So The Game is over; along with it, so is the hype, the bullshit, the "buzz" about Paul McCartney performing four songs (a "secret set list") between halves, and along with all that, we're now treated to reviews and critiques not only of the game itself but the commercials.
Oy.
First of all, without delving into the commercials, my other half and I agreed that the only really prurient commercial was for some "Daddy" site, and was fairly entertaining, not because it provided the only real cleavage of the night (aside from the women teetering as a result of excess alcohol consumption) but because it poked fun at government-type committees. But the fact that I don't remember the name of the site says plenty.
Second, I was not impressed by any of the ads this time around, aside from the FedEx commercial featuring Burt Reynolds getting kicked in the happies, and only because I've been wanting to do that for years. Burt isn't a bad guy, and he was really impressive in Boogie Nights (good title for a sordid but magnetically appealling movie). It's just that I've wanted to kick Burt Reynolds in the happies for a number of years; I'm not really sure why, but I know that the FedEx ad did something for me. It's not like I'll be more likely to use FedEx over UPS (and who really uses DHL for anything?). But it was a good ad.
Third, the Paul McCartney half-time show was a weird exercise in false demography. In three years, the NFL has gone from Britney Spears and Aerosmith to NippleGate to McCartney, which is really a bizarre, mid-stream switch. The show itself, for me, was good, because I'm a Beatles fan and McCartney's performance was really good, especially considering he's 62. I caught myself wondering whether he was actually singing or if it was a lip-sync deal and concluded it was a combination (ie hidden backing vocals but a working mic). My only real problem with his performance, then, was the fact that most people in the audience aren't wanting to see a 62-year-old guy rock out to tunes that were popular 40 years ago. I don't mind, personally -- in fact I prefer it to the over-choreographed, disposable garbage that passes for entertainment these days -- but seeing the crowd bopping along with young fans just reeks -- to me -- of on-site Payola. I'm not buying it. A 15-year-old girl with her hands in the air shouting and screaming like it's the Ed Sullivan Show for some guy older than her father? Please. The biggest bit of irony was seeing McCartney perform Hey Jude (if I recall correctly) while the Statue of Liberty was shown on the walkway videoscreens (the four vertical "screens"). Considering he's from England, it was an odd choice of imagery, at least in my opinion. And he kept thanking the "Super Bowl" and not "Jacksonville" or "everybody" or "America." It felt somewhat sterile. Certainly a safe choice; but football has become an unsafe, non-sterile sport, so why try to keep it clean? Weird. Good. Strange.
The Super Bowl -- and the half-time in particular -- should excite and thrill viewers. The only thing that came close were the fireworks. And odds are they were a lot cheaper to procure than Sir Paul. No offense.
Next.
The game itself was really not too bad, because both Bill Belichek and Andy Reid are solid, able coaches and they both are players-first types; so the resultant low-scoring first half giving way to the two coaches' adjustments wasn't a shock, and was certainly welcome. I'm surprised, however, that when the Patriots scored their second TD and I said to a friend "Watch, they'll turn on the jets now, it's over," the Eagles came back and made a game of it. I predicted the game would be a 13-point win for New England, and had those damn Eagles not gotten that last TD, the Patriots could have come back and kicked a field goal and won by -- you guessed it -- 13 points. Oh well, guess I'll go back to knocking over gas stations rather than betting.
Finally, I wound up going with a friend to a local bar other than Brother Jimmy's just to hang out and watch the game; it wasn't the same raucus, lose-your-shit-and-your-girlfriend-in-one-night kind of place that Brother Jimmy's is, but it gave us an opportunity to hang out, watch the game, watch the ads and not get hit on by some ugly girl named Reticula from the North Shore with the Brezhnev unibrow and the hairy arms. But Brother Jimmy's has somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 big-screen TVs and the place is a post-college frat party. In other words, pros and cons.
What I really notice is that there are a few holidays scattered through the calendar which invite people to get shitfaced for no other reason than it's fun: Super Bowl Sunday is one of them, inexplicably. Between that dynamic and the sheer commercialism the game has come to represent, I was put off by the fact that all I really cared about was the game, if at all. The Giants weren't playing so I was rooting against the Eagles, but the truth is I just didn't want Terrel Owens having a chance at sharing more verbal diarrhea on the podium at the 50-yard-line during the post-game. The game is increasingly about how much 30-second spots cost, not about football, and between the half-time show getting its own production credits and the remainder of the ads being largely irrelevant (could P-Diddy be a worse choice to hawk a shitty product like Diet Pepsi?), I wasn't impressed with much of anything that occurred between 6:30 and 10.
What I really think is that, from this point forward, my Super Bowl sundays will be spent with my other half with a variety of salsa, dips, finger-foods and either privacy or a place filled with friends. Next year I'll make sure to pay heed to the lesson I learned today: the Super Bowl experience has, and never will have, anything to do with anything remotely resembling football.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Super Bowl Observations, Part One
Michael Douglas paying tribute to the D-Day survivors and the efforts of Charlie Company and The Band of Brothers...former Presidents Bush and Clinton...Paul McCartney for half-time?
And the game hasn't even started yet.
One slight thing to recommend: if the government wants to make sure they get their message across to the country and the world, broadcast the President's speeches prior to the Super Bowl...it's probably the only time when the entire nation is both available and willing to sit and stare at the TV for awhile...
I'm looking forward to a lot of prurient, base, sexist, chauvinistic ads and a wardrobe malfunction for John Madden. Madden's not covering this game, so that last one's a long shot. But one can hope.
The Giants aren't playing today, so this game -- and the next four hours -- are about food, entertainment, and commercialism.
Enjoy whatever part(s) of the game you can. Incidentally...my first commercial critique: that Bud Light/parachute ad. I wouldn't jump out of my seat, let alone a plane, for a six-pack of Bud Light.
It's gonna be a long night.
And the game hasn't even started yet.
One slight thing to recommend: if the government wants to make sure they get their message across to the country and the world, broadcast the President's speeches prior to the Super Bowl...it's probably the only time when the entire nation is both available and willing to sit and stare at the TV for awhile...
I'm looking forward to a lot of prurient, base, sexist, chauvinistic ads and a wardrobe malfunction for John Madden. Madden's not covering this game, so that last one's a long shot. But one can hope.
The Giants aren't playing today, so this game -- and the next four hours -- are about food, entertainment, and commercialism.
Enjoy whatever part(s) of the game you can. Incidentally...my first commercial critique: that Bud Light/parachute ad. I wouldn't jump out of my seat, let alone a plane, for a six-pack of Bud Light.
It's gonna be a long night.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
News Bytes, Hourly Updates, and Morning Haze
The first news of the day is the non-news that, any day now, the NHL will be on semi-permanent sabbatical for a year or more. The interesting thing, to me, is the degree of apathy outside of the USA's northern neighbor. There's been virtually no reaction. The following URL is a poll of ESPN users who were asked "Do you care that the NHL is expected to cancel the 2004-05 season?" Breaking it down by vote, 3/4's of the respondants didn't care, and by state, not one managed to convince the NHL to try and eke out a settlement. Guess we're either hitting the rink and playing on Sundays on our own or buying a lot more DVD's. Or both. But one thing's for sure: any day now the announcement will come -- either that the season is called off or that a 30-game season (as opposed to a full complement of 82 games) will suffice. Much like pissing in the wind, this dispute is torturous, could have easily been avoided (see The Boogie Plan for solving this messy labor dispute, and other things, at Greed, Stupidity and A Question and An Answer) and leaves a bitter aftertaste.
If you're so inclined:
http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/story?page=nhlseasonpoll050203
The hourly update is that my parents and my grandmother are trekking later today into NYC for my dad's second visit (first for "leisure") to the City since he left Lennox Hill. Yesterday he had his first full post-home-arrival visit with the doctor and all systems are working. Like I've advised some clients, he won't be running marathons anytime soon, but the fact that he lost about 60 pounds means I'll have to pick up the pace to keep him honest. That, and we're not hitting The Palm or Peter Luger's anytime soon ;-)
The other hourly update is I'm reorganizing the entire PC, thanks to a brand-spanking new Maxtor 250GB drive, and I'm finding stuff I thought was gone long ago, and some stuff I wished was already gone...between that and upgrading the iPod I've been busy, not to mention the last week or two of 6AM to 8PM workdays. I've been running around between City agencies the last few days and I must admit, the City has some mighty ugly employees. Some resemble passable transvestites, some resemble amateur transvestites, and some resemble people who ought to consider becoming transvestites. The word of the day, boys and girls, is transvestite.
The morning is a breezy sort of white-out and I've been poking around, trying to get CD's organized and put away...having packed up a bunch, I've dug some of them out for re-ripping and some others for sale (do I really need a copy of the Bulletboys CD? One of their songs begins with the lyric "One...two...fuck...you." Ah, refreshing.)
So I came across a copy of the South Park Christmas Album (Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics), which is nearly as intellectual an excercise as the aforementioned Bulletboys CD, except the Boys of the Bullet variety seemingly take themselves seriously, which Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the duo behind South Park) do not. To wit, there's a song entitled "The Lonely Jew on Christmas" which is a duet between Kyle Broflosky, one of the show's characters, and Neil Diamond. It's a keeper. Did I mention that Mr. Hankey, the "star" of the album, is a piece of "poo" who sings Christmas carols and invokes the spirit of Christmas? Mensa members, keep out.
Finally, and on a somber note, there are reports of a variety of disturbed people out there. In Utah, a friendly-looking couple is being held on suspicion of terrorizing their five children until they are extradited back to Beverly Hills, where they live. In Huntsville, Alabama, a woman was charged with the deaths of her three children, ages 8, 9, and 11. The children never returned to school after winter vacation and police finally visited her house and found each child dead. And, to wrap up this trio, Michael Jackson is still flashing the peace sign whenever he attends his trial for child molestation.
I'm considering getting Pat Benatar on the phone to commission a new performance of "Hell Is For Children" as a thank-you for making leggings in the 80's a common sight. Maybe she can do a few public service ads and, somehow, convince parents that when they abuse and or otherwise do damage to their kids, it affects everyone who comes in contact with them down the line. It's a legacy of pain, frustration and sadness. So maybe she'll do a few PSA's...
If that were only the answer.
If you're so inclined:
http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/story?page=nhlseasonpoll050203
The hourly update is that my parents and my grandmother are trekking later today into NYC for my dad's second visit (first for "leisure") to the City since he left Lennox Hill. Yesterday he had his first full post-home-arrival visit with the doctor and all systems are working. Like I've advised some clients, he won't be running marathons anytime soon, but the fact that he lost about 60 pounds means I'll have to pick up the pace to keep him honest. That, and we're not hitting The Palm or Peter Luger's anytime soon ;-)
The other hourly update is I'm reorganizing the entire PC, thanks to a brand-spanking new Maxtor 250GB drive, and I'm finding stuff I thought was gone long ago, and some stuff I wished was already gone...between that and upgrading the iPod I've been busy, not to mention the last week or two of 6AM to 8PM workdays. I've been running around between City agencies the last few days and I must admit, the City has some mighty ugly employees. Some resemble passable transvestites, some resemble amateur transvestites, and some resemble people who ought to consider becoming transvestites. The word of the day, boys and girls, is transvestite.
The morning is a breezy sort of white-out and I've been poking around, trying to get CD's organized and put away...having packed up a bunch, I've dug some of them out for re-ripping and some others for sale (do I really need a copy of the Bulletboys CD? One of their songs begins with the lyric "One...two...fuck...you." Ah, refreshing.)
So I came across a copy of the South Park Christmas Album (Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics), which is nearly as intellectual an excercise as the aforementioned Bulletboys CD, except the Boys of the Bullet variety seemingly take themselves seriously, which Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the duo behind South Park) do not. To wit, there's a song entitled "The Lonely Jew on Christmas" which is a duet between Kyle Broflosky, one of the show's characters, and Neil Diamond. It's a keeper. Did I mention that Mr. Hankey, the "star" of the album, is a piece of "poo" who sings Christmas carols and invokes the spirit of Christmas? Mensa members, keep out.
Finally, and on a somber note, there are reports of a variety of disturbed people out there. In Utah, a friendly-looking couple is being held on suspicion of terrorizing their five children until they are extradited back to Beverly Hills, where they live. In Huntsville, Alabama, a woman was charged with the deaths of her three children, ages 8, 9, and 11. The children never returned to school after winter vacation and police finally visited her house and found each child dead. And, to wrap up this trio, Michael Jackson is still flashing the peace sign whenever he attends his trial for child molestation.
I'm considering getting Pat Benatar on the phone to commission a new performance of "Hell Is For Children" as a thank-you for making leggings in the 80's a common sight. Maybe she can do a few public service ads and, somehow, convince parents that when they abuse and or otherwise do damage to their kids, it affects everyone who comes in contact with them down the line. It's a legacy of pain, frustration and sadness. So maybe she'll do a few PSA's...
If that were only the answer.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Salem, South Dakota: Hotbed of Hamiltonian Treatises, OJ, and Tits
As I perused today's crop of potential HoB material, I came across an article regarding an interesting dispute between a businessman and the community of Salem, South Dakota. The former, Bob Rieger, attempted to open a bar some time ago in this sleepy community (all communities in South Dakota are sleepy; must be something in the air over there), but his request to obtain a liquor license was denied. So Rieger, stuck with a useless property and no way to turn a profit, did the next best thing: he turned the place into a topless juice bar.
Unfortunately, the community didn't accept his venture warmly. Instead, the community formed a 15-member group known as "Citizens Against Nude Juicebars and Pornography" (seriously, that's the name they've chosen for themselves) and have spent the past couple years trying to put Rieger's adult business out of business.
They've gone after him in court under the cover of a few different laws. One instance was the bar being physically located in an agriculture business zone; he met them in court and won. Subsequent attempts to put him out of business included passing an anti-nudity ordinance; his response was to utilize the loophole that exempted movie theaters from said ordinance, so in addition to juice and topless women, he also shows movies (adult, according to the article) and continues to operate.
Meanwhile, the CANJaP (the 15-member panel) organized demonstrations in front of his business and has, recently, begun filming people in the parking lot. One horrified member of the panel, co-founder and Salem hair salon owner Maxine Pulse, says she saw men drinking and urinating in the parking lot and dancers coming to the door nude. Personally, I'm not into seeing men drink and urinate, but the nude welcome-wagon is a nice touch; way to go, Bob.
Personally, this doesn't have the blow-up-my-skirt excitement of the Burr-Hamilton duel that took the latter's life many years ago; however, it does very closely resemble the Supreme Court case that is known as National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977). That case was based on the Nazi Party of Chicago looking to march in Skokie, Illinois, which, at the time, a majority of which was comprised of former concentration camp prisoners and their families, making the location even more morally repugnant to the inhabitants of the village. Its similarity to this situation is striking, except for the fact that the Nazis, presumably, didn't march topless.
The obvious fact is that the community doesn't want an adult-oriented business in its confines, and, based on the Supreme Court's establishment of Community Standards theory, a community does have the right to legally bar certain types of businesses from operating within its borders. However, that legal protection also applies to Rieger: he should be allowed to operate his business if it adheres to local community standards. It's the same mentality that, virtually overnight, transformed Times Square in NYC from one big pornographic hellhole into a sugary Disneyland.
So the short and long of it is it's an old-fashioned Mexican stand-off, American-style. Never mind the indelible damage kids in that community will suffer knowing some of their parents were part of a group which named itself "Citizens Against Nude Juicebars and Pornography;" never mind that that Rieger feels like they're really targeting him ("At this point, it's harassment," Rieger says. "They're really picking on me."). Never mind that the latest round of back-and-forth includes the requirement that the women working at Rieger's juice bar wear "pasties" -- which is part of the newest statute designed to limit or eliminate Rieger's business. "McCook County State's Attorney Roger Gerlach says the proposed ordinance is not an attempt to put [Rieger] out of business: 'As long as they have some opaque clothing over the crucial parts of the human body, they can dance all they want.'"
Community standards are an important part of American towns and villages policing themselves, ie insuring their communities aren't transformed from family-safe havens for bible-loving people to denizens of pornographic and vulgar behavior. So this battle of wills is, at the same time, a legitimate disagreement between two sides looking to preserve what they feel is appropriate. Reading the article at CNN.com reminded me that Alexander Hamilton's Federalist No. 10, a component of the Federalist Papers, was and is a crucial part of how we as a society function under the governance of a complex but well-thought out laws. Federalist No. 10 discussed the concept of factions, ie groups with specific interests, and advised that said factions be used to play against one another in a check-and-balance role, to establish the proper, prevailing notion of right, whether involving topless women with or without pasties, public nudity, or the proper amount of tax on British Tea being sold in and around Boston Harbor.
So while this, on the surface, appears to be another example of The Drama Americana gone awry, I was a bit taken aback by the fact that "our founding fathers" were able to create a government that foresaw squabbles like this (not necessarily pertaining to pasties, of course) and were able to form a construct that enabled the government to allow the People to find the way to solve the problem rather than to simply implement laws prohibiting or governing everything from coffee that is served too hot, women sporting pasties and serving up pomegrenate juice, or a distinctly un-American group marching to offend an entire community which, a generation prior, saw the idols of those marching murder the community's elders.
So simultaneously, it's a battle of Hamiltonian proportions, yet at the same time, it manages to include topless women wearing pasties.
Either the Founding Fathers of this nation were geniuses, or they really liked boobs.
Or both.
URL:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/02/nude.juice.bar.ap/index.html
Unfortunately, the community didn't accept his venture warmly. Instead, the community formed a 15-member group known as "Citizens Against Nude Juicebars and Pornography" (seriously, that's the name they've chosen for themselves) and have spent the past couple years trying to put Rieger's adult business out of business.
They've gone after him in court under the cover of a few different laws. One instance was the bar being physically located in an agriculture business zone; he met them in court and won. Subsequent attempts to put him out of business included passing an anti-nudity ordinance; his response was to utilize the loophole that exempted movie theaters from said ordinance, so in addition to juice and topless women, he also shows movies (adult, according to the article) and continues to operate.
Meanwhile, the CANJaP (the 15-member panel) organized demonstrations in front of his business and has, recently, begun filming people in the parking lot. One horrified member of the panel, co-founder and Salem hair salon owner Maxine Pulse, says she saw men drinking and urinating in the parking lot and dancers coming to the door nude. Personally, I'm not into seeing men drink and urinate, but the nude welcome-wagon is a nice touch; way to go, Bob.
Personally, this doesn't have the blow-up-my-skirt excitement of the Burr-Hamilton duel that took the latter's life many years ago; however, it does very closely resemble the Supreme Court case that is known as National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977). That case was based on the Nazi Party of Chicago looking to march in Skokie, Illinois, which, at the time, a majority of which was comprised of former concentration camp prisoners and their families, making the location even more morally repugnant to the inhabitants of the village. Its similarity to this situation is striking, except for the fact that the Nazis, presumably, didn't march topless.
The obvious fact is that the community doesn't want an adult-oriented business in its confines, and, based on the Supreme Court's establishment of Community Standards theory, a community does have the right to legally bar certain types of businesses from operating within its borders. However, that legal protection also applies to Rieger: he should be allowed to operate his business if it adheres to local community standards. It's the same mentality that, virtually overnight, transformed Times Square in NYC from one big pornographic hellhole into a sugary Disneyland.
So the short and long of it is it's an old-fashioned Mexican stand-off, American-style. Never mind the indelible damage kids in that community will suffer knowing some of their parents were part of a group which named itself "Citizens Against Nude Juicebars and Pornography;" never mind that that Rieger feels like they're really targeting him ("At this point, it's harassment," Rieger says. "They're really picking on me."). Never mind that the latest round of back-and-forth includes the requirement that the women working at Rieger's juice bar wear "pasties" -- which is part of the newest statute designed to limit or eliminate Rieger's business. "McCook County State's Attorney Roger Gerlach says the proposed ordinance is not an attempt to put [Rieger] out of business: 'As long as they have some opaque clothing over the crucial parts of the human body, they can dance all they want.'"
Community standards are an important part of American towns and villages policing themselves, ie insuring their communities aren't transformed from family-safe havens for bible-loving people to denizens of pornographic and vulgar behavior. So this battle of wills is, at the same time, a legitimate disagreement between two sides looking to preserve what they feel is appropriate. Reading the article at CNN.com reminded me that Alexander Hamilton's Federalist No. 10, a component of the Federalist Papers, was and is a crucial part of how we as a society function under the governance of a complex but well-thought out laws. Federalist No. 10 discussed the concept of factions, ie groups with specific interests, and advised that said factions be used to play against one another in a check-and-balance role, to establish the proper, prevailing notion of right, whether involving topless women with or without pasties, public nudity, or the proper amount of tax on British Tea being sold in and around Boston Harbor.
So while this, on the surface, appears to be another example of The Drama Americana gone awry, I was a bit taken aback by the fact that "our founding fathers" were able to create a government that foresaw squabbles like this (not necessarily pertaining to pasties, of course) and were able to form a construct that enabled the government to allow the People to find the way to solve the problem rather than to simply implement laws prohibiting or governing everything from coffee that is served too hot, women sporting pasties and serving up pomegrenate juice, or a distinctly un-American group marching to offend an entire community which, a generation prior, saw the idols of those marching murder the community's elders.
So simultaneously, it's a battle of Hamiltonian proportions, yet at the same time, it manages to include topless women wearing pasties.
Either the Founding Fathers of this nation were geniuses, or they really liked boobs.
Or both.
URL:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/02/nude.juice.bar.ap/index.html
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
171 Days
So this morning was special...after 171 days, my dad ventured back into the office :-)
His last trip to the office, on August 16th, was short-lived, as it turned out he was having a severe heart attack that had started a day or two prior. The archive of this site has the background story if you haven't gone through it yet, but all that is in the past, as we drove him into the office today and he actually spent a good deal of time here. It's after four on the east coast, and I think he left about 3:30PM, so all in all, about six or seven hours of work.
The significance of him coming back to the office wasn't lost on me: I've been thinking about today for quite some time. However, his return was a result of our scheduling a major meeting with a client of ours in which he needed to be involved, so I wasn't sure how much of him we'd have (ie 50%, 60%, etc.). He really did well, and wasn't too wiped from the emotion of the day, at least for him. My sister was weepy on several occasions, more though from all the people in the building -- the staff, our neighbors, people nearby, the inhabitants of one of our partners on another floor in this building -- stopping by to say hello and to welcome him back and to let him know he was missed. I know what it's like being on the receiving end of that attention, for better or worse, although his absence was for much longer and under much more grave, unknown circumstances. And so I found myself watching and just taking the moment in, despite having a half-dozen major deadlines tomorrow and Friday. It's something, this experience: it humbles you, it makes you sad, it ages you and it makes you appreciate the things you have in your life. And it reminds you that life is too short to keep cancers in your life. Lesson learned.
Since I'm under pressure, I'll make the remainder of this post brief: however, that isn't to say that less-than-usual has been transpiring in the grey matter between my ears (then again, isn't to say there's been more, or, frankly, any, either). So without further ado, here's a bunch of observations I've been shaping into little balls of clay to be borne herein or elsewhere at a later date:
How many Law and Order and CSI shows can they show on TV at any given time? There's CSI, CSI Miami, Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order SUV (for folks who like their shows big and inefficient on gas), Law and Order Re-Runs First Run (TNT), Raw and Board Her (for folks into porn movies), and then there's The Practice, Boston Something-Or-Other, and some show featuring the magic of Doug Henning. There really is way too much on TV for me to handle.
Speaking of TV, I'm at a dangerous crossroads: I need more South Park in my diet, but I don't have the inclination to watch new episodes because most of the newer ones I've managed to see are fairly stupid as compared to the older ones, but I am too busy to be bothered breaking out the DVD's and firing up the first few seasons. And since I'm in the middle of a PC-wide migration, I have no idea where I stashed the mpg versions of the best episodes. And sure as shit, by the time I find them I'll already be back watching hockey -- live from Moscow at 7:30AM.
Because there is absolutely no way there will be hockey this year (watch, just my writing this will virtually guarantee that they'll find a way to bridge the gap and everyone can go home happy, except for me by putting this thought to...um...paper).
There will likely be no hockey this year and it's kinda possible that next year is a wash too. The players don't understand that there is so much distance in the budgets of teams that the richest teams (hello, New York Rangers) are signing players to three-year deals that are more lucrative than some teams' annual payrolls. To wit, Kevin Lowe, who is a former Ranger and currently the General Manager of the Edmonton Oilers (Edmonton, in Canadia), recently was quoted as saying that if the season was somehow salvaged without a salary cap ("cost certainty" is the league's euphemism for same), he would advise the owner of the team to suspend operations until the finances could be reworked. In other words, he suggested the team temporarily fold. The Oilers are the team which berthed Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey and a slew of other legends. The fact that the team might have to fold -- temporarily or otherwise -- suggests how fucked up the finances are. It also suggests the players have no clue what is happening, or they don't believe it. Well fellas...when a team goes out of business because it's losing too much money, perhaps then you'll awaken from your "we'll take a paycut" mantra and get your heads out of your asses so there can be hockey yet again in North America, aside, of course, from SkyRink (GO GENERALS!). I've had a half-dozen calls from former teammates of mine, and each of them has suggested or asked about the possibility of there being no more NHL. And while we sit and ponder this issue, it occurs to me that no one really seems to care, except for folks that own (or are employed by) Labatt's, Molson and other beer manufacturers; owners of bars, pubs and sports-themed restaurants; and defense attorneys. WooooHooooo.
You don't see much of Howie Mandell anymore; same with Yahoo Serious and Carrot Top. I'm not complaining -- I just noted a trend: douchebags are no longer en vogue. Let's call Pauly Shore and make it a foursome ;-)
Possibly separated at birth: Michael (Fahrenheit 9/11) Moore and Peter (Lord of the Rings) Jackson. Both of these guys are well-known (not using the word 'famous') directors and both have the personal hygiene of a three-toed sloth with a drooling problem. They show up at awards shows stuffed into tuxes they forgot to return to the rental place 20 years ago, when they were half the men they are today (literally). Neither seems to have mastered the art of shaving (their faces, anyway) and both have flouted the typical Hollywood aesthetic to try and look semi-presentable in public. Boy, two famous directors, two guys you'll never see in the low-fat section of the market, and two guys who make George Michael look properly shaved. At once. As Henry Silva once quipped: Bullshit or not? You be the judge.
As my other half recently discovered, the new camera-phones are wonderful items, unless, of course, you want to take a quality piCture with one. Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and all the other handset makers -- take note. We are not satisfied with the grainy, washed-out colors in those cheapo 1.3 megapixel tic-tac cameras stuffed onto the edge of a cell phone. I need a cam-phone that can take a decent picture in low light, say, in the back room at a party or in the back seat of a cab, without anyone noticing, despite their close proximity to me or other party-goers...and then I need to enlarge it so I can save it on my Palm for later, discreet, viewing ;-)
Two very odd things I overheard today:
"Don't ask for whom the work-bell tolls...it tolls for thee, Fred Flinstone."
"Tomorrow's another day, but tonight's TONIGHT."
Finally:
Today was, and will always remain, a good day.
His last trip to the office, on August 16th, was short-lived, as it turned out he was having a severe heart attack that had started a day or two prior. The archive of this site has the background story if you haven't gone through it yet, but all that is in the past, as we drove him into the office today and he actually spent a good deal of time here. It's after four on the east coast, and I think he left about 3:30PM, so all in all, about six or seven hours of work.
The significance of him coming back to the office wasn't lost on me: I've been thinking about today for quite some time. However, his return was a result of our scheduling a major meeting with a client of ours in which he needed to be involved, so I wasn't sure how much of him we'd have (ie 50%, 60%, etc.). He really did well, and wasn't too wiped from the emotion of the day, at least for him. My sister was weepy on several occasions, more though from all the people in the building -- the staff, our neighbors, people nearby, the inhabitants of one of our partners on another floor in this building -- stopping by to say hello and to welcome him back and to let him know he was missed. I know what it's like being on the receiving end of that attention, for better or worse, although his absence was for much longer and under much more grave, unknown circumstances. And so I found myself watching and just taking the moment in, despite having a half-dozen major deadlines tomorrow and Friday. It's something, this experience: it humbles you, it makes you sad, it ages you and it makes you appreciate the things you have in your life. And it reminds you that life is too short to keep cancers in your life. Lesson learned.
Since I'm under pressure, I'll make the remainder of this post brief: however, that isn't to say that less-than-usual has been transpiring in the grey matter between my ears (then again, isn't to say there's been more, or, frankly, any, either). So without further ado, here's a bunch of observations I've been shaping into little balls of clay to be borne herein or elsewhere at a later date:
How many Law and Order and CSI shows can they show on TV at any given time? There's CSI, CSI Miami, Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order SUV (for folks who like their shows big and inefficient on gas), Law and Order Re-Runs First Run (TNT), Raw and Board Her (for folks into porn movies), and then there's The Practice, Boston Something-Or-Other, and some show featuring the magic of Doug Henning. There really is way too much on TV for me to handle.
Speaking of TV, I'm at a dangerous crossroads: I need more South Park in my diet, but I don't have the inclination to watch new episodes because most of the newer ones I've managed to see are fairly stupid as compared to the older ones, but I am too busy to be bothered breaking out the DVD's and firing up the first few seasons. And since I'm in the middle of a PC-wide migration, I have no idea where I stashed the mpg versions of the best episodes. And sure as shit, by the time I find them I'll already be back watching hockey -- live from Moscow at 7:30AM.
Because there is absolutely no way there will be hockey this year (watch, just my writing this will virtually guarantee that they'll find a way to bridge the gap and everyone can go home happy, except for me by putting this thought to...um...paper).
There will likely be no hockey this year and it's kinda possible that next year is a wash too. The players don't understand that there is so much distance in the budgets of teams that the richest teams (hello, New York Rangers) are signing players to three-year deals that are more lucrative than some teams' annual payrolls. To wit, Kevin Lowe, who is a former Ranger and currently the General Manager of the Edmonton Oilers (Edmonton, in Canadia), recently was quoted as saying that if the season was somehow salvaged without a salary cap ("cost certainty" is the league's euphemism for same), he would advise the owner of the team to suspend operations until the finances could be reworked. In other words, he suggested the team temporarily fold. The Oilers are the team which berthed Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey and a slew of other legends. The fact that the team might have to fold -- temporarily or otherwise -- suggests how fucked up the finances are. It also suggests the players have no clue what is happening, or they don't believe it. Well fellas...when a team goes out of business because it's losing too much money, perhaps then you'll awaken from your "we'll take a paycut" mantra and get your heads out of your asses so there can be hockey yet again in North America, aside, of course, from SkyRink (GO GENERALS!). I've had a half-dozen calls from former teammates of mine, and each of them has suggested or asked about the possibility of there being no more NHL. And while we sit and ponder this issue, it occurs to me that no one really seems to care, except for folks that own (or are employed by) Labatt's, Molson and other beer manufacturers; owners of bars, pubs and sports-themed restaurants; and defense attorneys. WooooHooooo.
You don't see much of Howie Mandell anymore; same with Yahoo Serious and Carrot Top. I'm not complaining -- I just noted a trend: douchebags are no longer en vogue. Let's call Pauly Shore and make it a foursome ;-)
Possibly separated at birth: Michael (Fahrenheit 9/11) Moore and Peter (Lord of the Rings) Jackson. Both of these guys are well-known (not using the word 'famous') directors and both have the personal hygiene of a three-toed sloth with a drooling problem. They show up at awards shows stuffed into tuxes they forgot to return to the rental place 20 years ago, when they were half the men they are today (literally). Neither seems to have mastered the art of shaving (their faces, anyway) and both have flouted the typical Hollywood aesthetic to try and look semi-presentable in public. Boy, two famous directors, two guys you'll never see in the low-fat section of the market, and two guys who make George Michael look properly shaved. At once. As Henry Silva once quipped: Bullshit or not? You be the judge.
As my other half recently discovered, the new camera-phones are wonderful items, unless, of course, you want to take a quality piCture with one. Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and all the other handset makers -- take note. We are not satisfied with the grainy, washed-out colors in those cheapo 1.3 megapixel tic-tac cameras stuffed onto the edge of a cell phone. I need a cam-phone that can take a decent picture in low light, say, in the back room at a party or in the back seat of a cab, without anyone noticing, despite their close proximity to me or other party-goers...and then I need to enlarge it so I can save it on my Palm for later, discreet, viewing ;-)
Two very odd things I overheard today:
"Don't ask for whom the work-bell tolls...it tolls for thee, Fred Flinstone."
"Tomorrow's another day, but tonight's TONIGHT."
Finally:
Today was, and will always remain, a good day.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
More Paper, More Evidence, More Fun
What could be better than lots of pressure, lots of work, lots of paperwork to review and working 'til you fall asleep at your desk? If you said doing all that plus fighting 10-degree weather and an oncoming cold, you win a door prize. Although if you wanted a door, chances are you'd have visited www.homedepot.com or www.weselldoorsandstuff.com. Or www.amazon.com -- they have everything.
Today I was at a client's office waiting to review some papers with her, and the TV in the reception area was showing CNN. They were broadcasting live video of Michael Jackson arriving for his trial, and -- I think -- the commencement of jury selection. I'm not sure why this shocks me, but I don't understand why CNN, or anyone else, is broadcasting this crap. On top of that, I don't quite understand why anyone really wants to even see any of it -- much like the trials of OJ Simpson and Scott Peterson, I don't really get the fascination, especially considering that so many people made a point of watching the entire thing -- either/or or both -- and yet find a way to bitch unmercifully when they get that little card in the mail advising them they've been selected for jury duty. Granted, most of us will probably wind up serving on a jury hearing the case of of some semi-manic guy who stole two packs of Wrigleys, a box of condoms and an In Style magazine by stuffing said items up his ass -- far from the gravitational pull of a Neverland Molestation case -- but is there really that much of a difference?
It shocks me that we as a culture are still enthralled and entranced by celebrity to the degree we are. Robert Blake, aka Beretta, is on trial for shooting his wife after he tried -- unsuccessfully -- to hire a hitman or two to do the job. Michael Jackson is on trial for god only knows what, although I'm sure molestation and being a serious pervert are definitely on that menu. And then there's the ever-popular stories of athletes -- Michael Irvin spending some quality time with a mound of cocaine and several hookers, Ray Lewis being acquitted of being involved in a murder a few years ago, hockey player Mike Danton conspiring to have his agent killed, Jamal Lewis going to jail for his part in a coke deal gone wrong...it just never ends. People in the limelight, thankfully, do stupid things and, more often than not, someone catches it and turns up the heat. And lest we forget the freakshow that is Leona Helmsley.
So why is the Michael Jackson saga so highly covered by the media? Obviously they think it's significant news. Yet today being the second anniversary of the death of the seven astronauts in the shuttle Columbia got thirty seconds, and the he-she sort-of-human rape shield law in leather pants got over five minutes. It's astounding. The nicest part is they always manage to show video of Michael flashing the 'peace' sign to the crowd; that always makes me laugh. His handlers must have a set strategy.
"Okay, now, Mike, they have video of you taking Little Billy's little willy out on camera, but if you just flash a peace sign to all seven of your remaining fans, maybe the court of public opinion will think you're a decent guy, despite your proclivity to be with small white boys and paying millions of dollars for the privilege. So make sure you flash that damn peace sign every time you get out of the SUV before going into the Court. And for god's sake, don't offer to kiss any babies."
We all know he's guilty, and all you need to do is review his albums for evidentiary support thereof. Some of his early songs are questionable: "In Our Small Way," "We've Got A Good Thing Going (so don't tell your parents)," "You Can Cry On My Shoulder (and then take off your clothes)" and his long-time hit, "Ben" (which was originally entitled "Ben Dover" but they changed it to be on the safe side).
The real sickness came out in 1979, when he recorded "Off The Wall." Some of the titles of those songs are very telling: "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," "Get On the Floor" and "I Can't Help It" would worry me if I were his lead defense counsel. Then, in 1982, Thriller came out, and the inner perv did as well: "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" and the damning "Beat It" just add to the unfortunate debacle.
But 1987's "Bad" really hits home. Aside from the title track, he showed his true inner self with "The Way You Make Me Feel (When We Sleep in the Same Bunk)," "Just Good Friends (That's What You Tell Your Parents)," "(Touch) Another Part Of Me," "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," "Smooth Criminal" and finally, his ode to the US Judiciary, "Leave Me Alone."
In 1991, Jackson released "Dangerous," which featured more disturbing songs, including "(Tastes Like) Jam," "In The Closet," "Give In To Me" and "Gone Too Soon." Had parents known this was the man conducting sleep-overs, I think they would have thought twice prior to dropping their kids off.
There are a variety of other indications that something is not quite right in Neverland -- Mr. Jackson's constantly-evolving facial features, his pale-white, mime-esque skin tone, or perhaps his "someone's squeezing my testicles with a fishing wrench" voice -- but sure enough, the most damning evidence is his own catalog of music which plainly predicts his disturbing extra-curricular activities.
I will note this now: it is possible -- a long-shot, perhaps, but possible nonetheless -- that Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart and Jamal Lewis could all be in prison at the same time. And that could make one hell of a reality show. I think I'd call it "The Surreal Life Part II: 3-5 With Time Served." America would eat it up.
But I wouldn't watch it.
Today I was at a client's office waiting to review some papers with her, and the TV in the reception area was showing CNN. They were broadcasting live video of Michael Jackson arriving for his trial, and -- I think -- the commencement of jury selection. I'm not sure why this shocks me, but I don't understand why CNN, or anyone else, is broadcasting this crap. On top of that, I don't quite understand why anyone really wants to even see any of it -- much like the trials of OJ Simpson and Scott Peterson, I don't really get the fascination, especially considering that so many people made a point of watching the entire thing -- either/or or both -- and yet find a way to bitch unmercifully when they get that little card in the mail advising them they've been selected for jury duty. Granted, most of us will probably wind up serving on a jury hearing the case of of some semi-manic guy who stole two packs of Wrigleys, a box of condoms and an In Style magazine by stuffing said items up his ass -- far from the gravitational pull of a Neverland Molestation case -- but is there really that much of a difference?
It shocks me that we as a culture are still enthralled and entranced by celebrity to the degree we are. Robert Blake, aka Beretta, is on trial for shooting his wife after he tried -- unsuccessfully -- to hire a hitman or two to do the job. Michael Jackson is on trial for god only knows what, although I'm sure molestation and being a serious pervert are definitely on that menu. And then there's the ever-popular stories of athletes -- Michael Irvin spending some quality time with a mound of cocaine and several hookers, Ray Lewis being acquitted of being involved in a murder a few years ago, hockey player Mike Danton conspiring to have his agent killed, Jamal Lewis going to jail for his part in a coke deal gone wrong...it just never ends. People in the limelight, thankfully, do stupid things and, more often than not, someone catches it and turns up the heat. And lest we forget the freakshow that is Leona Helmsley.
So why is the Michael Jackson saga so highly covered by the media? Obviously they think it's significant news. Yet today being the second anniversary of the death of the seven astronauts in the shuttle Columbia got thirty seconds, and the he-she sort-of-human rape shield law in leather pants got over five minutes. It's astounding. The nicest part is they always manage to show video of Michael flashing the 'peace' sign to the crowd; that always makes me laugh. His handlers must have a set strategy.
"Okay, now, Mike, they have video of you taking Little Billy's little willy out on camera, but if you just flash a peace sign to all seven of your remaining fans, maybe the court of public opinion will think you're a decent guy, despite your proclivity to be with small white boys and paying millions of dollars for the privilege. So make sure you flash that damn peace sign every time you get out of the SUV before going into the Court. And for god's sake, don't offer to kiss any babies."
We all know he's guilty, and all you need to do is review his albums for evidentiary support thereof. Some of his early songs are questionable: "In Our Small Way," "We've Got A Good Thing Going (so don't tell your parents)," "You Can Cry On My Shoulder (and then take off your clothes)" and his long-time hit, "Ben" (which was originally entitled "Ben Dover" but they changed it to be on the safe side).
The real sickness came out in 1979, when he recorded "Off The Wall." Some of the titles of those songs are very telling: "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," "Get On the Floor" and "I Can't Help It" would worry me if I were his lead defense counsel. Then, in 1982, Thriller came out, and the inner perv did as well: "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" and the damning "Beat It" just add to the unfortunate debacle.
But 1987's "Bad" really hits home. Aside from the title track, he showed his true inner self with "The Way You Make Me Feel (When We Sleep in the Same Bunk)," "Just Good Friends (That's What You Tell Your Parents)," "(Touch) Another Part Of Me," "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," "Smooth Criminal" and finally, his ode to the US Judiciary, "Leave Me Alone."
In 1991, Jackson released "Dangerous," which featured more disturbing songs, including "(Tastes Like) Jam," "In The Closet," "Give In To Me" and "Gone Too Soon." Had parents known this was the man conducting sleep-overs, I think they would have thought twice prior to dropping their kids off.
There are a variety of other indications that something is not quite right in Neverland -- Mr. Jackson's constantly-evolving facial features, his pale-white, mime-esque skin tone, or perhaps his "someone's squeezing my testicles with a fishing wrench" voice -- but sure enough, the most damning evidence is his own catalog of music which plainly predicts his disturbing extra-curricular activities.
I will note this now: it is possible -- a long-shot, perhaps, but possible nonetheless -- that Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart and Jamal Lewis could all be in prison at the same time. And that could make one hell of a reality show. I think I'd call it "The Surreal Life Part II: 3-5 With Time Served." America would eat it up.
But I wouldn't watch it.
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