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??
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
The Subsidized Health Insurance Tax
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!
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!
Friday, October 23, 2009
News of the Week
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!
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!
Friday, October 16, 2009
Off the Field Sports Craziness
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!
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!
Friday, October 09, 2009
Letterman: Interesting and Disturbing
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.
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.
Friday, October 02, 2009
5770 in Middlesex County
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??
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??
Friday, September 25, 2009
Fall Preview Preview
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!
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!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Thoughts for 5770 - Revisiting "Diary of A Crummy Day"
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.
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.
Friday, September 11, 2009
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
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.
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.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Baseball Quarterly Report - Healthy Met Wishes and 20 year old Knishes
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!!
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!!
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