chases her through the hallways butt naked!… I won’t spoil the outcome when Bateman tries to play javelin with a chainsaw.

Ultimately, Bateman is a bored guy… and it’s a testament to Bale’s excellent acting skills…(and very good American accent – unlike Pierce Brosnan in Mama Mia which we just saw for the umpteenth time) that he is able to create such a fascinating yet boring character. Bateman and his colleagues sit around all day really doing nothing… but while Seinfeld characters hang out doing nothing in a diner.. these characters just make plans to dine out.. but would never get caught in a diner.. or any place a regular person like myself would go to.… It’s incredible that a guy who eats all his meals at restaurants would actually have a knife set… or any food in his fridge… although a peek inside his fridge elicits memories of 1980’s mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Which actually raises the point of those who will disagree with me… If Dahmer could get away with killing so many… why not Bateman? But whatever the case may be, even though the movie is quite violent, Bale delivers yet again proving that he is truly one of our finest young actors in the 21st century.

Here is Ebert's TV Review

On a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… American Psycho gets 3 bladders.

Next Movie: "The Prestige"

CLIP OF THE WEEK:

In our last column we ran Pumpstradamus's version of "Do a Dish".. a video I appeared in more than 20 years ago. Unfortunately, the original had been taken down from You Tube, but has been put back, so now you can see the original and the remake!

Here is the classic original...

And the remake with Pumpstradamus!

Pumpstradamus 2009 Predictions - A Multimedia Extravaganza

2009-02-20T01:53:00.003-05:00

Welcome to our annual Pre Oscar column… which includes our annual visit with Pumpstradams and his predictions for 2009!

Last Monday I went to see a President’s Day Matinee and as I left the theater, I realized that I had just seen an incredible movie.

While “Titanic” took a tragic ship accident and worked a story around it… Slumdog Millionaire takes the story of a young man appearing on India’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and turns it into the story of the tragic life of one of its contestants. I will never again wonder why so many Indians move to Central NJ after seeing this movie and how horrific life can be for so many young kids growing up there.

The movie has some odd twists… no spoilers here, but the closing credits were similar to the style we saw in “Mamma Mia”… and it didn’t really make a lot of sense for such a serious movie. Maybe this is how all the Indian Bollywood movies are made? Also, some plot developments near the end were just a bit hard to believe, but then again look at the mashugas Lost fed us this week…. I guess I can suspend some disbelief… But despite that, Jamal the main character, had been through so much during his tortured young life that you really feel that something good has to happen to this poor fellow.

The movie is told partly in flashback… Jamal the main character runs through the questions on Millionaire, but after he was won a ton o' money, that day's episode has run out of time, and Jamal is invited to come back to finish his game on the next episode. Usually, they run the credits, the contestant chats with Regis or Meredith, and they then proceed to tape the next episode. But that is not the case in India!

Suspicion starts to brew that this uneducated young man from the slums would be smart enough to get so many questions right... even though he needed an early lifeline for a relatively easy question. The police sense some monkey business, and call Jamal in to Jack Bauer-esquely question him about how he was able to get so many questions right. As part of the interrogation, they rewatch the show that was just completed (and aired live), Jamal reveals that the questions were not that hard for him because virtually every answer reminded him of a difficult chapter of his nightmarish younger days.

Interestingly enough, a woman from my town recently went on Jeopardy and the day after I saw Slumdog, I ran into her at Shop Rite. I was going to ask her how she knew all the answers but then I decided… maybe not. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear any more horrible stories.

The director Danny Boyle successfully weaves three time lines into the movie as we see the story during the actual show, the interrogation, and Jamal's childhood. We watch the shocking story as he crawls out of a very full outhouse to meet an anticipated visitor while totally covered in years of his neighbors crap. We also watch how he and other children are exploited by "loving adult rescuers" who resort to torture to give these kids a so-called better life. While most kids his age grow up striving for high scores on video games, Jamal obsesses over other kids who were not able to get a better life like he did... not that his life was so spectacular.

There are many situations where this movie's harsh realism is like taking a punch to the gut. Overall however, it is one of the best movies I have seen in years, and hopefully the Academy will recognize this on Sunday Night. On a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom – Slumdog Millionaire is a 4 bladder movie!

Pumpy’s Oscar picks are in the podcast… here are mine.

Supporting Actress - Penelope Cruz
Supporting Actor – Heath Ledger.. but I really think that Robert Downey Jr.s amazing performance in Tropic Thunder would have made this race closer if Ledger was still alive.
Actress - Meryl Streep
Actor – Sean Penn
Director – Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire
Movie – Slumdog Millionaire… possibly the best movie since Schindlers List in ’94! (notwithstanding Superbad)

Now time for the videos!

A couple of weeks ago, we posted the Do A Dish video I did in college. I hope you got to see it because today Pumpy flexes his acting chops with our own version of… Do A Dish! (The original 1988 Do a Dish was taken down from You Tube temporarily… we will repost it here on NWOW upon its return)

And now with a special nod to the now defunct Shea Stadium… here is Pumpstradamus with his 2009 predictions!

Next Week: The movie club returns with “American Psycho”!

"Where Do You Get Your News?" Revisited

2009-02-12T01:40:00.008-05:00

Back on March 21, 2006.... in the early days of this fine blog which today marks its 175th column, we did a column about different ways to get your news. Now, with all this fantastic technology, we have a lot of ways to get the latest news AND inform others about what is going on…. I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the entire concept by taking a look a Paul Harvey-esque look at news and comment, and also where we may or may not be getting it in 2009.

A Rod has been the biggest story on the news this past week. And it’s not a moment too late for Michael Phelps whose Olympic heroics took a little bit of a beating when some weisenheimer with a camera snapped a pic of him partaking in some marijuana related activities. Of course in the era of TMZ and Facebook, the pic found its way to the internet and now Phelps has been suspended for 3 months of non Olympic swimming activity that few people pay attention to… Worst of all Kellogg’s yanked away his endorsement deal.. And this just in to the NWOW Newsroom – The local dime bags sold in stores have now ended their affiliation with Tony the Tiger. You’ll have to find something else to make you feel Grrrrreat!.

As much as I like the Mets and don’t care much for the Yankees… I am just steroided out. All this talk about A-Rod not going to the Hall of Fame is a bunch of malarkey. Everybody watched Barry Bonds break Hank Aaron’s record and just used that bad guy Bonds milestone as a marker till the Good Guy A-Rod would take the record for himself and heal all of baseball’s problems. But, was it really A-Rod’s job to undo Bonds damage?

That scenario came to a crashing halt when the alleged stalker Selena Roberts broke the story… and made me realize that its time to cancel satellite radio and spend the subscription moola on MLB Network instead. And while there is definitely something morally wrong about steroids, players were not subjected to suspensions back then, and the test results were all to be kept secret. The fact that it was revealed actually is a crime by the health professionals who by law must keep this information confidential.

For one thing, I watch sports for escape-ism and I am getting tired of all these scandals. When I go to the movies, I go for the escape there too and I really don’t need to hear that the director and leading man didn’t get along and that 2 of the actors were hooking up during filming even though their spouses were at home. I just want to be entertained and not be distracted by all the craziness behind the scenes. If I want distractions, I'll watch Billy Walsh flip out while filming Medellin only to resurface on 24 as an alleged bad FBI agent when the bad agent is really Janene Garofalo's character.

Of course steroids enhance a player’s body to give the modern player an unfair edge that players in the olden days did not have. Modern athletes have a lot of “good” advantages too… such as advanced training techniques to heal injuries, Tommy John surgery, excellent medical advancements, and better medical technology that helps them heal much better than the players of decades ago. And while steroids makes baseball players stronger… how much does that strength really contribute? Were Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens mediocre players before they started taking the stuff? Obviously, the added strength gave them more homeruns and more strikeouts… but Bonds still had to hit the ball and Clemens needed to have accurate pitch location to get their desired results. Clemens, Bonds, A-Rod and all these other “cheaters” enhanced their stats… but even without any supplements, I get the feeling none of these guys woulda been playing for The Bad News Bears.

By the way a quick sports prediction that you will read here first to bridge the dog days between the end of football and the beginning of baseball..(Pitchers and catchers are thisclose!!)…. For the Final Four my Feb prediction is UConn, Oklahoma, Duke and North Carolina. And that is for the NCAA Men’s AND Women’s Tournaments!

Also in the news is the Sully New York Love Tour – I’m watching the hero pilot on Letterman right now.. and his amazing gentle crash into the icy Hudson is THE perfect example of how my news reading has changed in the interactive era of the internet. My Facebook friend Sue has a view of the Hudson from her window and suddenly updated her profile status that fateful day with the stunning announcement that she sees a plane in the River! From there, she started providing updates from an eyewitness perspective… and speculated on how many people must have been killed.

Luckily she was wrong, and journalistically, nobody would have said they were sure there were dead people… but Facebookers are not expected to be journalists so you need to take what you read there with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, it was confirmed shortly after that announcement that thankfully everybody got off that plane virtually unharmed.

The other day, Mayor Bloomberg gave the plane’s crew a key to the city… I am wondering if they might build a statue for Sully at La Guardia. But then again, wouldn’t that attract…. Birds?

The other big news story is Octo-Mom - This is the story that baffles me and I have gone back and forth on this. At first I was mortified that a single mother was going to try to raise 14 kids and use taxpayer money to do so. Then I did a 180 when I heard she won a $165,000 settlement after she was injured on the job. Okay, I thought… she has a six figure settlement, and with 14 kids to spend it on… it decreases the odds that her Palestinian father will send donations to Hamas. I wonder if DAS and his liberal fans are reading today’s column….

But again, I have changed my mind. I didn’t see Ann Curry’s Dateline NBC Tuesday night… but I read about the interview and it turns out this woman is collecting food stamps… which means the taxpayers are supporting her irresponsible decision…. because her six figure settlement went to pay for the fertility treatments. And you wonder, that if Curry got the exclusive for Dateline… is this going to be the beginning of regular vists with Octo-Mom and her Baker’s Dozen + 1? Every year Curry visits the McCaughey Septuplets and you can see how incredibly difficult it is for those parents with their septuplets. But Curry's chat was no lovefest... she lobbed some difficult questions towards Octo Mom expressing the general disgust that even the liberals have towards her. And you oughta see the letters to the editor in the LA papers!

I think Octo Mom needs to get herself a caffeine advertising campaign… perhaps a commercial for Folgers with its Yiddish “best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup”. (IN Yiddish cup = head) And to think it was such a big deal when New Jersey had the Kienast Quintuplets back in the 1970s!! Can you believe those 5 little pishers who were featured annually in the Star Ledger amazingly will turn 39 on Feb. 24th??

And speaking of the Ledger… this goes me to my next point.. WHERE we get the news. The internet has kicked the newspaper industry in the guts and even though the NY Papers seem to be doing ok… The Star Ledger has not. I grew up learning to read the comics in the Ledger and at this point, the comics are the only reason I still get the paper.

Budget cuts have killed the paper and now it is a shadow of its former self. The sports section used to be fantastic but they got rid of the beat writers for the Rangers and Knicks and over the last several months phased out their regular Sunday columnists who wrote excellent columns about Baseball, The NFL, NBA and NHL. Oddly enough, the paper kept a Tuesday Soccer column!

And while the paper’s price has gone up, the quality has gone down. Sections are being merged, and a week ago Monday, the Today section was condensed to 4 pages and stuck in the back of the Sports…. Last Monday it was back in its usual spot. It’s bad enough Parade is about to sink with the death of James Brady…. one less reason to get the Sunday paper….but there have been other changes too including the decision to cut out half the channels from the TV listings. Apparently a lot of people complained because they restored a number of channels a few days later. The paper has made a lot of other subtle editorial changes too over the last few months that most of us probably didn’t even notice.

Another issue with the Ledger is it has no internet identity. Its website is NJ.com which it shares with other NJ papers. That’s not good enough in this day and age… every paper locally has its own website and the Ledger needs to do likewise so they can maintain a marketing platform to maintain an identity for its advertisers and readers. The only “Star Ledger” site I have seen was a site set up in December to add a Christmas tip for the paper boy. I went on that site several times before the holidays and it was always down!! Maybe it is time for them to break away from the other papers and create its own web presence, so it can continue to have a “Star Ledger-y” presence.
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ADDENDUM: I just found out that the Ledger has cut all of its baseball writers and instead will be using baseball coverage from The Daily News baseball writers instead. (The Daily News will use the Ledger writers for The Devils and Nets). I guess it's too early to react to that change... although its great news if you like the Daily News reporters... but bad news for the News' circulation if that's the reason you buy the paper! But at least local baseball teams will continue to have reporters covering them for the Ledger.
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But its not just the papers getting hammered…. The TV stations have gotten hit too. Channel 11’s owners filed for bankruptcy…. Channel 4 cans approximately 4 on air staffers each month including the very attractive Sunday anchor Carol Anne Riddell….and Channel 2 got rid of all of its regular sports casters except for Samantha Ryan who years go used to do updates for Joe Beningo on the overnights on WFAN. Then when you realize that Channel 2’s nightly anchormen Chris Wragge and Steve Bartelstein used to be sportscasters you start to see that the local sportscaster might be headed to oblivion. Channel 4 already has its sports reports sponsored by Verizon Fios which gets its own little song and lingo on screen.

Now I feel like I have reached a fork in the road.. I’m about to break up with my newspaper.. and I already have started reading the NY Post on Sundays… Now my loyalty to Channel 4 may be dwindling too… I’ve started watching some Channel 7 at 5pm… (on the rare occasions that I’m home at that time) and I’m watching Channels 2 and 7 on the weekends… even though Channel 4’s Saturday anchor Melissa Russo has been looking a lot better lately… Decisions Decisions.. where will I get my news??

When it comes to the future of newspapers and TV News… its all about the advertising money. In these crazy economic times, its very important for businesses to spend money on advertising especially in this tough economy. This is the perfect time for businesses to take the bull by the horns and ramp up their marketing and advertising. And that is why I really don’t understand why all these critics are complaining that Citi should remove their name from Citi Field even though the TARP bailout money is not paying for the stadium naming rights. In reality, if Citi spends money on stadium naming rights, … it is just going to create more awareness about Citi.. assuming we still have sportscasters and sports columnists. ….Ultimately, Citi Field will create more product awareness and bring in more business... and isn’t that what the bailout is all about??? To bring in more money!

I just wonder if a rain delay at the Mets new Stadium will mean that they will roll out the TARP...

CLIP OF THE WEEK:

I should have posted this last week. I think Lost and Heroes fans will get a kick out of this...

The Weather May Be Cold... But the Tube is Sizzling

2009-01-30T10:45:00.005-05:00

Well folks we are back on the desktop in the ol’ Bunkey Room…. Just in case you are a new reader here at NWOW, we call it The Bunkey Room because my office is in one of the spare bedrooms that still has the bunk bed that was left behind by the previous owners. Technically it’s a loft-bed… but that’s besides the point. Thanks to my pal Danny at Compusave… I have my computer back and it is working better than ever. If you saw the earlier column, my computer had to be wiped clean after it caught a nasty virus from the the blogskins dot com website which I innocently clicked on while looking for a new background for this blog and my podcast. I brought the machine to Danny and as soon as I told him I messed it up by going on a skins site… I knew I sounded just like every other goofball that picks up spyware from porn sites…even though my virus acquisition was rather innocent.

So this year is off to a wintry start… It’s either cold or snowing.. but we still haven’t had that big ass kicking snow storm.. just little 2-3 inch snow falls that require some minor shoveling but are nonetheless quite annoying. So with the weather cold… at least the Winter 2009 TV season has been quite hot.. with this one notable exception.

LOVING LEAH – What a bizarre show this turned out to be. In an era where TV Movies and miniseries have been replaced by dopey reality shows, CBS continues to occasionally run the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. This one was about a woman named Leah who married a “born again” Jew. Her husband went from a lifestyle of minimal Jewish involvement to becoming ultra Orthodox. Unfortunately, the poor shlub drops dead at the beginning of the movie and because of a rather obscure Jewish law, his poor widow Leah is told that she must marry her husband’s unmarried brother. Unless…

Well it turns out the brother is a doctor living in DC, and embracing the lifestyle of a pais wearing Talmud studier like his brother is not in the cards. The widow Leah tells him that he can get off the hook by participating in an ancient ritual. Unfortunately, the Rabbi who conducts this ceremony should have done it in Hebrew, because one line just rubs the good Dr. the wrong way and he backs out and announces that he will marry Leah instead.

Well this marriage is one of those “Let’s fool Mr. Roper/Mr. Furley with our living arrangements”… Leah feels restricted by her lifestyle and decides a move out of Brooklyn away from her domineering mother might not be such a bad idea and then we spend the rest of the movie wondering if these two knuckleheads are going to hook up.

However, whoever cast this movie had a sense of humor because Leah’s frumpy sister is played by Natasha Lyonne from American Pie and worst of all her mother is played by Susie Essman, the foul mouthed comedienne whose crazy ad libbed monologues on Curb Your Enthusiasm prevent it from ever being syndicated on cable. That casting might have backfired because instead of following the movie, you spend the whole time waiting for this ultra Orthodox woman to unfurl a slew of f bombs on the other cast members.

Was this movie realistic? Perhaps. The ultra Orthodox single women do sneak into movie theaters and I have heard even sneak away to go clubbing… (I have been with Trophy Wife for so long I don’t even remember the women that I used to see at the bar and club scene!) But the writers had to be very careful here to not step on any toes while maintaining some semblance of accuracy. Aside from a couple of minor errors, the movie was somewhat plausible. But I did cringe when the Doctor asked Leah if she loved his brother and she didn’t say anything. Usually these women get married after a few dates and of course they don’t love their husbands at their weddings.. but they do tend to grow to love them over time. That might have been a better answer to that very sticky question.

Oddly enough, there are very few scenes involving the Ultra Orthodox Men... it's mostly women we see which makes you wonder if the screenplay writer had access to the men in a community that spends a lot of time doing things seperately. The screenplay was written by a woman named Peninah Goldstein. The men appear to be more isolated from the real world spending almost all of their time stuyding the Talmud or at work. Perhaps Goldstein felt more comfy writing about the women for the sake of accuracy since she wouldn't have been able to do any Oprah/Barbara Walters-esque interviews to see how the men really feel.

And The Jewish Week weighs in this week in a column by Jonathan Mark where he criticizes Essman for telling the ladies on The View that when she did the movie she portrayed her character as upset about her daughter’s dating the non religious doctor as if her real life daughter was dating a right wing Republican. Mark seems offended by this as if it’s a dig on ultras but in reality that answer is pretty much on the money. Mark compares the Leah character to a Chabad-nik, but the movie never really states what kind of Chasidic group this family belonged to. And in reality, the average chusid would be quite upset if their daughter had married a non observant man… so Essman seems to have hit the nail right on the head. Essman actually did a decent job... but it woulda been funny in the scene where Lyonne’s character was eating donuts if she would have barged in and yelled….”Hey stop eating those donuts you fat f---!!”

LOST IS BACK

Woo hoo.. I am confused as always.. but thrilled that the show has taken on this Time Travelling twist. And rumor has it that the guy who created the Time Loop Theory that I have written about in the past is actually an employee of ABC! Is this really a plant? I don’t know.. but the show is just as wacky and weird as always.

I still don’t get it that all 6 have to go back to save the ones left behind.. Five isn't good enough? Trophy Wife thinks that they all need to get back in time to the moment they got on the helicopter so they can readjust the stuff that happened after that fateful moment. Nonetheless, the whole idea of getting off and getting back on the island seems to be a back burner story since all the fun seems to go on on that wild crazy island. Now we find out that the oh so popular Desmond is trying to find Daniel’s mom because he suddenly remembers that Daniel once told him to do so.

Last Wednesday, Desmond found a link between his evil father in law Charles and Daniel. This is one of those crazy situations you rarely find on TV where 2 or more characters have the same first name since it makes un-natural TV dialogue more confusing. Nonetheless, Desmond had a friend on the island named Charlie and named his son Charlie. Now the Lost blog commenters are speculating that the time maneuverings that all 3 Charles are actually the same person… Other sites wonder who he is named after…. Isn’t it obvious? Charles Nelson Reilly!

Desmond’s father in law tells him he can find Daniel’s mom in LA. That perked up my ears because I remember that Kate was in LA last week hanging out with Sun. And while we are all trying to figure out whos the mama… Kate has assumed the identity of Baby Aaron’s mother even though Aaron’s mom was really Claire. Ladies and Gentlemen I present my latest Lost theory…

Daniel is from the future… and his “mom in LA” is actually Kate,… but in reality he is Claire’s son Aaron. Sounds like a soap opera doesn’t it?

Someone at ABC thought it would be a great idea to put Life on Mars with its time travel elements on after Lost. Not such a good idea… especially since they don’t even have a commercial or a Liz Cho news tease between the end of Lost and the beginning of LoM. They just go - boom – right into it. Huh? You need some time to decompress after watching that crazy show… and LoM had such a wacky opening with a non sympathetic cop and a building jumper that it was hard to squeeze all this stuff into my poor little brain!

The episode by the way was not as good as the first batch and from what I have read on the internet – the format is being tweaked to welcome the viewers that did not see the earlier episodes. Those earlier shows in the fall followed the format of the very popular British version which I am now thinking of watching if I can find it somewhere. Nonetheless, the fact that our time traveling cop ended up doing the ol' hoochie mcscoochie with a woman who he later found out was the boss’s daughter was quite an amusing twist. I have heard a theory that Sam Tyler is really in a coma after being hit by a car, and he is dreaming that he is in the middle of a 1970s crime drama. That actually makes sense to me.

24

Jack is back and 24 is kickin butt. I see a lot of fans are kvetching on line about this season.. but I must admit that after not seeing a fresh 24 since May of ’07…(except for the movie late last year that came too soon after a thrilling Giant game)… the show seems right on track with the usual twists and turns. Interestingly enough, I have noticed a lot of shows have been using storytelling devices in non chronological order. I don’t know where this started… maybe the Seinfeld backwards episode where they went to India? That was actually based on the backwards storytelling in a play. Maybe the brilliant movie Memento, which involved a man who has no short term memory so he is just as in the dark as the viewer? Nonetheless, 24has to play by some strict rules and can only do linear story telling in real time, so let’s give the writers credit for playing under some very difficult rules!

This season picks up with the usual craziness of past seasons... even though CTU is no longer around and Bill and Chloe seem to have started their own intelligence company. I also never realized how young Janeane Garafolo looks! She is actually older than me, but her character could probably pass for her late 20s. The whole twist with Tony being alive is a little soap opera-esque… but it’s still rather entertaining. I don’t take the fans complaining too seriously since those same fans will be back on the same websites criticizing Heroes once that show comes back. If you don’t like it,… watch something else, but quit the endless (fill in the show) sucks and jumped the shark banter so the rest of us can enjoy ourselves!

PUMPSTRADAMUS SUPER BOWL PICK: Pumpy set a new record hitting 11 wins and finished 11-6 while Unbiased Giants fan ended the season at a respectable 31-19-1. We hope to have Pumpy on a podcast shortly. This Sunday the Steelers are 7 point favorites over Arizona. Sayeth the Pump: "Because the Vatican reinstated a Holocaust denying Bishop, I must go against the Cardinals! Take the Steelers!"

Non American Psychos - (and American Ones Too!)

2009-01-17T17:43:00.008-05:00

Well it appears that Israel has declared a cease fire in the Middle East! Or as the Liberal Jews would say those mean Israelis have stopped attacking those poor innocent oppressed Palestinians. For now, I will keep my thoughts to myself about how long this cease fire will last...

As I get ready to prepare for my upcoming movie review… (Now that I finally got a copy of American Psycho thanks to a great deal I found on eBay), I just wanted to add a few more thoughts to last week’s column about the situation in Israel. We will get to that in just a moment, but first a few comments about some other items in the news this week....

*HERO PILOT

Kudos to Chelsey Sullenberger for having the brilliance to land that plane safely in the Hudson River. This event gave me a firsthand look how news coverage has entered a new era. I first heard about it moments after it happened when I saw that my Facebook Live Feed contained an eyewitness account from my old college friend Sue W who proclaimed in loud headlines on her status that she just saw a plane had crashed into the Hudson River.

From that point on, the news coverage was endless. Channel 4 News had team coverage featuring 9 reporters who at one point were lined up in a 3x3 grid causing me to yell out.."I'll take Gabe Pressman for the block!" And if there is any guy that could get any chic he wants,… it has to be that pilot! Imagine his pickup line – “Hey baby.. I’m the pilot that landed that plane”. He already has a fan club on Facebook and I think women will soon be tossing their panties at him. And how odd that this happened the day after the death of Ricardo Montalban. We went from Mr, Roarke to talking about "Ze Plane". I wonder if Montalban's coffin will be made of Rich Corinthian Leather?

*HEATH CAMPBELL

Last December we wrote about Heath Campbell the Nazi wanna be who named his kid Adolf Hitler and ratted out Shop Rite to the local news media because they refused to bake him a “Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler” cake. This turned into a national news story. Of course those bastards at Wal Mart were more than happy to bake the offending cake!

Last month I pointed out that Heath and his wife refuse to work and collect welfare and speculated about how long it would take for DYFS to come in and take his kids away. Thankfully, those kids are now out and in a better home. But the issue is not just that he gave his 3 kids Nazi-related names... it is the kind of home those kids are being raised in. During his anti Shop Rite media blitz he was very eager to show off his welfare rented home and all the Nazi memorabilia he happily has displayed there. It looks like he shot himself in the foot; he apparently caught the attention of DYFS, and they were able to get his kids out of there.

Too bad I don’t know where he lives. I’d like to go outside his home and sing to the tune of the legendary soup commercial...

Mmmm Mmmm Gone

Mmmm Mmmm Gone

That’s what Campbell’s kids are

Mmmm Mmmm Gone.

Nothing like seeing the downfall of an Anti-Semite. That leads us today's topic about the war against Terrorism being waged in Gaza, a war which now includes a PR war against the Anti-Semites who continue to turn the terrorist victims into the bad guys!

*FACEBOOK STATUS REPORTS

A lot of people on FB are showing their support for the plight of our Israeli brethren by posting updates provided by Qassamcount.com. A lot of people, myself included have been complaining about the media coverage of Israel's war against terrorism. Some call it the liberal media - I think it's because news editors are not too well educated about the Middle East situation and don't know how to put the situation in the right perspective. So when they blast headlines announcing "UN school students killed by Israeli army"... I know that the real headline is "Hamas terrorists use school children as human shields". Qassamcount allows you to subscribe and then sends a headline out as your status report with a regular update of the latest terrorism inflicted by Hamas.. i.e. 12 rockets hit Israel Friday, etc. I think it's a great idea to spread the word about what is really going on and get away from the fake headlines we see on the news.

A friend of mine was telling me that someone he knows had a response to his accurate Qassam headline with a comment from a terrorist supporter that he finds the status report to be propaganda and it's reprehensible!

Huh?

First of all if any of my FB friends made such a comment, I would unfriend them quicker than you can say free Burger King sandwich!

How dare one of these terrorist supporters say that an update about the victim of a Hamas terrorist rocket attack is "reprehensible propaganda"?? That particular update even talked about a rocket that hit an Israeli school!! I can only imagine what this terrorist supporter would have said if Facebook had been around on 9-11. 2000 people died on American soil today in terrorist attacks... oh wait a minute that is reprehensible propaganda... how about those poor hijackers that died today? Screw the victims. It's just amazing how stupid the internet can make some people look!!

*LAST WEEK'S COMMENT SECTION

This week while the Giants are not playing in the NFC Title Game, I hearken back to last year’s game which I missed due to DAS’s wedding. My disclaimer is that I disagree with A LOT of stuff that he says, but he really is one heckuva nice guy. I just don't understand his compassion towards this "Palestinian plight". If a liberal Jew was drowning and a Hamas person walked by... he would throw him a brick. Actually he would tie the brick to his leg first and then throw a 2nd one at him. Then he would probably cut his finger while throwing the brick, and as the liberal drowns his last words would be "I feel so bad that you just cut yourself!"

So as DAS celebrates his 1st wedding anniversary this weekend – I must admit that I am not as compassionate, and I wanted to address some of his devil’s advocate points. And I do mean that literally because terrorists are evil regardless of what their PR spin machine tells us is their reasonable cause.

I continue to say that most of this Pro Hamas rhetoric is pure Anti Semitism, especially based on some of the garbage I hear at their moronic rallies. I also question why taxpayer money is paying for their security.. especially when some cops got injured at last week’s Pro Terrorist Rally. Let those losers pay for their own security. I posted a comment on Loran’s blog the other day... by the way he has a great article in this week's Jewish State.... In my comments there, I speculated about what would happen if somebody in Connecticut launched a Hamas rocket that landed smack in the middle of a Pro Terrorist Rally in New York. You know that all you would hear is “hate crime” and the demand to “prosecute that rocket launcher to the fullest extent of the law!”

In their hypocritical minds it is wrong to launch rockets at protesters.. but if the target is a Jew then it is perfectly OK.

DAS brought up a point I had not heard… but then again I really don't pay attention to too much of what liberal Jews talk about. (By the way, I don't think DAS is really that liberal on this topic so these anti-liberal comments are not directed at him) I see that there is an excellent program going on locally where you can donate $53 to Freedom to Play. That money gives an Israeli kid a day trip to a safe location so they can play like a child should,... without having to worry about being attacked by a Hamas Rocket. Of course if you go to a liberal Jew for a donation to this cause, all you hear is "Waaa Waaaa the "poor Palestinians""

So DAS asked me....why should a non Orthodox Jew defend Israel when non Orthodox Judaism is not “recognized” in The Holy Land?

I thought this was kind of bizarre but in retrospect there is a bit of a rift between Orthodox and non Orthodox. There are Orthodox that will not accept the kosher certification of a Non Orthodox Rabbi and the big question in Israel is “Who is a Jew?” By definition, if your mother is Jewish, you're Jewish, but apparently there are some non-Orthodox that are recognizing patri-lineal situations where the Dad but not the Mom is Jewish.

And then how about the conversions? Not only do the Orthodox question the non Orthodox Kosher certifications, but non Orthodox conversions are also raising questions. That fact, combined with sons and daughters of Jewish fathers (and non Jewish mothers) professing to be card carrying Jews has produced a very sticky situation.

I once paid a shiva call where they were about to begin services I knew that one member of the 10 man minyan was the son of a Jewish father and non Jewish mother. A similar issue could come up if the person had a non Orthodox conversion. This is a big deal to the Orthodox.. There are certain prayers Orthodox say in a minyan that they do not say with less than 10 men present. And if they say that blessing, they feel very bad if they say God's name in vain during prayers. They feel just as bad as you would if you went to to your baseball Fantasy draft and instead of saying "Albert Pujols" your mouth said "Albert Schweitzer" instead.

The thing is, I really don’t know how this rift can ever be resolved. How do you convince Orthodox to accept these “changes”? You can't... they live their lives steeped in tradition and they haven't changed the rules for 5000 years. It seems a lot of other non Ortho groups were created by people who didn't want to live by the strict Orthodox rules. Now, how can we go back and tell Orthodox that they have to live by our levels of acceptance? We can't pout if they won't eat at a Non Orthodox certified restaurant or accept a conversion that doesn't follow their book of rules that they have followed to the letter for all these years. Personally, I don't label myself as Orthodox, and I never get offended if the ultra Orthodox don't feel that my house is not "kosher enough" because it is thanks to their virtual zero intermarriage rate that I know that Judaism will continue for generations.

Somewhere along the line, some slick PR type figured out that this rift between the Orthodox Rabbinate in Israel and the non Orthodox would be a perfect way to drive a wedge between the non Orthodox and the hero Israel soldiers that are fighting a very tough battle.

Here is a message to the Non Orthodox: Don’t listen to that.. it's just some PR balderdash that is meant to divide my Jewish brothers and sisters. It's pure garbage... Israel is there for ALL Jews.. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, etc... And since Israel is there for all sects of Judaism, it's important that we be there for Israel too!

CLASSIC CLIP OF THE WEEK:

In honor of DAS's anniversary this wknd - here is a clip from his wedding last year where I give him some advice that he actually listened to!! How if only I could get him to put Qassam Count on his facebook status!

Annoying Viruses

2009-01-10T23:44:00.007-05:00

Happy New Year everybody… Welcome to another year on NWOW... where today we open 2009 with a column about... Annoying Viruses.

VIRUS NUMBER ONE

This week we are coming to you from the Nate laptop… my usual desktop in my home office is currently out of commission.

It all started innocently a week ago Saturday Night,… I had changed the font aka skin of my Mortgage Podcast and I thought that after 3 years of the same background, it might be time for a change. (The first 2 months of the blog, we used the same background that DAS blog uses.) I took a gander at the available skins on Blogspot… which is now part of Google… but I was not exactly enthralled by what they had to offer. Google however had a list of other sites offering skins and I decided to check them out.

The first site I saw was Blogskins dot com. I was using my browser of choice – Mozilla… and as I soon as I logged on to that dastardly site, my computer starting acting a bit haywire… and seconds later, Mozilla was knocked off. Since some sites are not too Mozilla-friendly I decided to try again by going on Internet Explorer.. the #2 browser… because as usual, somebody else has the better set-up superior to what Bill Gates has to offer.

I shoulda quit while I was ahead.. As soon as I relogged into blogskins website.. my machine started flipping out again… except this time, the browser wasn’t knocking itself out… and that is where all hell started breaking loose. My google toolbar started sending me an alert that a program was trying to change my default search engine.. .and I noticed that my google searches had a series of ads popping up on the left side. I did a little research and I found out that I seemed to have the internet speed monitor bug. I figured out how to remove that bug that was adding those ads and I thought the bug was defeated. I used Ad Aware which isolated and quarantined 12 infected files ( I later found a 13th file too), yet I also noticed my older version of Ad Aware wasn’t able to update itself from the web.

Well I guess I was wrong! My computer continued to act up with all kinds of crazy crap popping up… and I was up till 5 oclock that morning trying to figure out how to get my computer back to its old self. I also spent a lot of time on google researching ways to get rid of that annoying virus. But ultimately it worked its way into my administrator account and it was blocking me from doing a system restore.

I tried a few other ideas too… most of them involving downloading virus fighting programs. However my main account was now shot down… everytime I would log on, the pop ups would cause an instant crash. However, I was able to start up a 2nd account.. but that was now being blocked from certain sites… mainly sites that provided the virus fighting programs!

Well off I went to our laptops.. (and why do 2 of us have 3 computers?)… and downloaded the programs into a memory stick. However, when I went to the infected computer and tried to run the program in safe mode – no dice. A message would pop up that I was unauthorized to run the aforementioned program because I don’t have administrator privileges.

Luckily that machine doesn’t have any important files on it… I saved them on that memory stick and I will be taking my machine to Danny the local computer guy who is gonna wipe the slate clean… and by the end of the week I will have a “new” computer!

Incidentally I googled that blogskins website and discovered it is owned by a guy named Myles Grant. I actually tracked him down through Linked In, and kindly informed him that his website has a virus that killed my computer – but I never heard back from him so I guess he really doesn’t seem to care.

The moral of the story: You can look at all the porn in the world.. but the day you go to a G rated website… you’re in trouble!! And next time we need a computer - we are definitely getting a virus free Mac! But Virus Number One is just a computer that set me back some money and a lot of time - Virus Number Two is a much larger problem than a computer virus.

VIRUS NUMBER TWO

I have just about had enough of all of these people who are sympathizing with these Hamas terrorists who have been launching these attacks on my Israeli brothers and sisters. I am at the point now where I don’t care if Israel loses the public relations battle as long as they thoroughly and decisively win the war against terrorism.

Let’s set the record straight right up front. I am extremely conservative when it comes to Israeli politics and I don’t have patience for people who are sympathetic to the evil Hamas terrorists. Those supporters are either Anti Semites or self hating Jews and frankly their opinions mean nothing to me. If Israel eliminates every terrorist and gets outta there with no deaths to heroic Israeli soldiers, the world will be a much better place.

Let me first address the people that say Palestinians are oppressed. They aren’t.

Control of Israel went from the British to the current status in 1948. As they were drying the ink on the new Israeli constitution, Arabs living in Israel were texted, twittered, or told via smoke signal to get the heck out of Dodge. Israel’s not so friendly Arab neighbors were planning an all out attack on the new government and all they had to was leave town and come back after Israel was destroyed.

So they left.. and all of a sudden Israel with its brand new army was able to defeat its new neighbors who were attacking them.

At this point, let me just point something out to Palestinian sympathizers. If you plot against the government in the US… it is called treason and you face a punishment of execution. And all these people that left Israel after this warning were in on the plot to overthrow the government.. so theoretically they were all committing treason and in reality should have all been thrown in jail.

Well these people suddenly realized that they weren’t welcome in the neighboring Arab countries so they decided to go back home once the smoke cleared. But instead they started crying that they were “Palestinians” and they wanted to go back to their homes. One thing you gotta credit these Middle Easterners is their ability to manipulate the media (and dopey liberals) with their slick sweet talking.

I don’t sympathize with those people… and now 60 years later, the fight goes on even though anyone under 60 was never really tossed out of his home as the Palestinians falsely allege. In reality, they want to live in Israel because they know they will have a better lifestyle there than in any other neighboring country. And things picked up during the 1990s when for whatever reason the late Prime Minister Rabin was able to make progress with Yasser Arafat. That was the decade when Palestinians started living it up happily co-existing with Israelis... building popular businesses, casinos, and achieving economic freedoms.

But that all went downhill thanks to Yasser Arafat who at the moment is hotter than a roasting marshmallow as he continues to burn in hell. Arafat had a great peace treaty set up during the Clinton Administration, but as always Arafat selfishly sold his people down the river even though Secretary of State Madeline Albright was reported to be chasing him down a driveway at Camp David as she attempted to get him to sign on the dotted line on a deal that would make life a lot better for the Palestinians.

Ultimately, Arafats replacement was overthrown by a slick campaign led by Hamas which exploited the more reasonable Fatah’s riches contrasted by the poverty of the Palestinians. Hamas developed a constitution that calls for the elimination of Israel and today the world rightfully recognizes them as nothing more than a terrorist organization…

Hamas had a peace treaty with Israel but they violated it by firing off rockets into Israel. Ultimately Israel had enough of Hamas’s bullying Scut Farkas-esque actions… (that’s the last Christmas Story reference till December!) and like Ralphie Parker decided it was time to fight back. And that is what they are doing.. fighting back to defeat terrorism

This leads me to 2 messages I would like to send out. First to the Anti Semites who demonstrate at the pro terrorist rallies… I already got into one of these verbal battles on Facebook with one of these morons. Feel free to cut and paste it to rebut any of the morons who support Hamas by saying both sides are wrong:

But let's get back to that original comment that it "is not ok from either side".

There is a saying... "we don't negotiate with terrorists"... Hamas is a terrorist organization - read their charter to educate yourself about Hamas's intentions. Yet Israel did negotiate a peace treaty with Hamas and what did Hamas do? They violated it by launching rockets into Israel.

If you make such a comment that "it is not ok from either side", what is your educated solution to this? Negotiate with terrorists who use school children as human shields? Or just let them cotinue to terrorize inncoent Israelis?

Believe me, if terrorists were launching rockets into the US, and we fought back to protect our citizens, I doubt anybody would be standing on a soapbox criticizing the US.

And as for the self hating liberal Jews who are defending Hamas:

You all should be ashamed of yourselves as Jews to sit in America and criticize the actions of those who are brave enough to live in Israel. Seven years ago after the terrorist attacks here all you did was cry out “9-11 9-11”… and cried about all the lives lost that horrible day. Yet now you have the audacity to criticize the Israeli government and its heroic Army?? Well everyday is 9-11 there as citizens live in constant fear of more terrorist attacks while you just sit on your self hating Jewish ass complaining about one day of terrorism while simultaneously sympathizing with those evil people who are daily terrorizing the lives of our brothers and sisters in Israel.

Hopefully by next week, Israel will be able to finish off a quick and thorough defeat and we will be back to our usual silly shenanigans! In the meanwhile, I have found some Hamas supporting blogs that allow comments and I've posting a link to a site that sympathizes with “the occupation”. The site? Blogskins.com!

CLIP OF THE WEEK:

Here is the first clip of 2009 – kind of appropriate as we approach Martin Luther King Day next weekend…

Who (Lu) Won Website of the Year?

2008-12-27T19:02:00.004-05:00

Greetings and Happy Holidays as today's column originates from Atlantic City. I am pecking away at my laptop at the Showboat trying to see if history can repeat itself. Readers of this fine blog know that last Christmas, Trophy Wife and I went to AC and I won 500 bucks at the Taj Mahal when I hit a royal flush while playing Double Down Stud. We also came back for New Years and I won another 150... but since then my mastery of the game seems to have foshnizzled. We have been back a few times in 2008, and I have given back a very small percentage of my winnings... a small amount I refer to as my "entertainment fee" the money that would have been spent elsewhere if I wasn't playing cards. At the rate I play those quarter machines, Donald Trump and that Charles Kushner will be celebrating their grandson's bar mitzvah before Donald Trump gets that money back. And hopefully at some point I will get my mojo back and start winning some more jackpots. And I won't be distracted by the cleavagey miniskirted cocktail waitresses whose well timed decisions to bend over tends to throw my concentration off.

Anyway, Showboat mailed us an offer for a deeply discounted room and we decided to spend a couple of days here. Trophy Wife says they will be sending another one again in a month or two, so I told her we should spite them by coming back and NOT gamble so they don't take more money from us. But Trophy Wife makes a valid point - even though we stayed at Showboat... we do almost all of our gambling at Taj... so we really haven't been losing any money at Showboat.

Anyway, I see that Hulu has won the AP award for Website of the Year. Frankly I have only been on it a few times, so more than likely since I am a year or two behind the young hipsters who make these decisions I will be more into Hulu in around 2009 or 2010..... Is it agreed that 2010 is when we start the years with "twenty" instead of "two thousand and ....?". Hulu is the self fulfilling prophecy of Bill Gates who said many years ago that computers will be the centerpiece of our lives. They have already replaced appointment books, film cameras, newspapers and now apparently TV. The VCR is almost officially dead once the analog signals stop next month... all TV shows will be recorded on DVR's or DVD recorders which I just got for Hannukah...(just before the prices dropped by an astonishing 50% for the post Christmas clearance sales!)... and hulu is yet another site joining the amazing You Tube (which I said a couple of years ago was going to be the king of all websites) which is drawing more people away from the old fashioned method of watching television shows as they travel through the airwaves.

But since I am a little older than the typical person raised on computers...my demographics skew a bit differently. I actually didnt buy a PC till 2003 which puts me into dinosaur status as I held out with a really nifty Brother portable word processor that had very very limited web access through compuserve and its numbered email addresses (104145.3031 was mine) and then my little webtv gadget. So therefore I am a year or two behind the hip people, which makes the Hulu choice surprise me since I personally would nominate the social networking websites for that award.

Facebook seems to be the most popular, but I am also a big fan of Linked In. In May, I decided to see if Facebook would be a good way to bring in business. A couple of months later, I decided to see how Linked In would work and signed up for that too. Now, as we approach 2009 I have noticed some interesting trends.

I tend to use Linked In more often to bring in contacts, yet I rarely do so on Facebook... yet I have approximately 80 contacts for both of them. Facebook seems to be more for fun, while Linked In is more serious.. kind of like a Peak Fream. I like how LI pins a business card on all my friends contact list page and has my professional podcasts posted right on my page, but at the same time I am also addicted to the Facebook live feeds. It's almost like Page Six about my friends. But the most incredible aspect of FB and LI has been finding people I havent heard from in ages.

On both sites I have a list of current friends and business contacts... but then you start to see names popping up from way back. Here are some examples.

* Chris the Weather Wonder Boy - Back in my radio days, I had a high school intern who was obsessed with the weather so we gave him that nickname, Now 18 years later he is a weather producer for one of the NY TV stations! I found him on FB and now all these years later we are back in touch. It's a similar story where I reconnected with my former co worker Ron who also rented a house with me in Sparta, NJ in the early 1990s, and another guy named Scott whose name drew a blank when he found me on FB because like many others he used a "radio name" when he was a DJ so I really never knew what his real name was. I also re-connected with my old intern "Young Chuck" who bore an uncanny resemblance to Chuck Scarborough.

* Sue W from college - Back in my Montclair State days there were always fellow students who had video projects that needed actors. Some of these students wrote bizarre scripts and needed some offbeat people to play these roles. That is how Larry Bud Melman was first discovered by the way. I used to act in a lot of these videos just because I have a bizarre sense of humor and that is how I met Sue W who 20 years ago played Sunny von Bulow in a production I put together involving a show that had Claus von Bulow deciding to get his estranged wife TV jobs. You can see I was warped back then also. Sue W played Sunny von Bulow in that project - Sunny von Bulow actually just died a few weeks ago after some 20something years in a coma. I also did a skit for Sue which is today's Clip of the Week.

Incidentally, I had a Claus Von Bulow fascination back then. For a class we had to produce a short how to video, so I decided to play Claus in a "how to poison your wife" video. (And welcome to people who googled their way over here by typing in that phrase - don't bother going through with it - the cops will find out that you googled that term! Hopefully we just saved a life or two.) I didn't show anyone my "props" and at the last minute I could hear gasps coming out of the control room when I took my concoction and whipped an actual syringe out of my pocket. It was actually one of my mom's insulin syringes, but for a while there were rumors floating that I was a heroin addict.

I also reconnected with Dan B who I had forgotten about after all these years, but oddly enough remembered that you can see his parents house from The Parkway. And also an old friend from high school and my old synagogue who I have seen maybe one time in the last 12 years.

*Out of state relatives - Most of them are on Linked In... it's kind of like I am in touch with them more often since we see each other's updates.

*Liran Kapoano - You can see on the left that we link to his blog and we also wrote about him several months ago when he wrote an excellent expose about a guy who went on Birthright Israel's trip and complained a little too much about his ridiculous left wing Pro-Palestinian politics. One day I was looking at one of my friends friend list and I saw his name! I contacted him and sent him the link to my blog and told him I had written about him. Now his blog links here too, and hes a fb buddy although we have never met.

*My former campers from my day camp counselor days! - This is the most interesting of all of them by far. A couple of years ago I wrote about how I ran into my old camper Lon at my friend Steve's party. Lon friended me on FB and amazingly he is still friends with a bunch of people from old YAC camp from the summer of 1982 when I was the counselor for the B3 Pacmen!! (Pumpstradamus came up with the idea to name the group for Pacman Jones even though Jones had not been born yet, but then again, Pumpy probably doesnt know who Pacman Jones is).... To my amazement, somebody started a YAC Camp fb group that has the wackiest memories posted there.. One of Lon's friends Danny was also my camper... he friended me on FB and then proceeded to remind me that when I was his counselor I unfairly got him in trouble for doing something that somebody else did! Who remembers these things?? However, I still remember there was a kid who everybody used to pick on but I havent seen him on FB yet... I hope they dont still pick on him. He also was the worst tipper even though I constantly had to watch his back since he was always getting busted on by the other kids. Of course when you're the counselor you quietly laugh inside at some of the wisecracks launched at that poor kid, but outwardly you always defend him because ultimately you know you'll get a great tip. I can't recall the kids name anymore, and I am afraid to post it to the group just in case they start busting his chops again!

A year from now I will probably write about how I am addicted to Hulu while the AP will recognize some start up I have probably never heard of!

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK

Last week we went 2-1 to reach 30-17-1.. not bad if I may say so myself. The Giants have the top seed locked up so this Sunday I'm skipping football and celebrating Hannukah! Nonetheless, we'll do some other picks and we will leave the Jets biggest game in years to Pumpstradamus.

Detroit 10 1/2 doggies over GREEN BAY - Can you believe the Lions started 6-2 last season? Will they be the first team ever to finish 0-16... Not only am I picking them to cover.. I think they're gonna win!

BUFFALO 6 doggies over New England - Either New England or Baltimore has to lose for the Jets to have a shot. I think this might be their better chance, but if not....

Jacksonville 12 1/2 doggies over BALTIMORE - This is a very big spread... If one or both lose... the Jets are in if they win. For that pick... I turn it over to Pumpstradamus!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK

Pumpy is 10-6 and after losing 2 straight he is still trying for that elusive 11th win. His career record with 10 wins is 0-8! How will he end '08?? Will this be the week he snaps the slump? We're letting Pumpy pick the Jets game... they are 3 point home faves over Miami as they must win to get in. Sayeth the Pump: "I see that Bush pardoned imprisoned real estate developer Isaac Robert Toussie this week and then revoked the pardon. This is yet another example of what I have always said - Dolphins are smarter than humans! Therefore, I pick the Dolphins!".

CLIP OF THE WEEK:

Here is the clip I mentioned earlier from my college days where I played Marty the Chef.

Have a Happy Hannukah and a Happy New Year!!

Financial Fakery and a Controversial Bakery

2008-12-19T16:15:00.008-05:00

With apologies to Dr. Seuss...

It's Christmas Eve
What Can You Do
If Like Me
You are a Jew
Do you find George W
and throw a Shoe??

These are the Tates - And these are the Campbells... and this is... My Blog!

Once again, ladies and gentleman it is time to present our annual....."Being a Jew on Christmas" column. First of all, if you don't celebrate Christmas and you are looking for something to do Christmas Eve (And we welcome people who fall into that category and googled themselves over here!) - here is a great idea. This year our Temple has a great idea for a terrific fundraising event. Years ago there was this hilarious comedian named Christopher Campbell. Campbell became interested in Judaism and underwent a Reform Conversion. Then he grew interested in Conservative Judaism and underwent a 2nd conversion. Finally, Orthodoxy intrigued him... and well you can figure it out. By the way each conversion required a separate Bris so you can imagine how painful this must have been. Campbell moved to Israel, changed his name to Yisrael, and his story is quite funny. He will perform his one man show "An Evening with Yisrael Campbell" next Wednesday Night at the Highland Park Conservative Temple. If you are in Joisey come on by. They will be serving food and advanced tickets are only 38 bucks. Proceeds go to help rebuild our Temple which was badly damaged in a fire in 2006. Here is a clip from You Tube:

As I have mentioned in prior years, each year I try to catch my three traditional Yule movies,. First is the classic movie "It's a Wonderful Life" which of course features Sheldon Leonard, a cousin of Trophy Wife (who was born the day of the Manson murders at the home of Sharon Tate) It airs Wednesday Night on NBC.... and another favorite of mine is "Scrooged" with Bill Murray which will air on Christmas Morning on Cinemax.. Of course the highlight is my own Rocky Horror Picture Show - the cult favorite "A Christmas Story" which runs for 24 hours on TBS.... This is my chance to yell out.. "I see that the Bears are playing Green Bay on Sunday", ."You'll shoot your eye out"... (which I tried to get a mall Santa to yell at me for a You Tube video only to realize my cell phone camera battery had foshnizzled) and of course - "Fragilleeeee - It Must Be Italian".

Some of my fellows Hebrews and Shebrews say they felt left out with all the holiday hullaballoo. Usually this time of year, we have wrapped up Hannukah and we start thinking ahead to New Years....but this year Hanukah is late so it actually coincides with Christmas as it did in 2005. - In past Christmases, I either had a job that needed staffing for the day so I would fill in for my co workers that day or I would just hang around at home. Last year we went to Atlantic City and I hit a royal flush on video poker (Double Down Stud) and won 500 bucks! Nonetheless, while some people want stores to change their "Christmas-y" themes to "Holiday" themes, I dont care at all. I like Xmas decorations and besides, some of the best Christmas songs were written by Jews.

As soon as Christmas is over, all the media will start doing their year in review stuff and their 2009 previews. The economy is in the tank but thankfully we have a new President taking over and hopefully this bailout will infuse some much needed money into companies that provide credit and breathe life into housing, cars and high priced ticket items that people don't pay for with cash. The troubling story of Bernard Madoff emerged this past week.... and if you read the Washington Post on-line you will see the meticulous research conducted by journalist Julie Tate.

Madoff actually has me agreeing with Donald Trump.. He told CNN that Madoff is a sleaze bag Trump is 100% right. . Madoff wrecked the holiday season for hundreds if not thousands of people who have fallen victim to his Ponzi scam. I'm sure many people may quietly snicker about rich people that lost a lot of money, but there are a lot of people here whose entire life savings were wiped out because they bought into Madoff's fraudulent scam and unwisely gave him ALL their money. But it's not just rich people... Charitable foundations invested millions of dollars with that thief and now they have nothing.. which will devastate the people who were to benefit from those non profit groups. I am hearing that the wonderful Hadassah organization which my wife and mom have been very active in, lost approximately 70 million dollars!

How much can they force him to repay? And how many people were in on this scam? Nobody believes it for a minute that he acted alone... since highly detailed financial statements were sent to hundreds of his victims that could not have been prepared by one 70 year old man. Are we really supposed to believe that he fessed up to his sons and these honorable young men were so mortified by their father's shocking confession that they ran straight to the phone and called the cops? I'm not saying the sons were in on it too, but the scenario as it was told is very hard to believe. And how will this debt be repaid? Down the road, if it turns out the sons are found to be in on it, they should be forced sell their homes and then use all the money to repay the victims. And where will these people live after long prison sentences? I personally don't care, since I'm more concerned with the retirees who are now totally wiped out. But maybe if the judge wants to be fair he will force Madoff and his co defendants to live in the same kind of lifestyle as the worst victim of this scam. And if that victim ends up at the YMCA.. well it may be time to get some more cots for Madoff and his cronies.

And just when you thought the year would end with the Madoff story....

Earlier in the column I wrote about Yisrael Campbell and his fundraising show on December 24th. He is actually funny, but I find nothing amusing about Heath Campbell and his wife Deborah. As a matter of fact this couple is so physically ugly that when you look at a picture of both of them - it is hard to tell which is the man and which is the woman. This woman is allegedly 25 but looks 50 and is balding worse than I was when I was 35. But the ugliness is not only on the outside...

H. Campbell is very proud of himself. He loves Nazis so much that not only is his home decorated with Nazi memorabilia and swastikas but he decided to name his son Adolf Hitler Campbell.. and his younger kids are also stuck with similarly offensive names. A lot of people say little Adolf is going to have a rough life and will get picked on because of his name. However, in reality even if he had a normal name, young Adolf was doomed from the start when he was born to such hate filled parents. The crap he hears about from those parents is going to manifest itself into his day to day activities with other kids in school, unless he is home schooled and one can only imagine what he will learn about WWII. Basically, this kid is going to have a rough life. And how bizarre is it for a Christian to be Anti Semitic since Jesus was Jewish. And... if Heath Campbell hates Jews so much maybe he shouldn't immunize his kids with medications that were discovered by Jews. Kinda surprising DYFS doesnt swoop in and take those poor kids away.

Heath defends his Nazi crap with the usual stupidities we hear from the Nazi supporters. He talks about "other Nazi party accomplishments" not related to the Holocaust. But to me that is just a load of crap because all pre Holocaust Nazi accomplishments were the means to an end to achieve the ultimate goal of an Aryan Nation. Granted, Hitler got the trains to run on time, but it was all part of the grandiose bigger plan. Not that I'm comparing him to Hitler, but it's kind of similar to people who will say that they met Bernard Madoff at a country club and he was so nice to them. Of course he was... it was all part of the master plan to get into your wallet and steal your money!

And then the story took a bizarre twist. It was time for the kid's birthday and his parents went to Shop Rite and requested a birthday cake that said "Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler". Shop Rite told him they would not sell such an offensive cake. And besides the kid's middle name is Hitler.. who other than Charles Nelson Reilly's parents ever ordered a cake with a kid's middle name on it too? The parents were obviously just doing it because of their lack of character, because frankly I doubt anyone would care if the cake just said "Happy Birthday Adolf".

Then...the story gets even sicker.

Heath Campbell claims he went to the Wal Mart in nearby Pa... (these rednecks live in the area of NJ near Easton PA) and he claims that Wal Mart baked a Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler cake for them. It isn't that they baked a blank cake and gave him the stuff to spell it out himself. He claims that a Wal Mart employee in their bakery thought it was pefectly ok to spell out those words on a birthday cake. As much as I applauded Shop Rite's decision, when I first heard this I was mortified that Walmart... as much as I hate that place for how they treat American business owners .... was being slandered by this Nazi wannabe.

But then came the shocker... in a statement issued by Anna Taylor of Wal Mart's PR department she admitted that they baked a Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler cake! While Heath Campbell thinks its so funny that he names his kid Adolf Hitler, Wal Mart should have followed Shop Rite's lead and sold him a cake and told him to write it himself. (I know people will make the argument that The Producers has a song called "Springtime for Hitler" but in that context, it makes sense because it is not glorifying a murderer but mocking people who would want to see such a musical.) And if a local Mom and Pop bakery baked such a cake, I am sure that the local Jewish community would be up in arms and protesting outside that bakery! But Wal Mart didn't think it was such a big deal to insult the memory of the millions who died at the hands of Hitler.. I don't expect much from Heath Campbell since he has proven himself to be an absolute idiot, but I expect more from a huge corporation like Wal Mart. And what is Wal Mart doing next? Baking Osama Bin Laden cakes with a burning World Trade Center for September 11th??

How can any relative of a Hitler victim or Holocaust survivor ever step foot into a store that seems to think a Hitler cake is funny? Think about this next time you are about to walk into a Wal Mart.

ADDENDUM
After posting this Friday afternoon, I later found out who paid for the cake. We did! That's right Heath Campbell and his wife REFUSE to work and are collecting welfare. He claims he has emphysema and she claims she has a bad back although she seems good at getting on it since she already has 3 kids. Hopefully somebody will google Heath Campbell and Welfare fraud and take away his free ride.... and hopefully take away his kids too and put them into a good home.

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK - Pumpy has never won 11 games and last week in his first attempt at 11 he came up short.. as his record dropped to 10-5. This week we go to Illinois the home of the beleaguered Governor Blagojevich who just doesnt seem to go away. To quote A Christmas Story.... "The Bears are playing Green Bay". The Bears are 4 1/2 point faves. Sayeth the Pump: "Jean Shepherd wrote and narrated A Christmas Story and since he was born in Chicago - I gotta take the Bears!"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK: Last week we went 1-1-1 and we are now at 28-16-1.

GIANTS 3 faves over Carolina - NBC flexed the game into prime time... I wonder if ESPN can flex the Rutgers bowl game too so it isn't on a Monday Afternoon!! If the Giants win they ice home field for the whole playoffs. If they lose they will get a first round bye if the Vikings lose one of their 2 games.... which creates a scenario that the Giants could finish 0-4 and still get the first weekend off. Not gonna happen. Jacobs is back and so are the Giants!

Atlanta 3 doggies over MINNESOTA - The Vikings are owned by the Wilf family of NJ. Wilf is the chant you hear at the games by fans who have a werewolf fetish. Go Falcons.

Jets 4 1/2 faves over SEATTLE - The Jets really really really need to win... nothing would be worse than missing the playoffs at the hands of their former QB in next week's finale against Miami.

CLIP OF THE WEEK - The Soap announcer was Rod Roddy who also was the announcer on The Price is Right. Here is a clip from a Price is Right this week where something incredibly bizarre happened! Many people have noted Drew Carey's very nonchalant reaction to an event that was quite incredible.

TV Quarterly Report - 14 Things To Watch in 2009

2008-12-12T10:53:00.008-05:00

Originally I was going to do my Quarterly TV Report at the end of the month, but NBC's historical announcement this week led to my decision to juggle my columns around a little bit. And this column about 14 Things to Watch will start with one show I definitely plan NOT to watch.

Just in case you got too involved in the craziness involving the Illinois Governor and missed the news, Jay Leno is being pushed out of the Tonight Show and will be replaced by the better Conan O'Brien version of late night TV. In order to keep Leno's ratings, NBC decided to give up on coming up with new shows for the 10pm slot during the week and will move Leno's show to 10 pm... a move that essentially shuts NBC prime time down an hour earlier each night.

Personally, I don't think it's such a big deal.. Fox and CW also stop programming at 10 for the local 10pm news. Some people are saying that shows like Law and Order SVU will be moved to the earlier 9pm hour... and that show's type of adult content might not be appropriate for that time slot. However, have you heard some of the dialogue on some of the CBS Monday Night Sitcoms? Somehow I think SVU will do fine at 9pm.. assuming NBC renews it.

As for Leno, it has been many years since I was a fan of his. Back in the 80's I actually thought he was quite funny when he was a regular on Letterman's 12:30 show.. However, once he started guest hosting for Johnny Carson, I started losing interest.. especially since I thought Garry Shandling and Joan Rivers were better guest hosts. But once Leno became the regular guest host and then stabbed Letterman in the back to take Johnny's timeslot, I totally lost interest. On rare occasions, I will tune into his show if he has an outstanding guest... but once Leno basically got rid of his old edgy humor to be bland and vanilla, I stopped paying attention to him. Night after night, Letterman consistently delivers the same acerbic humor that made him famous 25 years ago, and amazingly Leno beats him in the ratings. I don't know what that says about the ratings...

Now here are 14 things to watch for in 2009....

1. 24 - I really didn't get into the TV movie a couple of weeks ago... it was too much drama too soon after a thrilling Giants game. Nonetheless, I am waiting for Jack Bauer and his amazing Cell phone for 2009 after not getting my fix of 24 last season due to the writers strike. I always get a kick out of the futuristic cellphones each season on 24... or as they say in Japan - the old clunker cell phones! Will this season's cellie core a apple?? Will it be able to send stuff directly to a printer? Will it have a good browser so he can update facebook during his day? Jack Bauer is... still chasing bad guys after 20 hours and is looking for a place to pish.

2. Lost - Here is another one that I haven't seen since May and I already forgot what happened. I joined this group called the Lost Time Loop theory fan club on Facebook... It has 2684 members, and is connected to this fantastic website I mentioned in the spring that has a very plausible explanation for all the stuff going on on that crazy island. Basically the island is not in the same "time" we are... time moves at a different pace there so you can actually be there and at another place simultaneously. Pretty cool, huh?

3. Heroes - I'm so tired of all these people kvetching about this show. As far as I'm concerned.. if you don't like it... don't watch it! I think this season is not as good as Season 1.. but Season 1 was quite gripping due to its originality. I do agree with the critics that the show is bogged down with too many characters mixed in with too many simultaneous storylines. so here is my idea... Get rid of Mohinder and all the Petrellis except for the father. Robert Forster is doing a terrific job playing this character... I like how a New Yorker has a midwest accent! By the way he plays Nathan's father on Heroes and he also played Nathan's father in the amusing but underrated movie "Human Nature". Also, game show aficionados should check him out in the movie Rags to Riches.

Once they trim the cast they should take a core of Heroes... such as Claire, Hiro, Parkman and the girl with the crazy hair and make them the core characters for a story arc... and then take 2 of those heroes and toss in another two, and make them the core characters for the next storyline. I also must admit that despite what other fans have said, I actually like what they did to Sylar this year making him bad... but with a softer, more sensitive side that is easily manipulated.

4. The 2009 Mets - They added K-Rod for the 9th inning, Putz for the 8th inning and bring back Luis Ayala for the 7th inning! Thank you Omar Minaya for making the heist of the year sending away Aaron Heilman, Joe Smith and Endy Chavez who is great for one amazing catch a year for JJ Putz, The Gentile Sean Green and outfielder Jeremy Reed to replace Endy. Once we get past the holidays, it will just be a little more than a month till pitchers and catchers report!

5. Big Bang Theory/How I Met Joe Mama hour - CBS really has a pair of winners in the Monday Night 8pm hour... although I can never remember the characters names. I still forget which one is Sheldon and which one is Leonard... a similar problem that befell fans of former CBS sitcom Kate and Allie. The really skinny guy and the Jewish guy absolutely steal the show and Kaley Cuoco is turning into a very talented comedic actress playing straight man to her wacky neighbors. Also, HIMYM continues to crack me up with all kinds of bizarre hijinks. The cast is great and the storytelling is well presented too with its use of bouncing around the timeline. And Neil Patrick Harris is an absolute gem on this show.. picking up on the quirkiness he created in the original Harold and Kumar movie. Was this guy really Doogie Howser?? This could be the funniest hour on TV except for....

6. Family Guy/American Dad Hour - By far the funniest hour on tv as Entertainment Weekly's Top TV Genius Seth MacFarlane continues his Sunday night brilliance. Family Guy has the bizarre tangents and obscure pop culture references... I just watched an episode and Trophy Wife had to explain a couple of jokes that flew right past me! But anybody clever enough to have Stuie on a Big Wheel give a can of whoopass to Saddam Hussein and then trike through town to the theme song of "Police Squad" is one example of the crazy stuff that goes on there... American Dad doesn't have the flashbacks, but it cleverly utilizes the kooky family that also is lucky enough to have a talking goldfish and pet alien. On its best day, American Dad is competitively as funny as an average Family Guy episode.

7. People's Court - I think I'm turning into the guy from Rain man but this is a must watch show. Here in NJ it airs 2x a day.. 10 am on Channel 9 and 4pm on Channel 5. I work from home in the mornings so I make it a point to catch the 10 am airings. Unlike other Judges who are just blowhards and full of themselves, Judge Milian actually listens to the cases and her rulings are fair and make a lot of sense. The cases are also pretty entertaining and there always seems to be some bizarre twist. The show also uses the old traditional post trial interview that was made famous in the Wapner version by Doug Llewelyn. I'm not too sure she is too thrilled with the opening credits calling her TV's hottest judge. Hey, how about Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

8. Life on Mars - Another time traveling show that I got hooked on this fall.... The Mentalist is actually the most popular new show.. and last week it was the most popular show period.. However, quality wise, Life On Mars is absolutely awesome with its weekly salute to those crazy 1970s crime dramas. Mars takes place on the 70s because the main character woke up after being hit by a car and found himself living 35 years earlier. The show has some Watcha talking about Willis moments especially when he meets his young mom and sees himself as a kid.. Then again last week on Heroes, a time traveling Claire changed Baby Claire's diaper. Somewhere there exists a very perverse joke. Life on Mars will be back on in January - airing immediately after Lost which is going to make Wednesday Nights at 11 a time for lots of head scratching.

9. Monk early season reruns on Channel 4 - So this is what I missed? The show is the same except Monk has an assistant named Sharona whose departure was a big deal among the Monk fans back when it happened. I only started watching if after Natalie became Monk's very patient assistant. The Sharona Monk looks like every other 1980's hair girl from NJ... and the older episodes are pretty much the same as it they are now.... I also liked the most recent USA episode where Stottlemyre joined a monastery and shaved off his Geraldo mustache. Monk is like Encyclopedia Brown with a lot of psychological damage. I just wish it wasn't on so late on Sunday Nights... Channel 4 actually shortens the post football 11 O'clock News to get to Mike'd Up.... but I don't understand why they air some horrible local PM Magazine show after Mike'd Up pushing Monk back even later...

10. The 11 am wknd game show hour on Gsn - Every weekend... Match Game at 11 am and Password Plus at 11:30.

11. Law and Order SVU - I don't know why I watch this show every week... it is just soooo stressful with dark, dreary stories yet I keep coming back for more. I just hope that they don't alter the format when it moves to the 9pm slot next season when Leno takes over 10 pm. And I still don't know why they don't give more air time to Richard Belzer although I must admit that Ice T has been getting some funny lines.. especially last Tuesday when he instantly knew the bra size of a woman the cops were watching in a home made porn video. One cool aspect of this show.. it starts with unrelated characters in the first few minutes "stumbling" into a crime scene.... the first half hour is one storyline... then comes the twist and then the meat and potatoes of the episode. They also do a lot of good casting.. the guy with the eyepatch from Lost was on a few weeks ago.

12. CSI NY and Miami. - If it ain't L and O formula its the CBS crime shows which almost all seem to come from one Jerry Bruckheimer factory. I rarely watch regular CSI... and Miami is just so wacked out with the one day storylines and the horrific David Caruso acting... The stories are entertaining. CSI: NY is nowhere near as campy... although I was getting a little dizzy watching the episode that was taking place at the top of the Empire State Building. Sometimes they run stories spread over a few episodes and the writers just don't know how to properly edit in those little stories within the framework of the main story. But hey.. CSI is making it cool to be smart.

13. The American Idol Gong Show Auditions - Just the auditions.. not the show itself. Now that this unfortunately mentally ill auditioner killed herself in front of Paula Abdul's house... the weirdness factor take a stranger turn.. And since Paula Abdul is already bizarre... it's hard sometimes to tell if the auditioners are weirder.. or camouflaged by Abdul's bizarre behavior. Nonetheless, even though Comedy Central remade the Gong Show last summer.... this is the Gong Show of all Gong Shows... until they take the more talented people to California where I get bored with it and start to wonder why Ryan Seacrest is on the radio and TV all the freaking time. And whatever happened to Dunkleman?

14. HBO's Original Funny Shows - Entourage has the four boys and the incredibly funny Ari Gold... while Curb Your Enthusiasm has Seinfeld-esque storytelling thrown in with some bizarre ad libbing that creates dialogue patterns you never ever see on TV. Some of the comments thrown out by Funkhauser played by Super Dave Osborne are downright hilarious. One time he was talking about a senile relative and ad libbed a line that every time he'd fart he would call the fire department. How do the other actors keep a straight face?? Last season ended with Larry splitting with his wife.... and despite a wacky plot to win her over by "saving" her shrink from a "mugger".. he ended up hooking up with Viveka A Fox... I don't know when these shows will be returning in '09. Honorable Mention goes to Bill Maher's show which when it books the right guests for its panel can be an incredibly entertaining hour.

And there you have it - 14 things to keep an eye out for. Keep in mind that only 1 of those shows premiered this season, and only 1 other show came around in 2007. This might tell you quite a bit of the quality of the new programs coming out, and explains why NBC had no choice but to stick on a non funny show like Jay Leno's five nights a week.

PUMPSTRADAMUS NFL PICK OF THE WEEK: Pumpy racked up another win last week to improve to 10-4. Will this be the first time Pumpy gets 11 right? This week we go to Detroit which is on the brink of disaster as the automakers are holding their breath to see if bailout money is headed its way. The Lions are on the road as 17 point doggies to the Colts. Sayeth the Pump: "I'm picking Indianapolis because I like the Indy 500... even though they might have to race with bicycles if Detroit stops making cars."

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK

Last week we went 2-1 to improve to 27-15. No matter what they say, the only game that matters is next week against Carolina. If the Giants win that game they have home field throughout the playoffs, no matter what Tampa Bay does since the Giants would hold the tie breaker over Carolina and Carolina would hold the tie breaker over Tampa if all 3 finish with the same record. But off the top of my head, I don't know the tie breaker if there is a 2 way tie between Tampa and The Giants.

Giants 3 doggies to DALLAS - The word "meaningless" does not exist in the Coach's vocabulary... the Giants played hard in last year's "meaningless" regular season finale against New England and they will do likewise on Sunday Night.

ATLANTA 3 faves over Tampa Bay - It would be nice if Tampa loses this week to avoid any complicated tie breakers for home field.

Bills 7 1/2 over THE JETS - I think the Jets will cover.

And The Moron of the Year Is... (Not to be Confused with Last Weeks Turkey Awards!)

2008-12-05T11:55:00.011-05:00

I see that Entertainment Weekly has announced that the smartest person on TV is .... Seth McFarlane. No argument here... some of the stuff that I see on Family Guy and American Dad is laugh out loud absolute brilliance! And with EW announcing it's decision... I think it is time for NWOW to announce our winner for "Moron of the Year".... a terrific followup to last week's Turkey Awards. Turkeys are one thing.. but a Turkey on his worst day is better than a Moron on his best day. On with the nominees...

LOIS FELDMAN

Lois is the poster child of how one evolves from Turkey to Moron! We introduced you to her last week... she and her husband went to the Minnesota - Iowa College Football game and after imbibing a few adult beverages at a friend's house prior to the game she arrived at the game intoxicated. Then shortly before halftime she informed her husband she needed to "go pishen before intermission". Shortly thereafter, Feldman was in the bathroom... but instead was in the Mens room and was caught having sex with a guy in the stall... a guy who was not her husband who was apparently still sitting in his seat!

A number of people were standing outside the stall cheering on Ms. Feldman with chants of "Blow us Lois". Security arrived followed by the police and Lois was arrested. However, the guy was just some fella who she had met and she told the Des Moines Register she didn't even know his name until she saw the story in the paper. Last week Lois was the winner of the Turkey Award... the Police announced the case was closed, and that was the end of the story.

However...

Lois has decided to add a bizarre new chapter... telling the newspaper The Daily Times Herald that something she drank might have been tampered with leading to her sexual liason... and now she is alleging foul play. Puh-leeze... I will admit that I don't know how many minutes it took from the time she left her seat till she was caught with her proverbial pants down... but I find it hard to believe that she has the audacity to claim that this guy might have been up to some monkey business. Here he was at halftime... and he sees a drunk woman in the mens room willing to have sex with him... What would the typical single guy do? The cops closed the book on it after her arrest.. she should just let it go and get her life back in order. This earns her a nomination for Moron of the Year... and if she wins, she will have to abdicate her Turkey Crown to the first runner up.

ROBERT ZARINSKY

Now here is a guy I have written about before... one excerpt from my column actually showed up on The Star Ledger's blog roundup column on their website and possibly their paper. Incidentally I am going to announce right here that I am defecting to the Daily News starting this Sunday after reading the Sunday Ledger since childhood. The Sports has declined so dramatically, I just had to make the switch!

I wrote about Zarinsky somewhat sympathetically back in early 2007 when I was one of the few people to give him some benefit of the doubt about the slew of murder accusations that he was facing. Oddly enough it was on January 11, 2007 when I predicted the beginning of this New York Giants dynasty that I told the story of Zarinsky... a rare voice who actually was not ganging up on him.

{He had accumulated a pretty large bank account because his mom's will left him a lot of money while his sister ended up with very little. Several years ago, while he was still serving time in prison for killing a teenage girl in the 1960s, his sister told police that he had also killed a cop in the late 1950s. It turns out the sister had been caught red handed stealing about 100k from her imprisoned brother's hefty bank account and “made a deal” that if they dropped the charges against her, she would testify against him because he was the culprit in an unsolved cop killing back in the late 50s.

Ultimately, 40 years later Zarinsky went on trial for the cop killing.. but he was acquitted. Some jurors felt he did it, but didn’t feel prosecutors proved their case. The officer's widow then filed a civil suit against him, sort of like the Goldman family filed against OJ Simpson… Zarinsky had trouble finding a lawyer and ended up representing himself at that trial and lost the case.. As a result of losing the case, he had to fork over all of his remaining money to the cop's widow}

However, after that... a judge overturned that verdict and told the widow she had to return the money to Zarinsky... but unfortunately she had spent it. She did manage to raise the funds... but when she returned it.. Zarinsky arrogantly demanded that she pay him back a larger sum to include penalties and interest. At that point, I too jumped on the anti Zarinsky bandwagon. There was no reason for him to be so nasty to this poor widow; and after reviewing the original court trial, although I wouldn't trust a word his vindictive sister had said, there were other witnesses at the scene who could have been a little more trustworthy. But even so, the case was almost impossible to prove so many years later, so I took the acquittal with a grain of salt. I had also read about his bullying tactics, and his treatment of the widow was no exception. What the heck was the big deal if he didn't get the interest on money she only had for a year? He got his money back after almost causing her to lose his house.. and that should have been the end of it. But his subsequent nastiness left a bitter taste in my mouth and others who had originally been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Several months ago, Zarinsky was again hauled into court for a hearing in another murder case.. but this time he was quite ill. Here is a clip from that January 25, 2008 column that shows I had enough of this loser...

{He apparently has a health problem that forced him to be wheeled into a courtroom hooked to an oxygen tank that was helping him breathe. I think I have been watching too much lighting up on Mad Men on AMC because here is my opinion: I dont know what the indoor smoking laws are... but I think if the judge, prosecutors, or jury need a cigarette during the trial... they should get to have one right there in the courtroom. Unfortunately, the oxygen tank poses a risk to all our smokers.. but I think their comfort is more important... so I say anytime somebody needs a smoke... simply take the oxygen tank out of the room and force Mr. Zarinsky to just figure out a way to get some air. So what if he struggles a little bit...}

Well the final chapter - last Friday Zarinsky kicked the bucket and died all alone... His body lies unclaimed and more than likely he will be cremated and buried in an unmarked grave.

DEE QUINN OR WHATEVER HER NAME IS

This one has the potential to be turned into a great movie. A 46 year old Brooklyn woman named Doreen Giuliano watched her son get sent up the river when he was convicted of killing a 19 year old college student from Northwest New Jersey. The new issue of Vanity Fair is going to have a whole write up about this... but in a nutshell, sonny boy was sentenced to a 25 year to life sentence in connection with the death of 19 year old Michael Fisher. Doreen's son apparently got mad at poor young Mr. Fisher because he sat on a table instead of a chair! Well Mom was understandably upset that her boy was convicted and came up with a remarkable scheme that shows us how important it is to keep jurors anonymous.

Doreen went out and got a makeover and totally changed her appearance. Then, she got herself a list of the jurors and figured out who might be the biggest shlub in the bunch. Doreen made up a new name and moved near this one former juror. and started hanging out in his hood... wearing push up bras, tight shirts and short shorts. She even peeked into his window and saw a cat and figured that her new identity would be as a ... cat lover! Once she "accidentally bumped into" the juror, Doreen now using the name Dee Quinn caught his attention and became his new squeeze. She also provided him with plenty of alcohol and marijuana... and in her best Jack Bauer imitation, managed to get him to fess up to certain opinions he had about her sonny boy and certain aspects of the trial (including jury deliberation issues that he questioned) that she recorded on a hidden tape recorder. The tapes were turned over to a lawyer, and as a result of mama's detective work, the conviction is being appealed.

Here is an interesting tidbit... Doreen/Dee is married and her husband was in on the whole thing! However, he insisted on one rule... no sex with the juror! Now let's see this juror was just totally embarrassed by this crazy woman and here could be a perfect chance for some revenge. Why doesn't he just publicly announce that he was getting busy like he was in a Minnesota football stadium mens room? If he says he was sleeping with her... who exactly would you trust in this type of he said - she said situation? I know people google their way to these columns and might criticize me that encouraging the juror to brag about having sex with her could damage their marriage - but then again how about the pain Fisher's parents must be going through seeing that their son's killer might be freed because of his mother's tricky scheme??

AND THE WINNER IS...

All of the above nominees should have a chance to win... but every once in awhile somebody comes along that just blows everybody else out of the water. We as a society have a tendency to idolize people as they make their way up the ladder and kick them in the ass as they tumble down. This year's winner is Plaxico Burress. Here is a guy who was a major player on a Super Bowl winner and a team that has a shot at repeating... yet no matter what happens from hereon in... he will either be on the outside looking in at a potential championship, or will take a huge amount of blame if the team falls short. Did the Giants really need this distraction??

Here is my disclosure - I don't own a gun... never did... never will. I am not of the gun people. I used to live in rural Northwest NJ where there are neither sidewalks nor neighbors, and I know that out in the sticks guns are common tools for this adventure called "hunting". Hunters are activists, and they along with the NRA like to point out the constitutional rights of people to bear arms (or as dyslexic animal lovers like to say - the right to arm bears). But, it is hard to defend the use of guns in the inner cities and NY has taken major steps to make it very difficult to own and carry a gun.

Some athletes unfortunately have been the victims of violent crimes in their homes and feel its necessary to keep a gun at home for protection. Others, like former Net Jayson Williams are just stupid and play with them like they are toys. Nonetheless, with so many athletes being robbed I support Plaxico 100% that he wants a gun at home.

But when his gun accidentally went off and he shot himself in the thigh, he was not at home.. he was at a crowded nightclub in New York City. And the fact that he transported the aforementioned gun from his home to the club without the proper permit was ridiculous. And the concept that he carried a gun to a club because he needed it to feel safe? If i go in an unsafe area... I roll up the windows. lock the doors... and drive through the area as fast as I can. I sure as heck wouldn't hang out in an area I don't feel safe... and one would think Plaxico would know better...

The ensuing cover up has cast a bad light on a lot of innocent people who were just going about their business that fateful night last week. And, the Giants have already proven that they can do well without certain individual players who have not been playing since last year's big run including names such as Jeremy Shockey, Michael Strahan, Tiki Barber, and Usi Umiyora. You can add Plaxico to that list - because the Giants have played well in the games that he has missed. But there is that nagging doubt that if this run falls short of a 2nd straight Super Bowl, Plaxico might be overvalued and used as an excuse... and possibly considered as a key component for future seasons.

It really would be a travesty if this Burress situation derails this team... and it is so stupid of him to throw everything away like this. In addition, the media felt this story was supposed to be the big story for the holiday weekend when in reality the terrorist attacks in India should have been a bigger story.

And that is why Plaxico Burress is the Winner of the 2008 Moron of the Year Award!!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK - Pumpy lost last week dropping to a still impressive 9-4. This week we go to New York, the state with the strict gun laws that Plaxico Burress violated, the home for the only team that actually plays in NY - The Buffalo Bills. This week the Bills play Miami in Toronto as part of an annual trip The Bills makes to Canada arranged by Blue Jay owner Ted Rogers who just died this past week. The Bills are 1 point faves. Sayeth The Pump: "Even though Jet fan Walter Nagel wants me to pick Buffalo... I must say that since Former Bill OJ Simpson was a loser in court - the Bills will be losers too! Go Miami!"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK - Last week we went 2-1 to improve to 25-14 - 11 games over .500!

GIANTS 7 faves over the Eagles - What's the difference between the Giants and the Eagles? When the Giants went into OT against the Bengals, they knew the game could end in a tie!

PITTSBURGH 3 faves over Dallas - A Giants win combined with a Cowboys loss means the Giants win the NFC East.

NEW ORLEANS 3 faves over Atlanta - Im not sure if the Falcons loss combined with a Giant win gets the Giants in... but it's time for the Falcons to cool down.

2008 Turkey Awards

2008-11-28T14:15:00.009-05:00

I have been taking a little vacation for the last few days and I am out of the loop newswise... so I am not as up to date with the news as I ordinarily would be... nonetheless, it's quite tragic to see that terrorists would attack a Chabad center. Chabad is an outreach organization run by the Lubavitcher Hasidim that presents the fun side of Judaism in a non-confrontational non-prosletyzing manner. The centers are set up in remote locations forcing the young families that run it to move away from their families and friends to plant the seeds with a little "Fields of Dreams" if you build it they will come philosophy. Their success is incredible... I live near the one at Rutgers.... and it's always tragic when any kind of religious organization or house of worship is targeted by these lunatics. I was hoping for another miraculous Entebbe-esque rescue.. but it was not meant to be. Kudos to the nanny at that Chabad House who heroically rescued the couple's young son. A fundraiser is being conducted for this boy through the website ChabadIndia.org.

Today's column originates from Atlantic City. To me Thanksgiving is every day... especially since I met my sweetie.... so I don't need a Thursday turkey meal to be thankful. We usually get a little turkey brunch and then head down to take Donald Trump's money. This year I was sitting at the Taj and it occurred to me that if I hit a big jackpot, would Trump be able to still pay for his daughter's upcoming wedding to the son of Charles Kushner? Kushner is the criminal real estate mogul who got into trouble a few years ago and decided to blackmail his brother in law who was set to testify in court about Kushner's activities. When the brother in law refused Kushner's requests to not tell the truth in court, Kushner got his revenge, and hired a hooker to seduce the brother in law... She took him to a hotel and unbeknownst to the poor shlemazel, the whole thing was videotaped with a hidden camera. Then in his own version of "You've been punked", Kushner arranged to have the incriminating video delivered during his brother in law's child's birthday party. Class act.

Now Kushner and Trump are the fathers in law for this upcoming wedding... I was thinking that instead of The Apprentice - The Donald should do a reality show about his wedding planning meetings with Charles Kushner! It also occurred to me that when they have the wedding, Trump's hoity toity friends will have to be polite while in the presence of this low life Kushner. And then I thought about the conversations The Donald must be having with The Videotaper. I was looking at the ceiling at the Taj, knowing that the security cameras there were watching all the activity going on at the casino - an important point that male patrons should keep in mind when they stare at the Taj's cleavagey cocktail waitresses. I wonder if Kushner ever gives Trump advice about how to arrange those hidden cameras. And what about the wedding planner? Does Kushner give him advice about how to shoot the wedding in such a way so people don't see the camera? That seems to be his field of expertise.

Nonetheless, I didn't think it would ever happen but having Kushner in the family makes Trump actually likeable. So without further ado... we present our nominees for the Charles Kushner Turkey of the Year Awards....

1. The 3rd of 3 Naked Man Copycats

Last Monday's How I Met Your Mother had an episode that might have moved it into "Legendary Episode" status. In the show's attempt to come up with Seinfeild-esque yadda yadda catch phrases, Monday's episode might have hit the jackpot. There are 2 characters 1 male 1 female named Ted and Robin who are roommates. Ted comes home and finds a naked man sitting on his couch. Ted apologizes for the intrusion and the naked man says he and Robin were on a first date but she stepped out to take a call. Ted walked out... and headed to the nearby watering hole and told his other pals that Robin must have hit it off with this guy. "Not so" said one of the friends..."She texted me and said she didnt like the guy". Alarmed Ted ran home, passed Robin still outside on the phone and ran inside to ask the Still Naked Man if he was sure Robin would be so receptive to this naked situation. At that point, the show took an interesting turn when Naked Man informed Ted of his Modus Operandi... He knew Robin didn' t like him but his bad date gimmick was he would ask good looking women to use their bathroom, and then once he would get into the apartment....he would emerge from the bathroom - buck naked! As Ted gave him a "Whatcha talking about Willis" look... Naked Man informed him that it actually worked 2 out of 3 times.

The story actually turned out to be quite amusing - Robin who had found Naked Man repulsive actually fell for the gimmick and he got lucky! One of Robins friends heard about this and called her a slut which led to a scene of Robin and Naked Man on a 2nd date where he looks very bored and finally tries to get her to admit that her friend called her a slut and she was only having the 2nd date to prove to herself that she is not a slut. Then 3 other characters try out the gimmick and amazingly it works 2 of the 3 times.

Will this lead to copycat Naked Man attempts? If so, our first nominee for The Turkey Award is the 3rd guy who is not able to pull it off.

2. McDonalds lawsuit

The lengths people will go to to win a lawsuit in our litigous happy society. A guy in Fayetteville, Ark went to Mickey D's and oops he left his cell phone there. He called them up and the manager assured him that he would take care of it. Well yadda yadda yadda.. ol' Naked man in Fayetteville must have had his cell camera clicking away of his naked wife because the aforementioned phone allegedly contained pics of her butt naked. These pics subsequently ended up on the internet - and now the guy in Arkanas is suing McDonalds for 3 million dollars! McDonalds has not commented yet.. but I am sure their lawyers are digging up the account holder that uploaded the video and if it is an employee.... his phone records will be subpenoaed to see if there is any connection between the uploader and the plaintiff... such as "Hey if you upload these pics. we'll split our lawsuit winnings with you".

3. Fun and Games in The Twin Cities

Special thanks to the Drudge Report for uncovering this incredible story out of the Des Moines Register for pointing out that they were doing more than counting votes in Minneapolis last weekend.

38 year old Lois Feldman of Iowa went to last weekends Iowa Minnesota game with her husband Kelly. Mrs. Feldman admits that she had quite a few drinks prior to and during the game and just before halftime told her husband that she had to pish. The next thing she knew - she was under arrest.... Police found her in a - Mens room! and not alone... she was in the midst of some wild fun with a "Naked Man" and yadda yadda yadda... it was NOT her husband! The other fella was a 26 year old guy who Feldman claims she had not met until just prior to their encounter and she told the newspaper that she didnt even know his name till she saw it in the paper! According to the paper, about a dozen people were outside the stall cheering them on.. some even got a front row seat by peering between the cracks in the stall door! Feldman gave police wrong identification information which kept them from finding her husband... She ultimately hitched a ride back to her hotel with a stranger leaving her puzzled hubby behind. She has told the paper her husband has been supportive... but I don't buy this "I was out of control because I was drunk" excuse... although I would rather she her caught behind a toilet stall as opposed to behind a wheel. And, frankly after seeing that article over the weekend, call me naive.. but I was surprised how quickly the guy in the bathroom was able to get some action! That is until Monday when I discovered The Legend of... Naked Man. Nonetheless, you gotta admit that this woman is this year's winner of The Charles Kushner Turkey Award!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK:

Pumpy won again last week to improve to 9-3... and clinched a winning record for the 3rd straight season! This week we go to Minnesota the home of last weekends notorious Minnesota Iowa game where the Vikings are 3 point faves over Chicago. Sayeth the Pump: "I take the Bears because I was just listening to Barenaked Ladies.... not the Group.... the Iowa female football fans who do the ol' 1-2 cha cha with strange men in stadium mens rooms!"

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICK OF THE WEEK:

For the first time ever we are 10 games over at 23-13 after going 2-1 last week.

Giants 3 1/2 doggies over WASHINGTON - This might be a tough one... but a Giant win gives them a 1st round bye if they go on to beat Dallas for the division.

New Orleans 4 1/2 doggies over TAMPA BAY - Don't these oddsmakers see the huge points Drew Brees has been putting on the board??

GREEN BAY 3 faves over Carolina - If the Giants secure home field for the playoffs, I might have to start picking Jets games!

The Office of Homeland Financial Security

2008-11-21T00:58:00.008-05:00

Well here we go with Year Number 4 of NWOW!

I think I have an idea of what President Obama should do the first day he is in office.... Well first he should spray some Lysol to get rid of the stench of George W's 8 years of failure. Looking back on the last time we had a competent President in the White House, I recall the first day of Clinton's administration. He went right to work to undo the Bush damage, and immediately changed the absurd Reagan-Bush era rule that cut off federal funding for any parenting clinic that mentioned legal abortion as an alternative. Now that Obama is ready to take over, I have some ideas.

By the way, I will admit that George W did one good thing while in office. In response to the 9-11 attacks, he created the Office of Homeland Security. Now, I can just see the first day at work for Obama. He calls in Rahm Emanuel..(just in case you missed it, his brother Ari Emanuel inspired "Entourage's" Ari Gold) . Emanuel calls in his "Lloyd" to take notes,.... smacks him around a little bit and gets down to brass tacks.

I doubt that President Obama reads blogs, but it would be cool on day 1 if he said..."You know that NWOW blog from November 21st.... I like that idea". That is because today I want to announce that I think America needs "The Office of Homeland Financial Security!".

Last week I criticized extreme Right Wing Republican Congressman Scott Garrett for his comments not supporting the auto bailout. If you read the comments you will notice that my old radio chum Dangerspouse reminisced about our old radio days when we used to have him on the air with us in the early 90s when he was known as Assemblyman E. Scott Garrett... I don't know what the "E" stands for... maybe "Eat my ass, poor people who need government help?" Garrett was not supporting the automakers bailout, and after thinking it over a bit more, I might be starting to agree.

The idea that these big shot CEO's each hopped on their private jets and headed off to Washington did not really look so good as they went to Capitol Hill to plead poverty. I believe ABC News broke the story but what really looked bad was when Congressman Brad Sherman asked each of those big shots who was there to ask for taxpayer money to raise their hand if they flew to Washington on a commercial airline. What a cringe worthy moment when he loudly pronounced "Let the record show - nobody raised their hand!"

That display did not make the auto CEO's look good, but nonetheless, I think we do need a bailout of some kind, although not one that will go directly to the Big 3 Automakers. Next Friday is Black Friday and unless ATM's start offering big bucks fast cash withdrawals, a lot of people are not going to be walking out of stores with high priced items. I see what has happened in 2008 for people trying to get mortgage loans, only to find out that the credit opportunities are gone. Subprime lenders offered 2 year arms so people could refi to a fixed within those 2 yrs, but those people looking for a fixed rate are finding out that the banks don't want to lend money.

And by the way, have you seen what has been going on with Citigroup? They announced mass layoffs, and their stock continues to drop. And what happens if they don't have the money to hold up their deal to pay for the naming rights for the Mets new stadium?? If the Citi money is supposed to pay to build Citi Field, where will the Mets play? Maybe they should have waited before they tore down Shea...

Last month on this blog and my podcast I floated an idea that all mortgage lenders should originate all new loans with a frozen line of credit worth 8 months of interest payments set up so only the lender can touch that money if the borrower is late with his monthly payment. This type of policy would drastically cut down on foreclosures. Right now an astoundingly high amount of families are losing their homes and many owe more than the house is worth. A couple of years ago, these people had equity. But unfortunately, they are now upside down because banks tough lending policies have forced sellers to accept lowball offers because they know another qualified buyer might be very hard to find. And this trend continues all across the USA, and unfortunately, the more sellers settle for less, the more the home values plummet.

Now auto financing is in deep trouble, and that is trickling down to other high ticket items that people buy on credit as we see that electronics giant Circuit City is filing for bankruptcy following in the footsteps of Tops, Nobody Beats the Wiz and Newmark and Lewis where the "Dick Lewis is watching" slogan was posted all over the place... including the mens room!

This may be the Christmas season that is all about cash. First it was the six figure home loans, now it's the five figure car loans. The companies financing auto loans are making them hard to get even with those amazingly unpopular Saved By Zero Toyota ads which could only be worse if Billy Mays started yelling in those commercials too. Back when I was a kid, people always seemed to buy cars with cash. But nowadays car prices are so high that almost everybody needs car financing....but if you are able to walk into a car dealership with a wad of cash... those commission hungry salesman are going to be all over you ... that is of course unless its like the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode where your salesman is Larry David and "Richard Lewis is watching" and barges in to mess up the sale.

Now Circuit City's bankruptcy is making the situation very scary if indeed this is a credit trickle down from mortgages to cars to electronics. The inability to sell products that are not paid for in cash is going to make it difficult for stores such as Best Buy and PC Richard to move along high ticket items. And if you don't have cash you may find it hard to get credit unless you have the most stellar FICO score This year people will be lucky if they can buy something using anything besides cash or my best friend - the Visa debit card which lets you buy stuff only if the money is already in the bank.

That is why it's time for our new President to create the Office of Homeland Financial Security. Even though Henry Paulson has tried to organize a 7 billion dollar bailout, every dollar has to go to exactly the right place - and I feel that money should protect companies providing credit. Send the money to Mortgage lenders, companies that provide auto financing and banks that offer credit for those items we like to drool over at Best Buy - let's use that money to give those companies some security. Let them be the ones who will be able to have reassurance that they will be protected. Up until recently, you needed good credit to get financing.... but right now that well is dry because lenders are just too scared to get burned again.

And if Obama can pick the right person to handle this task - and the money is appropriated correctly, it will breathe life into the mortgage companies, car financing companies and companies that provide credit to big box stores. And despite what people say about the sinking quality of American cars - the cars can sell themselves -with the help of car salesmen. And once auto financing kicks back into gear, sales will start to increase again, stock prices will go up and the Big 3 will start to make more money so their CEO''s wont be criticized anymore for using a $20,000 private jet to ask for more money.

And that is my idea for Day 1 of Obama.

Or he can buy a puppy.

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK:

Pumpy was a winner last week celebrating Rahm Emanuel's upcoming 49th b'day and watching his record improve to 8-3. This week we go to New York, home of the Yankees and the Jets. This week George Steinbrenner officially handed off his responsibilities to his son. Sunday, the NY Jets are in Tennesee to play the Titans. The Titans are 5 1/2 point faves. Sayeth the Pump: "In honor of the automaker CEO's method of travel - I pick the Jets".

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK

Last week we went 2-1 to improve to a somewhat respectable 21-12.

Giants 3 faves over ARIZONA - This game is huge to give Big Blue a great shot at getting that oh so important week off after the regular season. If they win they would have a 3 game lead with 5 games left!

ATLANTA 1 fave over Carolina - Then we can root for home field throughout the playoffs.

San Fran 10 doggies over DALLAS - Hey this is in honor of Rahm Emanuel's 49th Birthday.

CLIP OF THE WEEK

We haven't had a clip for about a month so today we give you 2. I saw this on Neil Best's fine blog - in honor of George Steinbrenner who has now totally given up all of his Yankee responsibilities. Fans of Seinfeld know that the aformentioned Larry David played George Steinbrenner on Seinfeld. But Steinbrenner never appeared on the show... or did he? Check out this never aired clip and keep an eye out for the now defunct Nobody Beats the Wiz ad in the background at :49. There's that crazy 49 again!

CLIP OF THE WEEK #2

Here is the famous scene where Larry David becomes a car salesman only to be sabotaged by Richard Lewis.