The Ballad of Melanie McGuire

I have always been a big fan of The Mamas and The Papas. I was watching a recent Channel 13 documentary about them during a begathon featuring the still fabulous Michelle Phillips and it occurred to me that the only person who had a good singing voice among the foursome was Mama Cass.

Before we get to the ballad of Melanie McGuire.. let’s first look at another McGuire… the very talented Barry McGuire…who sang the very powerful song “Eve of Destruction”. He and Roger aka Jim McGuinn were becoming big time rockers with The Byrds when John Phillips was looking to form The Mamas and The Papas. That piece of rock and roll history along with the story of how The Mamas and The Papas got together is told in the legendary M and P song Creeque Alley...and knowing the song will greatly enhance your enjoyment of today’s column. I recommend you click here to see an incredibly informative website that explains what the song is about. One of my buddies was a big fan of The Mamas and The Papas and named his body parts - One day he had a terrible case of Jock Itch and announced that "John and Mitchy were getting kind of itchy".

Today’s column is "The Ballad of Melanie McGuire" who was convicted Monday on charges that she barbarically murdered her husband by hacking him to bits and dumping him in a suitcase off the Chesapeake River. What really bugs me about this woman is her sheer narcissism that she thought she could just kill this poor guy and get away with it. She even had the audacity to cover her tracks by challenging EZ Pass charges that put her near the Chesapeake, and bizarre taxicab adventures explaning how she went to Atlantic City to move her husband's car as "a prank to annoy him". Does she really think she is so smart and the cops are so stupid? Constitutionally speaking she had the right to a strong defense, but does she really think her bigshot lawyer Joe Tacopina really believed she was innoncent and didn't take on the case so he could get a ton of free publicity with Court TV face time?

I find it hard to believe that she acted alone, and after watching a ton of Law and Order reruns, it amazes me that her narcissism never allowed her accept the inevitable plea deal to give up an accomplice who must have helped her with the heavy chopping and the suitcase packing. Its incredibly arrogant that she wouldn’t take a plea and instead went with the Little Miss Innocent Defense, led by bigshot lawyer Joe Tacopina. Both of ‘em had egg on their face on Monday.

For those of you who haven’t been following this sordid storyline.. Melanie McGuire has her own website soliciting money for what turned out to be her losing defense fund. According to the Melanie McGuire website, she started out life as Melanie Slate, growing up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. She graduated Middletown High School South in 1990, graduated Rutgers in 1994 and a Nursing School in 1997. Murder wasn’t the first of The Ten Commandments she opted to violate.. She started having an affair with her murdered husband while he was married to his first wife… and then started her little affair with her colleague Dr. Bradley Miller while she was 9 months pregnant.

In case you missed the trial… Melanie was accused of chopping up her husband,.. putting him in 3 suitcases and then hightailing it down the Turnpike where she dumped the suitcases off a bridge into the Chesapeake River. At the time, she was a nurse at a fertility clinic and having an affair with Fertility Doc Dr. Miller. Her trial was on Court TV and her lawyer is high profile defense att'y Joe Tacopina. She had originally reported the husband missing, shortly after they bought a new house in Warren County…. claiming he had a gambling problem and she told cops she thought he was at Trump's Taj Mahal casino. However she did admit she went down to AC.. found his car… (even though most people can't find a car in a mall parking lot; yet she found it in AC!) and moved it just to mess with his head. The cops also had a couple of ex boyfriends call her, and while secretly recording the conversations, tried to get the fellas to get Melanie to fess up. She also denied being on the highway when the suitcases were dumped… disputing EZ Pass records showing tolls paid by her. Is that the height of arrogance? Kill somebody and then order EZ Pass to remove the charges? I wonder if she haggled with the salesman when she bought those suitcases?

By the way, if anyone is offended by the song, I apologize, the song is not intended to cause pain.. the real pain came when this horrible woman hacked this poor guy to death. I watched her cry Monday afternoon as the jury rightfully threw the book at her.. she cried because she's not as smart as she thought and she got caught. How much pain was he in as he got chopped to bits? But inevitably, through the power of Google.. somebody will meander over here... how ironic that was the same website Melanie used to find ways to murder her husband! That just did not look good for her when her husband ended up dead. She also poisoned him with a forged prescription she picked up at Walgreens near my old condo, and stayed at a hotel right near the Walgreens! Employees for both those establishments testified during the just completed trial. I was also fascinated by the unconfirmed rumors that they never found this poor guy's tuchis.

The Ballad of Melanie McGuire is to the tune of the classic “Creeque Alley“.. a rather complex song, yet it matches up perfectly like the poetry of Shakespeare’s Iambic Pentameter.

Here is the original song off You Tube.. Now as it plays on your screen read along with the words.. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if you watch the real version also, since it really is a pretty awesome song…

And now…. The Ballad of Melanie McGuire!

CUE THE TAPE




Melanie was bitchy and getting kind of itchy
Just to leave her ol’ hubby behind…
Her boss Dr. Miller who was dating a killer
Thought his nurse was just fine
In the court Joe Tacopina sat
He told the jury, hubby was a rat

Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…

Doc Miller said “Melanie… you know that aren’t many
Who can make those moves the way that you do.. Lets go south“..
Melanie said “Boss.. golly don’t you think that I wish
I could spend more time with you…”
She wondered if she could kill with a gun, knife or bat? …
So she pulled the choice right out of a hat.

Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…

When Melanie was a wife,… she wanted a new life
And figured it all out one day
She drove down the turnpike - with a deadman she didn’t like
Not to New York - the other way
She told cops her hubby was losing at Trumps
But she really had a bag filled with stumps

Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…

Hubby Dumps, Don Trumps, Body Stumps, Bridge Jumps,
Melanie would work as hard shed play
Drink up, broke up.. her life was shook up
She decided it had be that way
Once a nurse for a doc of fertility
Now she’s a Court tv celebrity…

Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…

Broke, busted, disgusted…
Old boyfriends cant be trusted
On tape, they asked if hubby was tossed in the sea
Melanie couldn’t take it,
She knew she had to fake it
The jury would know eventually
Tacopina maxed her American express Card
Finding hubbys car in AC was so hard

The defense machinations, was her imagination
The lies went on indefinitely

But Melanie in Prison is becoming a reality…

Becoming a reality


Hey maybe I'll get my fur hat and borrow Neil’s guitar and record this and post it on You Tube.

Now for the Clip of The Week… Here is the original Barry McGuire classic.. Eve of Destruction… Can you imagine if they had MTV back in the 60's? It's kind of an odd video don't you think? And let's not even discuss those pants!

Home Sweet Home - Tales From The Bunkey Room

A few months ago, I was reading the Star Ledger, probably in one of my condo’s 2 bathrooms, and I saw an article about a guy who grew up in Roselle. And I said Wow.. So did I! Our family had a house there for 30 years!

Then, it said he took classes at Kean College.. And I said Wow.. So did I! …before I transferred to Montclair State…

And after that he lived in the Avenel section of Woodbridge.. And I said Wow.. So did I!.. I rented an apartment there for 4 years after we sold our Roselle house in March of 1997...

And the article said he was filming a movie in Highland Park… And I said… Wow… I like movies.. And I’ve been to Highland Park… and I hear they are going to build a movie theater in Highland Park. But, that’s as far as the similarities go.. Trophy Wife has made some pretty nifty home movies that I have posted here. And my buddy Mike made some fantastic home movies in the 1990s.. portions of which are embedded at the end of the column as today’s Clip of the Week.

Anyway, one night late last year shortly after that article appeared… Trophy Wife and I were house hunting and saw a closed off street with a lot of big trucks parked nearby. We moseyed on over to check out the hullaballoo and as it turned out the aforementioned movie was filming right then and there!

Wait a second.. Did Nate just say he was house hunting?

Yep… and today I can finally say that after a decade of apartment and condo living….. Trophy Wife and I have bought a house… And we just moved in… almost exactly 10 years to the day that my mom sold our original Roselle house! So, to celebrate this momentous occasion, today’s column is about… My Old House!!

Most of these last 97 columns were put together in the 2nd bedroom of our condo where I kept the computer. We called it the Monkey Room because the prior owner had put in this absurd Monkey wallpaper. The prior owners of our new house left a bunk bed behind in the computer room… so we have renamed the Monkey Room…. The Bunk-ey Room! .

When I was born 30-something years ago, we lived in an apartment in Washington Heights till I was a year old when we moved to NJ. It was my idea. Our first year in NJ, we lived in an apartment, and then we moved into our Roselle house which I wrote about in January when I told of my first experience with a sub sandwich. plus a bizarre run-in with a love sick guy who was leaving a gay bar in the nearby shopping center!.

For 30 years that house was home.. until my mom sold it ten years ago and bought a condo in Edison. .. Now ladies and gentlemen after a decade of living in an apartment, my old condo and then another condo.. Nate has returned to living in a house! (With special thanks to the amazing Mortgage Jedis John and Mike.) And that means I get a new place to write this blog! Incredibly the house is actually near where that movie was filmed by the Roselle/Kean/Avenel guy! And I apologize… but after an exhaustive search, I cant seem to recall his name!

Lots of people have different memories of where they grew up.. Some happy …. Some not so happy. Even though we had a couple of shivas there… my memories are generally quite happy. I think houses should have landmark status. Shortly after we moved away, the people that bought our house called me to get some mail that had been delivered there… and when I went to pick it up, they nicely invited me in to show me what they had done with the place. I was shocked, stunned and mortified to discover that they had changed it!! To me that house.. the place I grew up…. always looked a certain way, and I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t achieved landmark status of some kind.

My earliest memories of the house are from the early 70s.. My parents bought it from a lady named Mrs. Ebert.. No relation to Roger who I hope is feeling better… The house was a 3 bedroom 1 and a half bathroom split level and my dad had an office in the downstairs area. It was the first one on the street …no neighbors to stage left, just like our new house. We also had a golf course behind our back yard. I used to watch the golfers but as a kid, I don’t recall ever seeing those popular 70s Stars of David chains or afro haircuts among those participating in the hoity toity golf games.

In the early 1990s a tornado ripped through Roselle, going through the golf course at an angle headed towards the shopping center. The sub shop was spared.. But not our house. Because we were the first house on the block, we were the only house that was damaged. Structurally, the house was fine.. just damage to awnings and a fence plus a lot of downed trees. The only way I even knew something was awry was when my friend Harmon called me to tell me the tornado story was on the 11 o’clock news with footage of the shopping center. Within moments of seeing this, my mother called to say she was ok….Luckily, she was out of the house when the tornado hit… and when she came home, this was the sight that greeted her!



And this believe it or not was our back yard!!



The reason for the fence… the kids 2 houses down were a bit older and turned out to be hillbillies or as they say in Yiddish vilde-chayas.. and my parents had to do their best to keep me from away from them and their anti-Semitism. Maybe they were white supremacists? I learned about that with their constant chanting of “Jew“ not to mention they lit a fire in our front yard etc.. Nice parenting there!. Years later when I was 16 or 17 and taking driving lessons, the now “young adult” saw my rather hefty driving teacher and asked her if she was the fat chick I was dating.. You would think they would have grown up by that point. Thankfully, that family sold their house and as their moving van drove off, and we all joyously bid them adieu, the real estate prices promptly increased! They are probably all on welfare or dead by now.. Incidentally, scandal may be back in town. Last year a primary election victory was overturned due to some hokey pokey with the absentee ballots - I wonder if that candidate was living in the town when I was there..

Over the years I redid my room every once in awhile.. In the 80s I had to studify it just a bit for my late teens and early 20s and eventually got a TV and a rickety old barca lounger and made it into a real he man palace. Me and my buddies watched Super Bowls, Buster Douglas knocking out Tyson, the 1984 Nebraska Miami Orange Bowl and of course Game 6 and 7 of the 1986 World Series. (I was cutting class at Montclair State the day the Mets won the game in Houston) My buddies would come over to hang out… One day my mom poked her head in offering us grapes to which one buddy replied.. “Yeah.. And can you peel them?” After that recent 24 unresolved confrontation between Martha Logan, and her ex husband,, I don’t think I would ever ask a woman to do anything involving a knife and fruit! Can you believe Martha Logan stabbed that rat of an ex husband of hers with a fruit knife? Now Jack Bauer gets a call from Audrey Raines.. Where was she.. In the bank on the now defunct ABC show “The Nine”?

We had a lot of fun shindigs at that house…and holiday dinners and Passover seders. One memorable year, my dad who was not born in the USA was reading from his snazzy new Haggadah (Passover book) and didn’t realize that the word “victual” is not pronounced the way it’s spelled. And when our neighbor Mr. Seftel corrected him to the proper pronunciation.. he looked at Mr. Seftel and corrected him….. “Well my book says “vict-shoooals”. The retelling of that story is an annual tradition at our seder.. And, Mr. Seftel’s grandson is now a big shot movie producer, although I don’t think he has filmed any movies near our new house..

My parents always had parties at the Roselle house, including a retirement party for a colleague who Clemens-ily used the party as a time to announce that she was going to un-retire! Therefore it was part of my genetic blueprint that forced me to throw a huge shindig when my mom went down to FL to see my uncle. The house became party central that fateful Saturday Night Feb. 20, 1988.. And a couple that hooked up at that party actually got married... Every single person I knew in 1988 was at that freaking party… including many people I didn’t know!. And somebody bought a movie cam and shot some footage including a shot of me carrying a big chair down the stairs that my buddies Chris and Harmon find incredibly hysterical… and always request to see it when they come over. Now they can always see it because I am going to post it as part of The Clip of the Week

Since I commuted to college, the house was home till 1990 when I moved to Sparta. But even then it was still “home” and also a good place to do laundry. I moved back from ‘94 until ‘97 after I left the radio station where I had been working. . Over those 30 years, it was a place for blizzards, a very young Nate’s asthma attack and graduation parties… and I wasn’t too thrilled about the idea when the house was put on the market in late 1996.. But in reality,. I was moving to an apartment , and my mom didn’t see any reason to live in a big house all by herself.. On Labor Day Sunday. September 1,1996, (8 years before my wedding on Labor Day Sunday 2004) my mom decided to have a yard sale and allowed a friend to have her own table in the driveway to sell stuff from her house that she was also planning to sell. My grape peeling buddy came by to visit and quietly approached my mom and asked her if she realized what her friend was selling. My mom looked at her table while her friend strolled off, and was stunned to realize that there was an unused but open boxed… combination enema - douching apparatus! My mom tried to cover it up with some other crap, but every time she did so, the friend returned to her table and promptly uncovered it, proudly displaying it like they were the Crown Jewels! After the sale was over, the friend said she was happy she made a few bucks to which my mom loudly retorted… “Yeah.. But nobody bought your douche-bag”.

Ten years ago as the moving truck backed out of the driveway, and took our neighbor’s telephone wiring with it.. It was Goodbye to “House Life”.

Now its back to mowing the lawn or hiring someone to do so, shoveling the snow, dealing with flooded basements which will be discussed in an upcoming column. No more condo maintenance fees.. No more condo meetings where women complain that their old neighbor walked around his house with the shades open and they saw his shmeckle... unless they were looking at the life size painting that former Governor McGreevey allegedly has in his bedroom. And all the other fun stuff.. I get a driveway.. a basement and 3 count ‘em 3 bathrooms to read The Star Ledger comics.. The only page in the Today section that doesn’t include TV Critic Alan Sepinwall to wall Sopranos coverage. . And hopefully… lotsa happy memories too. I am definitely gonna miss that condo.. This was the first home Trophy Wife and I bought together.. And we came home the night of our wedding.. which was in Linden at my old synagogue… and I carried her over the threshold! We then went to a hotel that night, and it was fun watching her check in using her brand new last name. I told the clerk it was the first time she was using that name.. And then with a straight face told him it was our first night in the Witness Protection Program.

With the big move, you may have noticed that the posting schedule has been erratic over the last month. This column’s posting date has been changed a few times when our closing got delayed, and with the news events concerning Imus . . And believe me, after being away for close to a month… I have had a lot to say! So stay tuned for comments about topics such as the Melanie McGuire murder trial, The Highland Park mayor accusing fellow blogger Lauren Kornfeld of stealing her (not nappy) hairstyle, and all of the other craziness.



So now if you will excuse me, I am in the mood for some victuals, so I am going to go peel some grapes. And I gotta prepare for my garage sale.. If I could only find where I left that douche bag!


Time for the clip of the week… Today its Kean-a-scope Theater…

In addition to the famous chair carrying scene, today’s column features clips from home movies at the house. There’s that popular chair carrying clip but most of this comes from a tour of the house that we shot on March 15, 1997... The footage was shot by my friend Mike Roth, and you get to see some bizarre stuff at that house.. Including my mother who subtly implied that she didn’t like me going near her antique lamp!. I still have that focokta lamp.. That lamp goes so far back.. Here is a pic from the late 60s of a cute little baby looking in awe at that lamp.. and notice how my grandfathers both wore jackets and ties when Little Nate came for a visit. The shot was taken at my grandparents house in Far Rockaway, before my Mom ended up with the lovely lamp, and now we have it. During the move, it was boxed like all Italian Lamps… In a box stamped “Fragile”…. When I heard the director of "A Christmas Story" died last month it made realize that Life is Fragile. Anyway, the movie is underneath the pic.. Click play to start the festivities!



Now time for the Movie...

Return of the Witch Trials

There are 2 things that seem to passionately tug at America’s Heartstrings… innocent little children with catastrophic diseases, and the daily happenings on American Idol.

First the kids with cancer.. Its horrible.. Its tragic and may we never know of such hardships… and kudos to those who take the time out of their lives to help these kids and their families. They are true angels.

Here we are deep into the season on American Idol and we have this Indian kid… he’s 17 so he’s not an adult in the legal sense… people pick on his hair and his voice has drawn the ire of many and the delight of wiseguys such as Howard Stern and Vote for the Worst.com. I think I heard that some bigshot with Fox (maybe it was Simon Cowell?) has already said there is no way this guy will be allowed to win. Basically….. for those of you who follow these things.. It is perfectly ok to make fun of this guy and his hair…

And then you have Imus…

This is a story involving a very evil man who is filled with hate and should keep his big mouth shut.. And that‘s Al Sharpton I am talking about.. Imus’s nappy haired comment which was intended as a joke fell very flat and like a lot of other stuff he says.. just wasn’t funny. Let’s get it straight.. I’m not a big Imus fan… However, he is right on the money when he went to the Today show and told Al Sharpton that the term originated in the Black community…. Imus also had a freudian slip and called him Hargis, as in the fake minister he used to do bits about in his WNBC heyday…..I must admit I also noticed during the NCAA tournament that the women there were not quite the same as the Lady Techsters of the early 80s led by current Baylor coach Kim Mulkey and her little pony tail.

But Al Sharpton.. He should just crawl into a hole somewhere and shut his trap instead of his absurd demands that the man lose his livelihood. What does Al do for a living? He leads protests about “white interlopers” in Harlem that led to a riot that caused seven deaths at Freddy‘s Store. He led protests in Brooklyn after a car accident killed a black child that led to a pogrom and the death of innocent Yankel Rosenbaum. And he stood beside Tawana Brawley…. the 1980s version of the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, and turned her phony rape accusations into a racial incident.

His big mouth may have influenced MSNBC, a network with no viewers after 10 am, and now CBS Radio to drop the show effective immediately. This week has been the Imus million dollar fundraiser for sick kids at Hackensack Hospital and The Imus Ranch for kids with cancer. Despite the fact that this was the week of the big fundraiser did that stop Sharpton and his attention getting protests? And how much money has Sharpton’s self serving publicity cost this charity? How about we hear from cancer kids what a bad person Imus is?

Amazingly Al actually picketed outside CBS during the Imus Radiothon… (Imus smartly changed his broadcast venue) Did Al implore parents who heartbreakingly lost a former Imus ranch kid to cancer to not appear on the show, even though Imus’s organization provided some much needed help during such a terrible time in their lives? I would like to meet Al about a year from now and stand with him at the bedside of a dying child so he can explain how his yearning for publicity cost that child a chance to spend a summer playing with animals and petting goats and milking cows. Let Al explain it to that child how he timed the protests during the Radiothon as he spends his last evening on this Earth in a hospital bed while his parents heartbreakingly watch their child slip away in gut wrenching pain . What has Al Sharpton ever done for kids with cancer? Actions speak louder than words.. And in Imus’s case his actions for these kids.. many of them black and female…. speaks volumes… moreso than a bad attempt at humor.

Here is another reason why Sharpton is a hypocrite… When a black actor on Greys Anatomy in a fit of anger called a gay actor a “faggot”…. where was Al Sharpton? I didn’t hear a word out of Sharpton about the actor’s anti gay comment… But of course…. if the gay actor would have had the audacity to call the actor by a black racial slur…. Sharpton would have been all over the place with that big fat mouth of his, picketing outside ABC, and demanding that the actor be fired for his comments.

Check out wfan.com for more info about making a donation to a fantastic charity whose big fundraiser is losing a lot of money due to this latest Al Sharpton publicity tour. And listen closely to what Bo Dietl says on the news channels about this topic…… he has been a great spokesman during this Imus witch hunt. I also betcha Imus will be back…. syndicated from another network or on satellite before Al jumps on his next shoot now ask questions later crusade.

On the other hand however, I must admit I was very interested in what Coach Stringer had to say.. She is what Sharpton is not… smart, well informed,…. a role model to young women,. a teacher, a leader and a person who I have always admired. So when she says her players' feelings are hurt, it makes you realize that people in public may be fair game for Imus rants.. but maybe young 18 and 19 year old women should not be. Another Don - Mr. Trump made insults to overweight women with his Rosie O’Donnel comments.. I didn’t see Richard Simmons leading protests outside Trump Plaza.. And Thank God for that. But remember folks….. in our world we are allowed to pick on a 17 year old Indian kid on American Idol…as many have.. Where do we draw the line? And who the hell is Al Sharpton to decide where that line is drawn?

Nate's World of Birds

Passion?

What does it mean? I remember a recent Bill Gates interview where he spoke of his childhood.. While other kids dreamed of being cowboys and firemen… Gates obsessed over computer software. You can see that his passion turned into something that became an incredibly lucrative career. Hey… I’m working on my second million…. I gave up on the first!

I think about what I’m passionate about.. Even though the blog is about game shows, TV and Movies.. I think its time that we change the format of this blog to a topic that means a lot to me.

Birds…. I love them. Aside from women, they are the most majestic of God’s creatures and with wings that enable them to fly, they are the envy of all of us landlocked humans who must subscribe to the laws of gravity.

And what kind of a horrible anti-bird society do I live in? I belong to an otherwise fantastic religion, but it just irks me that chickens and chicken soup are a crucial part of each Sabbath and holiday dinner… I’m proud to be an American, but it shames me when we make horrible jokes about poor terrified turkeys whose deaths will lead to a bunch of overfilled tummies on Thanksgiving Night. This is absolutely horrible.. And worst of all.. If you want to be efficient… the saying is… “kill 2 birds with one stone!” Can’t we use a better statement folks? This just breaks my heart. I mean we have a saying “Don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house“.. Of course not.. you don’t want to break the glass! But why is it ok to kill 2 sweet innocent birds with a stone? How shameful!

Today, in honor of Sunday’s Mets - Cardinals 2007 Baseball Season Opener… the first Nate’s World of Birds column is about The Cardinal. . Even though the baseball team named for that bird that beat my beloved Mets in the playoffs last year.

According to the folks at Wikipedia… The Cardinals or Cardinalidae are a family of passerine birds living in North and South America. These are robust, seed-eating birds, with strong bills. They are typically associated with open woodland. The sexes usually have distinctive appearances; the family is named for the red plumage (like that of a Catholic cardinal's vestments) of males of the type species, the Northern Cardinal.

Cardinals mate in early spring. Their nests are loosely woven in tall bushes such as honeysuckle and rose. Their diet includes seeds and small berries. In fact, the berry of the holly bush, which is rich in beta carotene and lycopenes, is responsible for the brilliant coloring of the male specimen.


OK enough of this silliness.. Happy April Fool’s Day!!

The 14 Most Relevant Baseball Teams of 2007

Before we get to the Baseball Preview here are a few recent items in the news:

Georgetown kills my shot at a perfect bracket weekend:
It really looked like I ran the table nailing the Elite Eight and The Final Four… but North Carolina.. What the heck happened?? I did so well in my brackets on Rivals.com, climbing all the way to 41st place in a field of more than 60,000! Oh well… I still have Ohio State beating FL in the Finals.. which like 24 take place during the Seder on the 1st Night of Passover. Who schedules these things? I gotta thank Bracket Boy in the Star Ledger for his informative pre tournament columns for getting me one North Carolina choke job away from nailing my first Final Four.

Alberto Gonzales politicized prosecutorial firings and John Edwards stays in the race despite his wife’s illness:
The reason I put these two together is the whole Gonzales fiasco is yet another example of what a disaster this George Bush White House has been for our country. Edwards realizes that after a Democrat wins in ‘08, life in America (including soldiers no longer required to fight this absurd Bush oil war) will bounce back so well from the Bush disaster that the ‘08 winner will sweep to victory in 2012.. Does Edwards want to wait till 2016 for his next shot at The White House? That’s probably why the other Democrats like Obama and Mrs. Clinton have jumped the gun for ‘08... They knew that whoever wins… plays with house money after these last 8 disgraceful years.

Heather Mills creates a media frenzy on Dancing with the Stars.
Everybody is making a big deal that one legged Heather Mills might see her leg fall off while performing on Dancing With the Stars…. I cant wait to see what happens when the show invites John Bobbitt! And speaking of losing limbs and body parts…

The Melanie McGuire chopped up in a suitcase husband murder trial takes Center Stage on Court TV
Did you notice he disappeared the day after they bought a big new house together? Do you realize that had he disappeared a day earlier they would not have been able to close on that house? Do you think the realtor sent her a card thanking her? Does Hallmark make a card… “Thank you for hacking your husband to bits AFTER I got my commission?”

Is the Three Way Tie on Jeopardy Our Next Game Show Scandal?
At first I thought the guy made a boo boo and made the wrong bet keeping him from winning the game. But the guy said on his blog that he thought it would be neat to share the money so he purposely bet for the tie. I’m sure the Jeopardy producers weren’t thrilled about the extra shekels they had to dole out.. But what happens if this is really part of a bigger scandal? Could it be that a Jeopardy tie-maker could make a deal to play for the tie if the guys who would have otherwise lost give him a cut of their winnings?

Is NWOW right on with predictions about Lost and Desperate Housewives?
Check out my column from way back December 4, 2005. If you check the archives, you will see that I opined that the late Rex would be a good narrator on Desperate Housewives. Some big shot in Hollywood must be reading NWOW because in the previous new episode, Rex was the narrator! Then, last week John Locke found out his dreaded father is actually on the same island with him being held as a hostage… and is stranded there since Locke destroyed the submarine that would get them all outta there. Now how the heck did he end up there? Actually the most believable answer to this bizarre scenario is that the Losites all have implanted memories as I mentioned back on May 25, 2006. How else would the paralyzed Locke walk? And how could a cancer stricken woman be cured? And a couple that can’t conceive get pregnant?


Once again, this year we present our list of the 14 Most Relevant Teams of 2007! This year 6 teams from the NL make the list.. while 8 are coming out of the AL. One division has 4 teams on this list.. While the AL West only has one team worthy of the list

First the National League East….

METS - And we start with my favorite team.. The Mets.. They made great progress in 2006 after the mediocre ‘05 season… but the odds of repeating as division winners could be in jeopardy. This season the pitching looks a bit shaky… Tom Glavine, Orlando Hernandez and John Maine will be anchoring the team till Pedro gets back later in the season, and who knows how much he has left in the tank.. He may just retire and count down till his Hall of Fame time comes.. which would trigger another surge of those popular Vote for Pedro T-Shirts.

GM Omar Minaya may have reinvented the wheel with his 2006 strategy of zeroing in on the bullpen.. That’s how they got to the final inning of the NLCS last year without Pedro and El Duque. Nonetheless, it may not be such an easy road this season. The offense is still in pretty good shape although the corner outfielders of Sean Green and Moises Alou can make you cringe, but then again unlike most teams they get a ton of production out of their catcher and shortstop. Nonetheless, does anyone outside of New York have a lineup featuring hitters of the caliber of Jose Reyes, Paul LoDuca, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado and David Wright? Thankfully the infield with the exception of 2B is extremely solid. The team will get a big pickup as Glavine gets closer to the magical 300 win mark - but they will not cruise to the NL East as they did in 2006.

PHILLIES - How the heck did they get Freddy Garcia from the White Sox? He along with fellow former Mariner Jamie Moyer will help bolster a rotation that also features Brett Myers and young Cole Hamels. Flash Gordon is back in the pen, and with the exception of 3rd base, the infield is awesome with Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins, The outfield isn’t too spectacular, Pat Burrell is a decent hitter.. He quietly hit 29 dingers last year… but hit a Kingman-esque .258.. Actually that would be 50 points higher than what Dave Kingman used to hit. The Phils are one hitter away from making a big run at the top.. And they have the surplus pitching to make such a deal happen, although Phillie fans are holding their breath due to the current injuries to Garcia and Jon Lieber.

BRAVES - On paper you would think the Marlins would be better… But the genius of manager Bobby Cox combined with the Marlins boneheaded firing of Joe Girardi catapult Atlanta past them in the division and onto the list, while the Marlins join the Nationals on the NL East scrap heap. The Braves missed the playoffs last year for the first time since the Truman Administration. I wasn’t sure I was gonna put them on the list, but if you check out their lineup, you will see that they have the best outfield in the division with Andruw Jones and Jeff Francoeur and a terrific young catcher in Brian McCann who batted .333, hit 24 homers and drove in 93 runs! Chipper Jones aint too shabby at 3rd either, although he might be banged up to start the season. The team is hoping that Tim Hudson can get it together to join the rotation of John Smoltz and young Chuck James (11-4 last season). Bob Wickman anchoring the bullpen? Will Mike Hampton return from Tommy John surgery? Why is Tommy John surgery named after Tommy John instead of the surgeon who invented it?

The NL Central - Only The Astros make the list.. The Cardinals are going to be in for a bit of a surprise this season after last year’s stunning October post season run…

ASTROS - No matter how you slice it, due to the AL’s superiority, only 6 NL teams are worthy of the list.. And the Astros are my pick to win the division. Not that I have sour grapes over the Cardinals who broke Mets fans hearts last year.. But frankly the Cardinals look awful this year. They tumbled to the finish line last season and got hot during the post season. Now they don’t have 3 of their starters from 2006 and with the lineup a year older, the Astros are poised to make their move. Granted they lost Andy Pettitte, and probably Roger Clemens but they have acquired Woody Williams and Jason Jennings to cobble together a rotation behind the superb Roy Oswalt, and those shortcomings will be offset by the increased offense coming off the bat of Carlos Lee. He and Lance Berkman are a solid 1-2 punch in the middle of the lineup, and if OF Jason Lane, 3b Morgan Ensberg, and stopper Brad Lidge can bounce back from a sub par 2006, the Astros have a solid shot.


And of course.. The NL West.. The part of the country that produces bleary eyed rotiserie players who stay up too late on work nights watching those endless games that don’t wrap up till after 1:30 Eastern Time!

DIAMONDBACKS - Ya ever notice how Randy Johnson’s teams always do well? Now he will be the 2nd starter behind Brandon Webb in a weak division, even though the Dodgers have a deeper rotation with very little offense…. So pending a blockbuster Dodger deal that brings them some desperately needed offense, the D Backs look like the class of the NL West.. Eric Byrnes shows signs of being a 30-30 man….even though the rest of the offense is anchored by Conor Jackson and Chad Tracy who will be lucky to each hit 20 dingers and drive in 75 runs.. The back of the rotation with old reliables Livan Hernandez and Doug Davis might have enough to get them to the top this season.

DODGERS - Originally, I was very high on the D-backs to run away with the division, but as we get closer to the season, the Dodgers look like their deeper rotation gives them a shot for the Top 14 list. Jason Schmidt escaped from what will be a last place Giants team, and he anchors a rotation with All Star Starter Brad Penney, Derek Lowe and Randy Wolf. Not a bad foursome compared to the other drek in the NL West.. although the Padres rotation has potential but is old. Nonetheless, the LA offense has some speed with leadoff men Juan Pierre and Rafael Furcal at the top of the lineup. with a bit of a power challenge in the heart of the order, aside from Jeff Kent and Nomar Garciappara.. Those 2 speedsters could drive a lot of other pitchers crazy this season. Russell Martin the catcher also showed potential driving in 65 runs and stealing 10 bases in 121 games.


Eight teams make the list from the American League… half of the 14 from the East and Central…

YANKEES - How far has Bernie Williams fallen off the radar when light hitting Doug Mientekwicz is slated to make the team from Day One? The rotation like everybody else isn’t what it used to be.. Although Andy Pettite is a solid addition to Mike Mussina… but now last year’s sensation Chien Ming Wang is going to be out for about a month. Mariano Rivera is the best stopper ever with a longevity only challenged by the Padres Trevor Hoffman. The offense looks pretty good with last years theft of Bobby Abreu replacing the now departed Gary Sheffield. Abreu hasn’t been the same hitter since he went nuts at the 2005 Home Run hitting contest. Nonetheless, the rest of the offense with ARod, Jason Giambi, Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui is still incredibly solid. And those hitters will once again break the Red Sox hearts like they did during that horrific 5 game sweep last summer.

RED SOX - Have they recuperated from the massacre in Fenway last summer? David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez again lend their amazing bats that are now supported by the newcomers from the LA Dodgers JD Drew and Julio Lugo. The rotation is solid with Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield, Josh Beckett and Japanese import Andrew Dice K Matsuzaka. Smart move on the Red Sox sending Jonathan Papelbon back to the pen where he was superb last year. Besides, getting that last out by the bullpen may be what helps them avoid devastating sweeps in ‘07. Despite passionate brilliant arguments from my pal Barry the Rabid Red Sox fan, I ain’t picking them over the Yanks… The Yankees have a far superior offense that will always beat out Boston no matter how big a lead the Bosox build… By the way Red Sox Republicans should cut me some slack.. after I came up with the great commercial idea using Bill Buckner for the Romney Presidential Campaign, by having the ’86 World Series goat say “Hi I’m Bill Buckner…Vote for Romney.. Because everybody could use a good Mitt”.

TORONTO - The Jays continue to make progress - The offense could have 5 guys drive in 100 runs this season! They signed Frank Thomas from the A’s… and Troy Glaus, Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay are solid.. Not to mention Alex Rios who drove in 82 runs in 128 games. If their starters Roy Halladay, AJ Burnett and Gustavo Chacin (lifetime record of 23-14) can stay healthy and in Chacin‘s case away from the wheel after he has put away a few…., the AL East will be a 3 team race to the finish line.


The AL Central - the most competitive division in the league.. Even the Royals show some promise with 2 young solid players at 1st and 3rd.

CHISOX - Over the years, the White Sox have made bizarre moves that seem to have worked out. Even without Garcia, the rotation is strong with Jon Garland (18-7 in ‘07; his 2nd straight 18 win season!), Jose Contreras, Mark Buehrle and Javier Vasquez. Bobby Jenks has been solid coming out of the pen… The offense meanwhile can be very tough - They have two 40 homerun sluggers in Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye and 2 guys who had 30+ dingers last year - corner infielders Joe Crede and Paul Konerko. The rest of the outfield is a bit shaky especially with lead off speedster Scott Podsednik battling a groin injury.

INDIANS - Time to bounce back from a lame-o 2006 as the young kids become borderline superstars. Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner and catcher Victor Martinez are a solid offensive core, and the middle infield looks pretty solid with newcomer Josh Barfield and Jhonny Peralta. Keep an eye on Casey Blake who hit 19 homers last season in only 109 games. They have what the Twins covet - a deep rotation. CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Jake Westbrook are a solid starting trio.. although Lee starts the season on the DL, this should be the Indians bounce back year. By the way Sabathia has won 81 games for his career and he’s only 26.. We may have a big 300 win drought coming our way after Tom Glavine. Maybe Randy Johnson and possibly Mike Mussina might win 300. But who comes after that? Sabathia could be next.. many years down the road.

TIGERS - Still mystified that they lost to the lowly Cardinals in the World Series, the Tigers got deeper by adding Gary Sheffield who could be one of 5 guys who has the ability to drive in more than 80 runs.. The other four are Magglio Ordonez, Brandon Inge, Craig Monroe and Carlos Guillen. The rotation looks to be in good shape… The ageless Kenny Rogers and the 4 other Tiger young ‘uns. The bullpen might start off shaky with ancient Todd Jones nailing down saves, but Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney are waiting in the wings just in case Jones starts to falter. It should be another fun season for the 2006 American League pennant winners.

TWINS - Their huge 2nd half was overshadowed by a quick playoff exit.. But this year the team is ready.. Although the pitching looks just a bit challenged after Johan Santana. On the non Santana days, the offense will have to kick it up a notch, and they have the potential to do so with the well deserved MVP Justin Morneau and superstar catcher Joe Mauer. Outfielders Michael Cuddyer and Torii Hunter had solid years. The question is the non Santana pitchers in the rotation. Manager Ron Gardenhire may be able to get by with a bunch of no names to get him into the solid bullpen anchored by Joe Nathan. They may end up as the best 4th place team in baseball.

One more team for the list.. And it comes from the AL West!

ANGELS - Only 1 team left for the list and that goes to the Angels.. The pitching is very deep and the bullpen is anchored by Fransisco Rodriguez.. The west coast version of Mariano Rivera. The starters are solid.. Led by John Lackey and Jered Weaver who was unstoppable last year getting out of the gate with an 11-2 record. If last years big disappointment Bartolo Colon can bounce back from last year’s shoulder surgery.. this team should win the division, although it really isn’t such a great idea to ever pick them over the A’s who always put together a late season hot streak. The Mariners are also going to be better in ’07. Weaver may miss some time due to an injury and a steroid controversy has hit Gary Matthews Jr,. before he has even played a game. The Angel’s annual late season swoon may be due to the aging offense… but Vladimir Guererro is still a superstar and new additions Shea Hillenbrand and Matthews Jr.. who got a big contract because of one over played catch on ESPN (Hey how about Endy Chavez’s catch in Game 7 of the NLCS????) The new players, combined with the speed at the top supplied by the currently injured Chone Figgins and Orlando Cabrera make the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles/Mighty Ducks Angels the team to beat from The West.

NL Surprise Team: The Cubbies
AL Surprise Team: The Mariners
NL Disappointment: The Cards
AL Disappointment: Orioles fans who are buying into the hype.

NL Division Winners: Phillies, Astros, Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: One thing about Wild Card Races in Baseball.. Because of the unbalanced schedule, you will see a really good team have a solid year and then a team from a weaker division put together a hot streak in September because they are playing against weaker opposition. That might be an unfair aspect, as you might notice in the Western Divisions where teams go into September at .500 and make a run at the Wild Card while the teams in the more competitive divisions have a tougher schedule. Despite that… my pick is The Mets
AL Division Winners: Yankees, White Sox, Angels
AL Wild Card: Indians.. Sorry Barry.. You’ll always have 2004!

NLCS ; Mets over Phillies
ALCS: Indians over The Angels

World Series champ: Hint: Guillermo Mota played for them in ‘06.. Ok.. The Mets!!


Now time for the Clip of the Week: Passover starts next week. Here is a clip that I think all the Parrotheads are going to enjoy. Thanks to the Snap Crackle Pop blog for sending this to my attention!

Identity

NBC seems to be on a game show kick… Big shot Jeff Zucker has said that at some point down the road, the 8 o’clock hour on the Peacock Network will be turned over to game shows.. For a game show fan like myself, that would be good news, but the NBC game shows are pretty lame, except for 1 vs.100. Deal or No Deal is entertaining when you see people who don’t understand statistics allow themselves to be coached by a hyper audience into decisions that cause them to lose the chance to win a lot of money (The British version is so much better even though they don’t have models.. They use other contestants to open the box) 1 vs.. 100 is a lot better.. especially since the celebrity and civilian mob members get to stay on the show till they get a question wrong. Where else could you see my homie Rabbi Shmuley Boteach correctly answering pop culture questions on a (pre-recorded) Friday Night Game Show??

Another new one that will be back on the schedule soon is Identity where people stand on blocks and a contestant has to identify them based on their career, or some other identifier such as World Record Holder, etc. Today’s column is about Identity!

NBC seems to be carving out its identity as the network for Heroes and game shows… Heroes is one of many popular addictive serialized prime time shows that don’t have CSI in the title. Not only am I a regular viewer of shows such as Desperate Housewives, 24, Heroes, and Lost but after I watch ‘em I read the episode bloggers on TVSquad.com and TVGuide.com… and then I read the comments sections too!! By the way I think most Lost fans missed the boat… In the context of what makes Sayid tick... I don’t think he tortured that French woman.. I think he “confessed” to her because he read her, and realized that “confessing” would set him free.

Thankfully, Im not into the American Idol madness… but now that she has been booted off… is Antonella Barba going to star in the Barba-rella remake? Or will she be in the new Welcome Back Kotter as part of the Barba-rino family? Maybe a Charmin commercial?

Recently, a woman tried to post a comment here at NWOW that reinforced my decision to screen out all the comments on this very blog. The day after I posted my first column, a wisecrack was posted that some people might not have found amusing.. So I edited it and instituted a policy that all comments go through my email. This came in handy last summer when a bunch of people who knew a few newsmakers who were criticized here, launched a vicious attack against a person involved in the news story.

Last wknd, in response to a recent column about an actor on a prime time show a woman posted a comment that was borderline acceptable.. It was a bit of a personal attack, as opposed to a critique of his acting skills. I posted the comment at first, but after clicking the poster’s name it took me to her blog which was a nasty personal attack on the actor, and included of all things his home address! (I should have sent him a Purim basket!) I decided that while the comment was borderline, I didn’t want her blog linked to NWOW so I deleted her comment... I showed this woman’s blog to a 2nd person who thought the blogger might have dated and/or been spurned by this actor. It could make sense,.. I recall a female blogger who had a one night stand with Keith Olbermann posted a lot of TMI details about her little tete a tete with the MSNBC anchor.

I saw recently that fellow blogger Orthomom is being sued by a school board member from Lawrence, in Long Island .. stating that the blog libeled her and now as part of her suit she is looking to unmask Orthomom‘s true identity… (I hear she is really Commissioner Gordon‘s daughter - no that‘s Batgirl… ). The comment that ticked off the school board member was not written by the blogger.. but was actually posted by a person in the comments section.

Lawrence is one of the “5 towns” in Long Island, and if you take that highway (Rockaway Parkway?) past JFK Airport into Lawrence, and keep going towards the beach you run into Far Rockaway! My grandfather was a Rabbi there back in the 60’s and early 70s when he had a house on Hicksville Road. I remember that as a little pisher of about 5 or 6 years old.. we used to visit him there.. his backyard was the beach!! My maternal grandparents immigrated to the USA and moved to Washington DC in the very late 1930s with their 3 kids…. where they remained until the mid 1960s. When they first moved to the USA, my mom hadn’t even arrived on the scene yet.. She was born a week before Pearl Harbor Day. The Great Psychic Pumpstradamus‘s mom was born 4 days later and strangely enough.. he predicted it! . My mom and her siblings eventually moved to New York except for one brother who stayed in Maryland and even though he and his wife eventually moved to FL, all 3 of his children (those would be my cousins) still live in MD to this very day. We actually bought our wedding rings while visiting my cousins in Maryland!

I’m really not too familiar with the school system in Lawrence but I do get annoyed when school budgets are voted down… how can you deprive these innocent children of the opportunity to get a good education? Do voters know as much as the people who design these budgets? Or, are some voters defeating these budgets because they get no benefit because they don't have kids in public school? Personally, I think this board member Pamela Greenbaum has a very difficult job, and even though the comments about her may not have been so nice.. there is no reason to strip a blogger of his or her anonymity due to comments made by a third party. And I support Orthomom 100 percent.

Again, I really don’t know too much about that specific board, but Greenbaum apparently spoke out against allowing private school students to utilize public school facilities/staffers after regular school hours, even though their parents’ tax money funds the school system. I disagree with Greenbaum on that... and by being on the board, she should expect criticism. But I don’t think that warrants a nasty personal attack by anonymous commentators, and I think it is Orthomom's responsibility to delete those personal attacks from the comments section. But then again Greenbaum doesn’t have the right to sue to unmask Orthomom’s true identity. Now Ortho has a bunch of high powered attorneys who specialize in blogger’s anonymity issues who have taken on the case to keep her real persona a secret.... I hope nobody tries to find out my true identity.

Incidentally its interesting she picked the name Orthomom. One of the tons of newspapers I read.. I think it's The Jewish Week in Manhattan says that a newspaper that serves the 5 Towns recently changed its masthead from "The Local Jewish Newspaper" to "The Local Orthodox Newspaper". Another extreme right newspaper whose identity I will withhold had a horrifically insulting letter to the editor criticizing them for an article that referred to a non Orthodox Rabbi by the title of Rabbi. The paper apologized for the "grave error". Ugh.. I know a lot of non Orthodox Rabbis and I think that writer and that editor are way over the line to write such an insulting demeaning comment.

Isn’t Identity such an odd thing.. . It’s “who you are”… but sometimes you just don’t want people to know… and sometimes people are shocked to find out your true identity… as is the case on the NBC show Identity…. But one theory on Ortho Mom‘s true identity. Maybe she‘s Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman? Did you know that Wonder Woman was first introduced in December 1941? Just like my mom and Pumpie‘s Mom! And maybe Ortho-mom? (Rumor has it she's much younger)


Now time for The Clip of the Week.. Speaking of Deal or No Deal.. Here is a clip from the British version…Keep in mind that they dont use models... they use contestants (kind of like Contestants Row on The Price is Right), to stand at a Family Feud type podium holding each box. Each contestant will ultimately get to play the game at some point, but they are all sequestered together in a hotel so they all get to know each other and become good friends and truly care about the player to the point where they are emotionally vested when they lose.. As opposed to the American (and Canadian) versions where the models really could care less… One of these days I’ll post the wacky Australian version! There, contestants take bets on players misfortunes and actually celebrate when they pick a gut wrenching suitcase.

Nashville - A Movie Club Column

This season while watching Lost it occurs to me that they have written so many characters into the show that the writers have totally lost track of some of them.. leaving some of them off for weeks and weeks at a time.. Have we seen Bernard and Rose yet this season? And how about that “new” couple who were on the plane that were supposed to be a major part of the cast this season? With that in mind.. you really have to appreciate Robert Altman for the way he successfully weaves more than 24 major characters into his 1975 movie Nashville, while never abandoning them for lengthy periods of time. And that includes 2 prominent characters who are never seen! Speaking of 24.. I think Heroes may be better than 24 this season.. Memo to NBC: Just send a tape of last Monday‘s episode and the Emmy is yours! I like Claire’s dad’s flashbacks from 1997 and 1992... .. If they would have gone back 20 years you would have seen him when he was Gay Steven on “Dynasty”.

One of the things about the wiseguy playboy Sawyer on Lost.. is you wonder if he is somewhat modeled after Tom.. (Tom Sawyer?) from Nashville.… . Tom, played by Keith Carradine is part of a 3 person trio Tom, Bill and Mary.. Sort of like Peter Paul and Mary… except his rock group which happens to be traveling through Nashville are big time rockers not country music stars.. The 1975 Carradine strongly resembles the present day Josh Holloway and has sex with so many people, I almost expected to find Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband hanging around his hotel room!

Nashville starts out in the style where M*A*S*H left off.. With a spinning record disk announcing the cast (Like the in-movie cast announcements at the end of M*A*S*H) and a politician preparing for the ‘76 Tennessee primary driving around with a bullhorn that forces you to listen closely for amusing nuggets like the M*A*S*H loudspeaker.. Probably the funniest comment questions why The Star Spangled Banner is our National Anthem.. And of course like M*A*S*H, Altman again took on a movie with no real plot ..instead it’s a series of scenes that are very well edited together.

To further enhance your enjoyment of today's column, here is the 1975 trailer for the movie that actually does a good job explaining Who’s Who. Watching it will help you to better understand today’s column.




Like Lost, the Nashville story gets rolling with an airplane trip,…taking us to the Nashville Airport where so many major characters arrive, you almost expect to see them welcomed by Ricardo Montalban and Tattoo. Among those flying in are the country music starlet Barbara Jean, whose arrival on a chartered flight is covered in breathless play by play by local news reporter Bill Jenkins since this event is considered “Breaking News!” Also coming in on a plane are our rock and roll (and love) trio, a political strategist who is prepping for the TN primary, and a young girl played by Shelley Duvall who is there to visit a sick relative, but meets a new guy every five minutes and just walks off with him. Sorta like Anna Nicole Smith when she first came to Hollywood.

After the airport scene, virtually the entire cast gets stuck in a horrendous traffic jam on the highway near the airport. Too bad in 1975 they didn’t have WCBS's Chris Maget or WOR's Tom Note to guide them to a Shadow Traffic alternate route. Alberquerque played by Barbara Harris sneaks off from her husband and in a tender moment runs into Kenny who runs interference for her when her husband comes looking for her.. just long enough for her to get away. She escapes and he ends up hitching a ride with the husband.. Doesn’t this guy think before he picks up hitchhikers? But then again,. this nice guy did sweetly help Albequerque so how bad can he be?

Even though the film has no star, the most incredible acting performance in my opinion is delivered by Henry Gibson who to me was always a mousy kind of character on Laugh-In. Here, he plays a country music mogul among the universe of those who are country fans.. He doesn’t bat an eyelash when Elliot Gould of MASH playing himself shows up at a party, and considers him a “fellow star”. Gould and Julie Christie were in Nashville when the movie was filmed and cameo appearances were written for both of them…. The Julie Christie appearance is a truly hysterical moment watching 2 hicks react to a woman who was a big star at the time… which is almost as amusing as Ned Beatty’s embarrassment when he didn’t recognize Gould. He must have not seen M*A*S*H.

Gibson’s Laugh-In co-star Lily Tomlin is another key character playing a gospel singer who is married to an emotionally unavailable Ned Beatty (maybe still sore in the tuchis after filming Deliverance?) and is the mother of 2 deaf kids whose dad doesn’t seem to bother to learn sign language. And guess which aforementioned stud ends up doing the ol’ hocus mcpocus with Tomlin? None other than Tom who ends up singing a song called “I’m Easy” (which went on to win an Oscar) in a nightclub where at least 3 women in the audience believe the song is directed towards her. One of the other 2 women he hooks up with is Mary from his group who is married to the other guy Bill who actually resembles Weird Al Yankovic

Tom also hooks up with a wacko British woman who claims to be filming a documentary for the BBC... although she never seems to have a camera crew. Watching the BBC reporter’s breathless interviewing skills was like the media frenzy that jumped off the crazy diaper astronaut bandwagon to Anna Nicole Smith’s death the way our media did last month… The “BBC reporter” walks away from an interview with Gibson’s son while he is in the middle of a sentence…. the moment she sees the more popular Elliot Gould arrive at a party… She runs up to him and sticks her microphone right in his face expecting him to recognize her from an a film festival where they had allegedly briefly met. She refuses to meet Tomlin’s deaf kids because her shallowness just can’t deal with the concept of deaf children and she also rudely cuts off a local drivers polite offer to show her around Nashville with the classic line.. ”I never socialize with the servants!”

Beatty’s character is probably the glue that brings the whole cast together. He plans a whole big shindig along with the out of town political operative (Michael Murphy from M*A*S*H) to help promote a politician running for President in the 1976 Bicentennial election which was of course was won by Mr. Anti-Israel Jimmy Carter. By the way, after the Oscars, do you get the opinion that Al Gore is kind of popular? Anyway, Beatty and Murphy reach out to all the music stars to appear at an event which is the climax of the movie featuring the troubled but loveable Barbara Jean, played superbly by Oscar nominee Ronee Blakley who comes to face to face with a life changing event .

Coincidentally, poor Barbara Jean’s misfortune ends up as Albuquerque, the wanna-be’s lucky break in a truly stunning musical performance by Harris.. That contrasts another political fundraiser from the prior evening featuring Sueleen Gay.., the vocally challenged singer descends from a stage that comes down from the rafters only to show that her singing is incredibly awful. The all male crowd Cowell-ingly boos her… to the point where she turns the crowd to her favor by humiliatingly performing a strip tease where she removes ALL of her clothes! By the way the American Idol fans now have a site called Vote For the Worst.com.. where they organize a campaign to vote for the worst person. I see they did the same thing for the last two Presidential elections!

When you have a movie like this with so many characters and no plot per se.. it really is only worth it when there is a big payoff at the end. In this case there is.. Because while you see all the major characters interact, (and realize that the minor characters aren’t so minor after all) you realize that Nashville, like Hollywood is where people go to make dreams come true. You also see a lot of shallow people who in a moment of crisis turn out to have good hearts that just don’t come out under ordinary circumstances.

Nashville shows that stardom isn’t what it’s cut out to be..… Barbara Jean arrives in the airport at the beginning of the movie after having been hospitalized out of state for a lengthy period due to injuries sustained in a fire. Now fully healed physically, she arrives at the airport only to injure herself while collapsing as she walks over to greet her fans, and that leads to another hospitalization where a stalking fan sneaks into her hospital room … not even having the guts to take credit that it was his mom that saved her from that fire. Maybe being a star isn’t such a great thing after all… and maybe Albequerque and Sueleen Gay might have been happier had they kept their more simpler lives? Or maybe the deaf kids are better off in their silent world than the BBC reporter who lives in her noisy planet of shallowness.

The helpful hitchhiking Kenny always shows up at these Barbara Jean appearances.. Forced to perform the day she leaves the hospital. BJ has a meltdown when her band starts to play but she just starts wandering off into some bizarre monologue reminiscent of Frank Sinatra at the Emmys. Finally, BJ’s husband/manager strolls onstage and leads her off seeing full well that she is just not mentally ready to perform on stage.. That is of course until the very next day for the political rally. Kenny appears again.. and I actually thought he was another musician waiting for his big break.. waiting for another long pre monologue BJ silence to start, so he could pull out an instrument and begin to sing. Instead Kenny provides the key moment in the end of the movie that gives Alberquerque her moment in the sun. I think it would be unfair to those who might want to see the movie to reveal the plot twist even though the movie has been out for more than 30 years. I didn’t see it coming, and the shock greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the movie.

Overall the story has a great beginning… a middle dragged down by too much country music and a fantastic ending. The final song will ring in your brain for days after you see it. Some of the actors are pretty good especially the Oscar nominated Ronee Blakley who was cast as Barbara Jean at the last minute, and as mentioned before, Gibson who I never would have imagined in this role. You also have to give Altman credit for managing all of these characters and achieving a sense of balance for a rather complex storyline, On a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… the 2 hour 40 minute Nashville gets 3 bladders.


Time for The Clip of the Week: The husband in that rock trio looked like Weird Al Yankovic.. here is a clip from his TV show!

The Top 14 Movies to Start a DVD Collection

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The Sublime Time Line to Solving Crime in Prime Time

The sublime time line to solving crime in prime time that has no reason or uh uh.. Hmmm what word would fit here?.. Excuse me while I channel the ghost of Nipsey Russell.

You know the old saying.. “If you do the crime.. You do the time“.. Well how about applying it to TV show if you do the crime.. we’ll solve it in an unrealistic time. Or something like that. We all do things based on time.. The entire cycle of life is time related. The Jewish Mourning laws are all based on time. At the other extreme, babies are expected to grow within a timeframe.. educations take time.. We have to be at work at a certain time. Time, Time.. Everywhere there’s time… (or is that signs?). Last fall I did a column about "Time Management" (See the archives Sept. 2006) how Trophy Wife lured me to a surprise 30-something birthday party for me by coordinating my day down to the minute, which included of all things.. a Time Management Seminar!

Monday Night I plunked down on the couch for an evening of 24 and CSI Miami.. knowing full well that in my Tivo-less universe, a commercial-free Heroes would look better on my computer than a tape recorded off my 17 year old vcr. 24 was starting an hour earlier so my agenda for the evening was going to be 2 hours of Jack Bauer and Company trying to save the world from Muslim terrorists.

If you saw the first hour, you would see that Morris, Chloe's Richard Dawson-esque boyfriend/ex-husband was lured into a trap by terrorists so he could program a suitcase nuclear bomb. Of course Morris wasn’t going to cooperate with the evil terrorist.. so it was torture time.. Better known as the 24 s and m fan festival! After the usual beatings and whippings and head soakings it was time to go for the old power drill and after drill bit hit flesh, Morris collapsed like a house of cards and agreed to program the device. Grey’s Anatomy also used the drill Thursday night when Stevens buzzed into a guys brain.. But her Emmy-esque beautiful speech about belief turned into a yenta fest when she told George that he made a colossal mistake by marrying Callie. Anyway, many bloggers feel Morris should have killed himself instead of giving in... but from a story telling standpoint, it didn’t make a lot of sense since the actor who plays Morris is pretty popular and they would need him to keep the story moving.

At 10 it was time for CSI Miami.. the 2nd of a 2 parter that strangely didn’t start with a recap of the prior episode. Who does CBS think is going to recall what happened in last weeks episode while still catching your breath from the end of the 2nd hour of 24 where Rena Sofer's character... (she is also Nathan’s wife on Heroes and went to high school with my buddy Harmon) led Jack Bauer into a bomb filled house.. after her father in law (Jack’s father) strolled off with her son and threatened to kill him if she didn’t lead Jack to that house? And at 10:01 do they really expect me to go into the episode cold? Gimme a recap.. give me a "Previously on CSI Miami".

As it turned out... Delko was shot.. did he die? Yes? Oh wait no.. lets pound a needle into his chest.. okie dokie,... his heart is beating..

Which leads to today's topic.. who is managing the time frame of these crime shows?? I can see how 24 is structured that each 24 episode season takes place in a 24 hour period.. but if you look at CSI Miami.. the show seems to wrap up in a weird time frame and Heroes is totally out of left field in that regard.

I haven’t always been a big fan of the crime shows. The earliest show I recall was the afternoon Channel 2 reruns of Barnaby Jones where the narrator would announce in his baritone that this was “A Quinn Martin Production - Tonight‘s episode….” Why was it tonight‘s episode if I was watching it in the afternoon??

At least NBC seems to have addressed the problem when they started Law and Order in the early 90s.. I remember as a kid the crime dramas used to wrap their storylines in a nice little bow at the end of an hour and many of the storylines took place within the context of a single day. However, L and O stories can stretch for months because first you have the law and then you have the order. Even Criminal Intent doesn’t wrap up its cases in a single day.. although I remember that Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue always took place over the course of one day

Nonetheless, let’s take a closer look at some shows’ writers that need time managers…


LOST - Its not a Monday Night show but time-wise it’s a mess too... The plane crashed in 2004... they seem to have been there for only a few months.. yet Jack saw a tape of the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004. Where are we now? Is it still 2004?

And after last week’s head scratching episode.. Did Desmond’s life flash before his eyes.. Or did he travel back in time and relive his life like that awful Taye Diggs show that ABC briefly aired late last year? And notice how one “psychic” just lets people die because they are gonna die anyway, while Desmond keeps running out to save Charlie’s life? Wouldn’t it be cool if Desmond somehow ended up on Heroes?

And... why are the characters Dr Shepherd, and Dr. Burke sharing character names with Grey’s Anatomy characters? What are they gonna start calling Hurley?.... McTubby?

HEROES - It might win the ratings against 24, but I still must watch 24 live as it happens! Heroes is all over the time space continuum starting out in the fall.. going back 5 years.. then back to the fall... yet even though the show premiered in September, a bomb that Hiro futuristically sees as going off on Election Day 2006 still hasn’t gone off... and Nathan Petrelli (Mr. Rena Sofer) last Monday mentioned that its now 2 weeks before Election Day. And Nate is the father of Claire the Cheerleader! This just in to the newsroom.. Nathan Petrelli has just announced that he is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter!

24 - Ok.. Don’t do 2 hour shows any more.. its too much and I can only handle an hour of the action. Also, if they do 2 hours you become more keenly aware of things that happened in the 1st hour that don’t make sense when compared to the 2nd hour. For example, in the first episode this season.. Jack shaved off his big beard, got a haircut and changed into an Adrian Monk-esque outfit… in 11 minutes! And this past week was pushing it a bit.. In the beginning of the 1st hour.. Morris was getting his ass pounded and drilled etc. By the end of hour 2 he was back at his desk pecking away at his computer trying to save the world. Don’t they have sick leave at CTU? How do they expect him to just do his job after being... drilled?? This just in to the newsroom..90 year old Zsa Zsa Gabor has announced that she is the mother of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter!


And the all time classic of classics!…

CSI MIAMI/aka The David Caruso Acting Clinic.- they get hot babes like Callie (NOT the one who Grey's Anatomy's Dr. Stevens doesn't like) and Eva LaRue.. who pounce around in their sexy little outfits and you just cant help but notice that they wear the same clothes during the episode. Do you mean to tell me that Monday's episode that started with Delko getting shot on a parking deck and ended before sundown with Horatio killing the bad guy really took place in one day? Keep in mind they traced the bad guy to the shooting (his dad was played by the actor who played the villain from an early season of 24), and figured out he was a diamond dealer, and that a local diamond store had an illegal sweatshop behind a secret panel! At 10;01 Delko was rushed to the hospital... operated on.. .and wondering why his dead sister won’t visit him.... All in the same day! Last month, Delko had this storyline where he broke up a fight involving a couple.... bailed the wife out of a tough situation,. and then she sued him for assaulting her husband.. who later died in that episode, and by the end of the same episode he had settled out of court and was signing a document that would allow his wages to be garnished!! And all in one day!! C’mon what the heck is going on?? Buy the chickies more outfits and make the timelines more plausible!!

This just in to the newsroom… The crazy astronaut just packed a carload of diapers and is driving to The Bahamas to declare her love for Howard K. Stern.

Speaking of Howard K. Stern, I gotta ask a Rabbi about how the Jewish laws of mourning apply to Howard. Does he sit shiva for Anna Nicole? Does he have to wait until the funeral to start now that the body is held over for DNA testing? Were they actually married? Does he say kaddish? All these customs are based from the time of death or burial.... and I hope whoever figures out how much time is allotted for these things does a better job than the writers who figure out how much time lapses during an episode of CSI Miami...

Now time for the Clip of the Week - This week in honor of CSI Miami.. Somebody with a lot of spare time put together an amazing montage of David Caruso overacting sunglasses removal (or put-on) scenes that grace the very beginning of each episode before the theme song. You gotta see this to believe it! The show’s theme song is The Who’s “Who‘s Are You?“ I love the clip at 5:55!

Culture Week Part II - Books I Read in 2006

Hello folks and welcome to our shortest column of the year…

And what a week it has been… is there anything crazier than an astronaut in a love triangle? I mean I’m happy the police were able to stop this looney kazoonie before she would have killed anyone but you gotta give her credit for planning… I mean she packed diapers so she wouldn’t have to take an intermission to go pishing.. But can you imagine the amazing concentration you need to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando without stopping? In this age of chronic ADD, you gotta keep her in the space program if she can drive that long without a break! I say .. Even if she is convicted… keep sending her out on space missions.... I mean ya send her up into space in the shuttle.. she really is in custody and not “free”? What's she going to do? Run away? And if she works in the kitchen on the space station…would she be called “The Pampered Chef?”

This goes along with my long time belief that we can ease our overcrowded prisons and landfills by sending prisoners and garbage to other planets. I got a kick out of some bigshot politician in NY the other day who reacted to neighbors opposing a homeless shelter by telling a reporter…”Neighbors will always object to this type of thing.. If we put it on the Moon.. The Martians would complain”. However, it now appears that the crazy astronaut has been Anna Nicoled out of the headlines…

And how about that President Bush?… He adds to the budget to allow for more troops in Iraq yet he cuts the budget for Homeland Security. Does that mean Iraqi’s safety is more important than American safety… I guess hes gotta protect the family’s oil money.

Today for the 2nd straight year.. We present the books I read in 2006. I heard a great Sam Waterston line on Law and Order a couple of weeks ago…… The L and Os seem to be the only shows I still watch on NBC… aside from Heroes and Deal or No Deal. I only mention Deal or No Deal because there is this DOND fan website that lists this very blog as one of its “Top Bloggers”… I only tossed that reference in to get me up there in the rankings!

Anyway they had this wacky L and O episode about a reality show that led to the killing of a rapist by his victim. The episode dealt with Waterston’s prosecution of the show’s producer… In the episode the reality show was a spinoff of another show that was verrrrry similar to those Chris Hansen Dateline NBC shows where they lure child molesters into a home on the premise of meeting a young child. Anyway, Waterston convicts the producer and her network throws her under the bus by asking Waterston if he would allow the trial to be… a reality show. Waterston’s response to watching coverage of his prosecution….: “I’ll be reading a book”

As a regular reader of his fine blog, I gotta give Neil's blog credit. He constantly writes columns about the books he reads.. I recently asked him if he actually has read all those books.. And he does! Wow… I’m really not much of a book reader.. Although I do read a lot, I read a few newspapers each day and Entertainment Weekly plus a bunch of other online publications.. not to mention a lot of other blogs… but as you can see by today’s column.. The book reading .. It ain’t what it oughta be.

This past year I read 2 books and started 2 others that I‘m “still reading“… including one that I got at the tail end of 2006 during one of those trips to Dollar Tree and that irresistible dollar book bin . The first book I read was early in the year…. Podcasting for Dummies.. I bought it after numerous futile attempts to get my NWOW pod casts on Itunes. Ultimately I figured out how to do it… but not through the book which by the way is extremely informative. I finally saw the light to itunes when I bought my cell phone! As I mentioned in my Technology Schmecknology column last summer in my July 6th column… I couldn’t get my music into the mp3 player until I went back to the Cingular store and they explained that the songs only work in mp3 format.. and not as a wma… Once I figured that out… I realized that Itunes also wasn’t catching the wma format either… Once I changed ‘em to mp3, I was able to hook up my NWOW pod casts with Itunes.

Podcasting for Dummies is another book in the popular dummy series.. It is quite informative, especially for those looking to get a start in pod casting. . But with technology being updated constantly…a book like this … which was just written last year could be out of date before too long.,. However for now, it’s a good reference guide to find stuff when you run into trouble getting a podcast up and running. I thought pod casting would be more popular by now as a forum for people to do little radio shows or commentaries… Podcasting has caught on but in a different way… now people go on their My Space page and post links to the drek that they uploaded to You Tube.

As I wrote in a column a few months ago on November 24th I was a guest on another pod cast.. hosted by a guy who had heard my Mortgage Podcast… (and I suspect reads this blog too). My ability to be a “good guest” was based on tips I learned from Book #2 - “Get on TV” by Jacquie Jordan.. my first poolside book of the summer.. Jacquie and I worked at the same radio station many moons ago, and she was a guest on my pod cast here last April. Technically, I didn’t finish the book… it was summer book #1... I lost it somewhere along the line as I was reading the last chapter! However, I am sure at some point during spring cleaning, it will turn up.. But even though I technically didn’t finish it… I am still counting it on my 2006 tally.

The 2nd Summer Reading book was The Bob Schieffer autobiography “This Just In” … I picked it up at Dollar Tree and I was about 80 pages in when I ran out of summer. Schieffer has some very interesting anecdotes about his career.. Including how he met Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother after the assassination of JFK. He also tells about ducking bullets during riots at The University of Mississippi when black college student James Meredith attempted to break the color barrier by enrolling there. Oddly enough Meredith went on to become a Right Wing Republican and actually endorsed David Duke when he ran for President! Was David Duke at the Holocaust Revisionist Conference that they held in Iran?

Speaking of that hideous Iranian President.. What about that moronic group that calls itself the Neturei Karta.. A bunch of low lives who dress like Chasidic Jews but who are an embarrassment to Judaism and have now sunken lower on the Jewish food chain beneath the Jews for Jesus cult. Just so you understand.. There are a lot of very nice ultra Orthodox Jewish Chusids who dress up in their traditional black hat and black suit outfits. They are very fine people who are very devoted to their religious practices.. The Neturei Kartas are a bunch of morons who try to confuse people by going out in public dressed as Chusids, but in reality they are a bunch of idiots.

The NKs are anti Zionist… who don’t think it’s the Jews biblical right to be in Israel so they constantly come out in support of Israel‘s many enemies.. But to insult the memory of all those who died in the Holocaust by joining in with Holocaust deniers is beyond disgraceful.. One of these idiots…. “Rabbi” Friedman of Austria just saw all 4 of his kids tossed out of their Jewish school and those kids are now banned from attending any other Jewish schools. Some people say these Friedman kids are being picked on because of their controversial dad but the reality is they shouldn’t be in Jewish schools.. because the schools only take real Jews.. and the Nks are not real Jews.

I also picked up another good one at Dollar Tree at the tail end of last year…… “Stealing Time”.. about the AOL - Time Warner Merger.. I read about 30 pages of that one shortly after I bought it.. and hopefully it will make next year’s Books I Read column. In addition, I just bought Jim Cramer’s new book on eBay, and it looks like that is going to be the first book that I actually finish reading in 2007.


Now time for the Clip of the Week. This weekend the Grammys move from its annual weeknight slot to its new Sunday Night slot… thus avoiding a repeat of last year where it got hammered in the ratings by American Idol. As I mentioned in a prior column, I went to the Grammys in 1988... highlighted by an incredible “Man in the Mirror” performance by Michael Jackson that got so intense.. he seems to have briefly zoned out right in the middle. Here is a clip from that show! Check out the audience for younger versions of Mayor Koch and Billy Joel and somewhere there... little ol' me.