September 30, 2003

LIVE FROM GAME ONE: This

LIVE FROM GAME ONE: This afternoon I attended the Minnesota Twins' 4-1 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 1 of their American League Division Series at Yankee Stadium. For this Twins fan to go to this particular game practically required mountains to be moved, but move them I did, and I was able to enjoy and savor a memorable Twins victory. Here, from beginning to end, is the story:
- I found out from a friend with tickets that going was a possibility a few days before, right around the time it became clear that the dream of this Twins-fan-in-New-York-exile was going to come true, and a Twins-Yanks playoff series was actually going to happen. But this was when I assumed that baseball would put New York, baseball's #1 market, in the prime time slot on Tuesday. I assumed wrong, as Evil Bud and his minions instead conferred that honor upon the Cubs and Braves. The Twins' Game 1 start? 1 PM.
- So I swung into gear: I switched my shift at the news service where I work to the morning, and on Monday night spent two hours taking a train across two states (to Stamford, Connecticut) to pick up the tickets from my friend's mother. I lined up another Yankee-fan friend to go with me, and I was set.
- We arrived at the Stadium at a little after 1 today after we were stuck on the 4 train for nearly 10 minutes, getting to our seats in the bottom of the first, missing only Rudy Giuiliani throwing out the first pitch to Yogi Berra.
- We sat literally in the back seat of Yankee Stadium's bleacher section, the cheapest seats in the park, yet certainly an "alive" atmosphere, and a much better seat than my living room couch- and since we were at the back, no one could see me cheering when the Twins scored or got a third out. I decided against wearing any type of Twins jersey/hat/other insignias; Yankee fans have the annoying habit of pointing out fans in opposing team gear, screaming "asshole! asshole! asshole!," and encouraging those around them to do the same. One guy tried to start a "Red Sox Suck" chant, apparently unaware of who exactly the Yankees were playing today; at a July game two years ago my friend and I, wearing Twins and Red Sox hats, were both accosted even though the Yanks' opponents that day were the Mariners.
-Yankee fans may not be as downright hostile as the Philly faithful, or angry as Boston fans, but don't ever doubt their passion. Though I suppose I shouldn't have had anything to fear; on Monday night my two British co-workers regaled me with tales of their bouts with soccer hooligans, who make the craziest East Coast baseball fans look like pussycats. And besides- the Yankees, in what some at the time called a classist move, banned the sale of beer in the bleacher section three years ago.
- I did, however, wear my vintage 1987 Twins championship ring, that I got for free at a game the following year. Not wearing any Twins gear, though, sort of felt like going to synagogue without a yamacha or talice, although the three teenagers sitting in front of us were in fact wearing yamachas and tzitzit along with their Yankee shirts.
- All in all, I like Yankee Stadium. I call it my fifth-favorite ballpark in America, after Wrigley, Fenway, Camden Yards, and Skippy Field.
- Things moved along for the first few innings, until a disturbance in the force coming out of the fourth: Johan Santana left the game with a leg spasm, and was replaced by Rick Reed. The Twins' bullpen was directly in front of where I was sitting, and the reaction of most Yankee fans, who remembered Reed's very checkered Mets career, was laughter as opposed to booing. But Reed got the job done, as did J.C. Romero, and later LaTroy Hawkins.
- I called my dad at the office in the 5th inning, and he said his entire law firm had been sitting together in a conference room watching the game since the beginning- the loss of productivity from people attending the games or watching them in bars or at work is another excellent argument against 1:00 starts for postseason games.
- Just horrible defense all around by the Yankees, including the double-error play that led to a pseudo-inside-the-park homer by Torii Hunter, the kind of play that used to happen regularly in my Little League games at the aforementioned Skippy Field. After Hunter's play, I had the following exchange with the guy sitting next to me:
Guy: Who just got that hit?
Me: Torii Hunter.
Guy: Damn.
Me: Don't worry, he'll be a Yankee in three years.
Guy: Yea, him and Piazza.
My friend Peter: Yea, and Pedro too.
- To his credit, Yankees' PA announcer Bob Sheppard managed to correctly pronounce Doug Mientkiewicz's name all four times that he came to the plate.
- In the ninth inning, of course, "Everyday" Eddie Guardado just had to give us all a heart attack again, just like in Game 5 last year in Oakland. But once again, after giving up a run, Eddie settled down and got three outs, aided by an awesome Shannon Stewart catch. Twins lead series 1-0, will have two home games, and now hold home field advantage in the Series. Oh yea, and the Yankees' 13-game winning streak against the Twins? History.
-Wonderful New York Times headline: "Twins Have a Field Day With Yankees' Imperfections." Makes the Twins sound like a manipulative boyfriend or something.
- Game 2 is Thursday night, also at the Stadium, but I'll be watching from home this time. It's all right though- great to make it up to the Bronx for a game, wonderful to see the Twinkies pull out a win, and good to escape the Stadium without anyone accosting me for being a Twins fan.

UPDATE: Welcome, TwinsGeeks! Check back again throughout the post-season for more on Twins' 2003 championship drive.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:28 PM | Comments (0)

I CLAIM THIS BLOG IN

I CLAIM THIS BLOG IN THE NAME OF...: For awhile this morning some Christian website broke one of the Ten Commandments (the one about not stealing) and briefly took over this blog. Not sure how they did it, but order has been restored. Don't worry folks; I'm still Jewish.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

THE OTHER UNDERDOGS: Here's a

THE OTHER UNDERDOGS: Here's a great Michael Wilbon column about his beloved Cubbies. Can they make it to the Series for the first time in decades? I sure hope so.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 08:55 AM | Comments (0)

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU TRADE JAY BUHNER FOR?": In an interview in the Strib with "close personal friend" Sid Hartman, George Steinbrenner- the man who has benefited more than any other from baseball's Reaganomics-like financial structure, refers to baseball's new labor agreement as "communistic." Easy for him to say; he's Stalin.
Funny that for such an anti-communist, Steinbrenner never hesitated to send former Assistant to the Traveling Secretary George Costanza to a Communist country (Cuba) to recruit players.
Oh well, not as much of a sin as going to Yankee Stadium and rooting for the opposing team...

Posted by Stephen Silver at 06:11 AM | Comments (0)

PLAY BALL: After a trip

PLAY BALL: After a trip to Connecticut tonight (don't ask) to pick up tickets, I will indeed be attending tomorrow afternoon's Game 1 between the Twins and Yankees at Yankee Stadium. I'll be back Tuesday night with reports both here and at TwinsGeek.com, so check both out. In the meantime:




WIN TWINS!

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)

MANUEL NO LONGER LABORS: Two

MANUEL NO LONGER LABORS: Two major league baseball managers were fired today: the Chicago White Sox' Jerry Manuel and the Baltimore Orioles' Mike "The Human Rain Delay" Hargrove. Not fired? Detroit manager Alan Trammell, who will apparently keep his job even though his team finished a mere 76 games under .500. Contrast that with the Yankees' Joe Torre, who despite four championships may very well get the pink slip if he doesn't win a fifth this year.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2003

LUCKY BLOGGY: After not updating

LUCKY BLOGGY: After not updating her excellent "NYC Anti-Hipster Forum" blog for nearly two months, blogger Aimee Plumley found herself quoted and the blog mentioned Sunday in the New York Times. The Times, in its latest valentine to hipster/"blue collar chic" pseudo-culture, mentioned Plumley in counterpoint to the loathsome Vice magazine editor Gavin McInnes.
Aimee's blog is awesome, I grant you, but I update my blog diligently, every day. Where's my love from the Times?

UPDATE: McInnes isn't really "loathsome"- he was just kidding!

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)

YET ANOTHER CELEBRITY DEATH: Encyclopedia

YET ANOTHER CELEBRITY DEATH: Encyclopedia Brown, RIP. Why, if it weren't for him, I'd still have no idea how to spell "encyclopedia."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Hoboken

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Hoboken is the kind of place where, on a Friday night, if you walk down Washington Street, you are bombarded with the mating rituals of early 20-somethings who are drunk. Girls who all look alike (like all the girls on "The Bachelor") strutting down the street in their regulation-black, all shrieking on their cell phones, saying things like, "Well, we waited for you at the Black Bear … where ARE you?" In grating voices, where everything, even statements of fact, come out as questions." -Sheila O'Malley, reflecting on Hoboken then and now on the occasion of Kazan's death.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

PLAYOFFS!: This post is not

PLAYOFFS!: This post is not about Jim Mora, although I must register my disappointment that Mora was not mentioned on tonight's telecast of the game between his two former teams- nor was a montage of Mora press conference meltdowns shown on SportsCenter.
But I digress. The 2003 Major League Baseball playoffs begin on Tuesday, and the first game is the opener of the Twins-Yankees David and Goliath matchup at Yankee Stadium, followed by Braves-Cubs that night, and Red Sox-A's and Giants-Marlins the following day.
I will of course root for the Twins 'til the end, though I am also very excited about the possible advancement of both the Red Sox and the Cubs. In Boston-Oakland, someone has to be the first "sabermetric team" to win a playoff series, and I very much hope the Cubs crush the loathsome Atlanta Braves like a bug. Indeed, a World Series between Boston and Chicago would be, to quote "Back to the Future," a paradox- one of those things that can destroy the universe. And even if the Twins lose, we'll either be treated to another Yankees-A's clash, or (perhaps best of all) a repeat of '99's great Yankees-Sox ALCS.
I am both rooting for and predicting first-round playoff victories by the Twins, Red Sox, Cubs, and Giants, and with the exception of Giants-Marlins, all four will go the full five games.
That's all I've got to say for now, except- how 'bout those Minnesota Vikings? 4-0!

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:10 AM | Comments (0)

CHUTZPAH AWARD NOMINEE: The Detroit

CHUTZPAH AWARD NOMINEE: The Detroit Tigers and their fans today celebrated raucously after they won the last game of the season to avoid tying the 1962 New York Mets for the most losses in baseball history. "Woo hoo! We only lost 119 games!"

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:53 AM | Comments (0)

ELIA KAZAN, 1909-2003: One of

ELIA KAZAN, 1909-2003: One of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century is dead, as Elia Kazan passed away Sunday at the age of 94.
Kazan won two Acadamy Awards each (for Picture and Director), for "Gentlemen's Agreement" (1947) and "On the Waterfront" (1954), and his other classic films included "East of Eden," and "Splendor in the Grass." Kazan was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1999, which was highly controversial because in 1952, the formerly Communist director had gone before the House Un-American Activities Committee and named names of several of his former colleagues.
I went on record at the time as saying that I didn't feel the congressional testimony of nearly a half-century before should've precluded Kazan from receiving an award that recognized his work, and I still feel that way now. Kazan was a repentent former Communist who had seen the error of his ways, and saw it fit to expose those who he felt had betrayed his country. And had he not named those names- names that HUAC already had- Kazan's career likely would've ended on the spot, and the world never would have been exposed to several of his films, including 'Waterfront.'
Kazan's death is the third in as many days (after those of Robert Palmer and George Plimpton) that upsets me exponentially more than that of Edward Said. In Plimpton's case, I made sure to check each obit to see if it mentioned Plimpton's role in the famous Sidd Finch hoax; shame on them if they didn't.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)

CELEBRITY DEATHS COME IN 27s:

CELEBRITY DEATHS COME IN 27s: Is it just me, or has 2003 been one of the biggest years of all time for celebrity passings? Mr. Rogers, Bob Hope, Katherine Hepburn, Strom Thurmond, Nell Carter, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Miss Elizabeth, David Brinkley, Gregory Peck, Leon Uris, Hume Cronyn, Buddy Hackett, Barry White, Idi Amin, John Schlesinger, Charles Bronson, Leni Riefenstahl, John Ritter, Johnny Cash, Gordon Jump, Said, Plimpton, Palmer, Kazan, and (best of all) Uday and Quesay Hussein. And there's three months to go.
Now perhaps, as each of us gets older and more aware of the world, it just seems like more people we've heard of have died. But even so, 2003's just been one big celebrity death-o-rama.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2003

BURN YOUR SIDDUR AWARD NOMINEE:

BURN YOUR SIDDUR AWARD NOMINEE: "...we chose Clinton and got an undermining of liberal thinking by the person who supposedly represented that thinking.' This subversion laid the foundation for Dubya. By electing a Democrat like Clark or Dean, who are really 'moderate Republicans,' Lerner says, we may be 'creating someone even worse than Bush.'"-Lefty rabbi and Tikkun Magazine editor Michael Lerner, quoted by Richard Goldstein, in (where else?) the Village Voice. Howard Dean is a "moderate Republican"? In Lerner's world, who's a liberal Democrat, Hugo Chavez?

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)

September 27, 2003

5764: Happy New Year to

5764: Happy New Year to all Jews on Rosh Hashanah. And whether you're Jewish or not, take the time to listen to/download Phish's cover of "Avenu Malkeinu." You won't regret it.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:12 AM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2003

CRYSTAL CLEAR: It was announced

CRYSTAL CLEAR: It was announced Wednesday that Weekly Standard publisher and arch-neoconservative Bill Kristol will host the Academy Awards in March. The Academy clearly felt that after Michael Moore and others spent much of last year's Oscars slamming the Iraq war, it might be an interesting change of pace to name Kristol, one of the principal architects of that war, host for the 2004 edition.
In addition to his career as a writer and pundit, Kristol is also an accomplished actor, comedian, and song-and-dance man who starred as gay son Jody Dallas on the hit '70s sitcom "Soap," wowed audiences with a popular Sammy Davis, Jr. impersonation on "Saturday Night Live," and later starred in several popular movies. Kristol's appearances in the hit movie "City Slickers" and its sequel, "City Slickers 2: the Legend of Curly's Gold," were bisected by his stint as chief of staff for Vice President Dan Quayle from 1989-1993; after the box office failure of his 1992 directorial debut, "Mr. Saturday Night," Kristol co-founded the Weekly Standard in 1995, later taking time out to back John McCain's presidential campaign and to direct the well-received HBO baseball drama "61*."
Kristol is believed to be the first openly Republican Oscar host since the late Bob Hope in 1979.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)

NEWS ITEM: Starbucks to Open

NEWS ITEM: Starbucks to Open First Store in France. Because if the French had had access to Frappuccinos six months ago, then maybe all those old people would still be alive.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:15 PM | Comments (0)

TWINS POST OF THE DAY:

TWINS POST OF THE DAY: How many playoff victories are required to win a championship in baseball? 11. How many games in a row have the Twins won? 11. If only the Yankees were as beatable as the SNA Detroit Tigers. (Thanks to Isaac, who discovered this).

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)

SAID DEAD: Palestinian intellectual Edward

SAID DEAD: Palestinian intellectual Edward Said has died at the age of 67.
If you can't say something nice...

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:13 PM | Comments (0)

METRO MAUREEN: Is it Maureen

METRO MAUREEN: Is it Maureen Dowd's plan to spend the next year taking turns referring to different male politicians as "metrosexuals"? Today it's Ah-nuld's turn.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:13 PM | Comments (0)

SEPARATED AT BIRTH: I don't

SEPARATED AT BIRTH: I don't normally condone "Lord of the Rings"-based political analogies, since you can pretty much shoehorn anything you want into that paradigm, but MY GOD this is brilliant.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)

REGIME CHANGE ON "THE WEST

REGIME CHANGE ON "THE WEST WING": My take on the challenge facing the show- and its lackluster season premiere- is online at Blogcritics.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:28 AM | Comments (0)

FREE DMB: Wednesday's issue of

FREE DMB: Wednesday's issue of the New York Post was nothing more than one long paid advertisement for AOL, and its alleged free concert by the Dave Matthews Band that took place tonight in Central Park. The Post was distributed freely in the entire metro area, AOL's logo appeared throughout (including on the front and back pages), and the entire middle section of the paper was taken up by a "special advertising section" for the show, quite obviously prepared by Post writers who have never listened to Dave in their lives.
Like the fraudulant MTV/Radiohead and Tribeca Film Festival/Norah Jones concerts earlier this year, the AOL/DMB shindig was advertised as a "free concert," implying that anyone who wanted to could show up and enjoy it, in the tradition of the famous 1981 "Concert in the Park" by Simon and Garfunkel that was attended by a half-million people. But with DMB, the only way people could get tickets was either by winning blind drawings, having them handed off by "street teams," or buying VIP packages for $250- and the lopsided supply/demand ratio of course led to frenzied bidding on Craigslist, with bids starting at $100/ticket. The concert was for "a good cause"- the New York public schools- but the money came not from ticket sales (which were "free") but rather a donation by AOL, as well as the band themselves. If it's "free," and the sponsor is kicking in the money anyway, why not just let people in first-come, first-serve?
Speaking of Dave, I picked up his solo debut yesterday. The usual Dave album, minus the band of course, with 3 or 4 near-brilliant songs, 1 or 2 horrid ones (featuring unlistenable pseudo-gospel), and the rest somewhere in the middle, leading toward good. But I agree with one thing that I've seen in nearly every review of "Some Devil": Dave's use of "ring around the rosey" as the chorus of "Gravedigger" is so cringe-inducing that it ruins an otherwise great song- and it's so weak that he includes it on the album twice. I kept waiting for Matthews to emulate "The Joe Schmo Show" and follow "ashes to ashes" with "you're dead to us now."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)

AL GETS SCREWED AGAIN: According

AL GETS SCREWED AGAIN: According to the Post's Keith Kelly, the business of porn pioneer Al Goldstein is on the brink of collapse. Goldstein, who narrowly escaped prison last year and has several defamation lawsuits pending against him, has suspended production of Screw magazine after being evicted from his offices due to non-payment of $40,000 of rent, and his legendary cable-access show "Midnight Blue" has been yanked from the air 'cause Al didn't pay Time Warner Cable either. And apparently, Goldstein's sideline business of selling personalized "fuck you" tapes for $250 a pop wasn't working out either. Too bad; I was planning to get one for this guy for his upcoming birthday.
Although Goldstein has been arrested on obsenity charges dozens of times in different states and is considered a heroic figure in the "porn community," the pron game appears to have passed him by, as mainstream culture is now just as raunchy and over-the-top as Screw used to be.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:39 AM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2003

CENTRAL CHAMPS!: Congratulations to the

CENTRAL CHAMPS!:

Congratulations to the Minnesota Twins, 2003 American League Central Division champions. The Twins beat Cleveland and the White Sox and Royals both lost (the latter to the Tigers!) to reduce both magic numbers to zero and make Magic Number Guy a very happy man. Though on second thought, I suppose it also means the end of his season.
At any rate, as the Twins prepare for a David-and-Goliath first-round struggle with the Yankees, they can be proud to be 2-for-2 in division titles since the contraction crisis of 2001. Suck on that, Selig.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:37 AM | Comments (0)

MADE IN MANHATTAN: The annual

MADE IN MANHATTAN: The annual New York Press Best of Manhattan issue came out today, the first of Jeff Koyen's tenure as editor, and the first featuring content by yours truly. I contributed three pieces, though nothng is bylined and everything gets the "editorial we." Also, check out the front cover: perched on the two 0s in "2003" are a cigarette-smoking Mayor Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton, clutching a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:29 AM | Comments (0)

"GOD AS MY WITNESS, I

"GOD AS MY WITNESS, I THOUGHT TURKEYS COULD FLY": Actor Gordon Jump died Monday at the age of 71. Jump was best known for three roles: the station manager on "WKRP in the Cincinnati" who said the famous above line; the perpetually un-busy Maytag repairman in a decades-long series of ads; and perhaps most notoriously, a man who attempted to molest Arnold and Dudley on an infamous episode of "Diff'rent Strokes."
Now that the California recall is back on, expect Jump's death to lead to a groundswell of support that sweeps his old co-star, Gary Coleman, into the governor's mansion. Then again, maybe not.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)

WORST REFERRAL EVER: Appearing in

WORST REFERRAL EVER: Appearing in my referral logs today? Something called, that's right, Pedophile.com. Risking the wrath of Ashcroft, I clicked over, only to find that it's a search engine, advertising "the best family links on the web." Might be time for a name change, guys. Ugh.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:10 AM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2003

A NEW LOW AT RUTGERS:

A NEW LOW AT RUTGERS: It was bad enough when the anti-Israel fanatics at Rutgers University were merely throwing pies at Israeli politicians, or extolling the virtues of Soviet Bolshevism to the New York Times. Those things, loathsome as they were, could at least be laughed off as stupid kids doing stupid things. But something happened over the weekend at the New Brunswick campus that wasn't funny at all, and plunged what's going on at Rutgers to a nadir- two university buildings were spraypainted with swastikas.
Now it may have just been some local troublemakers who decided to spraypaint the campus' Hillel House and AEpi fraternity with Nazi symbols just for kicks. But coming just two days after an NJ Solidarity member threw a pie at Natan Sharansky, and knowing their track record, can we really put it past the "Solidarity" jackasses to do such a thing? With their calls that Israel has "no right to exist," the physical attack on Sharansky (something not even Hamas has ever tried), their proposal to bring Hamas members to campus, and now the swastikas, it's almost as though some anti-Semitic element (whether Solidarity or someone else) is trying to start a parallel intifada, right in Central New Jersey.
President Richard McCormick, at least, has been on the right side of this. While most college presidents are prostrate before the false God of PC, McCormick has taken a principled stand; if there was any doubt that the revocation of Solidarity's conference permit was the right thing to do, this weekend's events removed it.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:17 AM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2003

I WAS TRYING TO DO

I WAS TRYING TO DO TO HER WHAT BUSH HAS BEEN DOING TO THE COUNTRY FOR THE LAST FOUR YEARS: In honor of the new Woody Allen film "Anything Else," here's an oldie but goody, from "Annie Hall":

New York, Jewish, Left-Wing, Liberal, Intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, Socialist summer camps, and the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right? Really, you know, strike-oriented, kind of Red-...stop me! Before I make a complete imbecile of myself.

Note that other than "Jewish," "Brandeis," and the summer camps, every one of those applies to Howard Dean*. Maybe during the next debate the ghost of Marshall McLuhan will pop up and tell John Kerry, "you know nothing of my work!"

*Though Dr. Dean's wife is Jewish, and come to think of it, he has never denied that he went to Workmen's Circle camps. Hmm…

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The life of a repo man is intense. Sorry, i mean, a journalist." –My co-worker, today.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)

DETROIT SUCK CITY: On Sunday

DETROIT SUCK CITY: On Sunday Minnesota beat Detroit in too different sports, baseball and football, as the Twins defeated the Tigers for their ninth straight win and dropped their magic number to 2, while the Vikings beat the Lions to go to 3-0.
The win puts the Twins on track to clinch a playoff berth at home for the first time in franchise history, while the Vikings now have a two-game lead in the NFC North (Norris) Division. Daunte Culpepper got hurt, but Gus Frerotte of all people came off the bench and kicked ass. All in all, he's a much better backup QB than accused hot-tub rapist Todd Bouman.
So we may actually have all four local sports teams in the playoffs in the same year- go Minny!

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)

SORRY, NO ACCOUNT: You may

SORRY, NO ACCOUNT: You may have noticed the other day that I referred to the team the Twins just swept as "the sorry, no-account Detroit Tigers." I use this phrase in homage to one of my favorite sportswriters, Michael Wilbon, who regularly says it on PTI and in his Washington Post column. Indeed, a Googling of the phrase turns up three different Wilbon columns, just on the first page.
While Wilbon usually says it in reference to the Cubs, Bears, Bulls, and even some teams not from his native Chicago like the Bengals, I suppose the modifier can also be used in reference to music ("the sorry, no account Backstreet Boys"), politics ("the sorry, no account Democratic presidential field"), or even romance ("my sorry, no account ex-girlfriend.")
But what does it mean, literally? I guess that the team sucks so much that they're not credit-worthy, so when they go to the bank to the loan officer gives them the bad news: "sorry, no account."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:52 PM | Comments (0)

CAMP CLASSICS, CONT'D: Our latest

CAMP CLASSICS, CONT'D: Our latest camp memory, or I should say our latest lesson in abject cruelty, is the famous "Never See Your Friends Again!" song. Picture it: the last day of camp, everyone's sad and hugging their friends goodbye and getting ready to get on the bus, when some asshole (or some group of assholes), starts singing, usually to the tune of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," or the William Tell Overture,

Never See Your Friends Again/ Never See Your Friends Again/ Never See Your Friends Again/ Never See Your Friends Again/ Never Never Never Never Never See Your Friends Again/ Never Never Never Never Never See Your Friends Again/

You get the idea. I once heard a version, with three-part harmony, to the tune of the famous "Lo Yarieau/Lo Yisa Goy" round.
And here's a 21st century update!

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:50 PM | Comments (0)

WRONG WING: I didn't watch

WRONG WING: I didn't watch much of the Emmys last night, but did watch enough to catch the outrage of "The West Wing" once again winning Best Dramatic Series, defeating (among others) "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under." Now granted, 'Sopranos' didn't have its best-ever year, but neither did "West Wing"- in fact, 'Wing' has gotten worse every year it's been on the air. Try watching the first-season reruns on Bravo every night, then the current stuff- it's a joke. At any rate, the award represented a last hurrah for its erstwhile creator, the original Coked-up Werewolf, Aaron Sorkin.
Even worse, "Six Feet Under"'s amazing third season garnered exactly zero awards. Where's the recognition for Peter Krause? Frances Conroy? And don't get me started on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" losing Best Comedy Series to "Everybody Loves Raymond." Ugh.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:45 PM | Comments (0)

DOWN WITH METROSEXUALS: ESPN.com's token

DOWN WITH METROSEXUALS: ESPN.com's token female, Stacey Pressman, on why real women think the whole metrosexual thing is bullshit. A woman after my own heart (possibly literally!) Money graf:

Metrosexuality might be the most all-encompassing lifestyle ideal -- clothes, food, decor, music -- since the punk era. The irony is that this lifestyle transformation has the exact opposite aesthetic appeal that punk does. Like punk, I'm hoping it lasts for a couple of Halloweens and then goes away.
Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:43 PM | Comments (0)

HULK HOGAN VS. "THE ENTIRE

HULK HOGAN VS. "THE ENTIRE CUBAN ARMY":


Hey, remember "Thunder in Paradise"? Wrestlecrap.com sure does!

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2003

MORE ADMIRABLE MATURITY AND RESTRAINT

MORE ADMIRABLE MATURITY AND RESTRAINT FROM THE RUTGERS ANTI-SEMITES: Immediately prior to Israeli cabinet member Natan Sharansky's scheduled speech at Rutgers University Thursday night, one of those anti-Israel "activists" we've heard so much about got up and threw a pie at Sharansky. The assailant, an undergraduate by the name of Abe Greenhouse, was immediately arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Greenhouse, according to the Israeli Insider newsletter, previously appeared in the news when he visited Jerusalem and spoke of placing a note in the Western Wall that read "stop the motherfucking occupation," which is wrong on so many levels it's hard to count.
What hypocrites these people are. The Rutgers "activists" are pushing right now, on "free speech" grounds, to get their canceled conference reinstated, but when the man who heroically stood up to Soviet Communist tyranny on behalf of Jewish refugees- at the price of imprisonment- got up to give a speech to 500 students, was he allowed his right to free speech? Oh no! He got a pie in the face! Way to elevate the debate, guys.
Sharansky, to his credit, returned a few minutes later and gave his speech as scheduled. The topic? "A Jewish perspective of the road to peace."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:47 AM | Comments (0)

CLINCH TIME: After sweeping the

CLINCH TIME: After sweeping the Chicago White Sox and then beating Detroit tonight for consecutive win number 7, the Minnesota Twins lead the AL Central by 3.5 games, with a magic number of 6 heading into Saturday's games. Oh yea, and six of the Twins' eight remaining games are against the sorry, no-account Detroit Tigers. If the Tigers lose five of the six, they will tie the legendary 1962 New York Mets for the worst record in baseball history. The Twins even have their answer to the Rally Monkey: the Magic Number Guy.
With the Twins likely to win the Central and the Red Sox pulling ahead in the wild card race, the American League playoff picture is becoming clearer: if the season ended today the Division Series would pit Oakland against Boston in one matchup, and the Twins against the Yankees in the other. And while I'm excited about the sabermetric-wet-dream of an A's-Sox clash, a Twins-Yankees playoff series is honestly something I've dreamed of ever since I moved to New York. If I can't get tickets to the games at the Stadium I'll go to all five at local bars, dressed head to toe in Twins regalia. The Twins would be underdogs, sure- especially since, as Gleeman points out, they have the glorious record of 0-13 vs. the Yanks in the last two years, and haven't beaten the Bronx Bombers since May of 2001. But they'd have 99% of the country rooting for them, and there would be nothing quite like the Twinkies winning in the playoffs against a team with three times their payroll.
Last year the Twins clinched the division on Rosh Hashanah; this year they'll likely get it done with three or four days to spare.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:13 AM | Comments (0)

POLITICAL BASEBALL: Democratic presidential front-runners

POLITICAL BASEBALL: Democratic presidential front-runners Howard Dean and John Kerry are in a good old-fashioned row about, that's right, baseball. The Boston Herald has the story about how the Democratic presidential contest could conceivably turn on the candidates' baseball cheering proclivities.
Kerry is a lifelong Massachusetts resident and therefore a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, but Dean is a bit more controversial: a New York native who grew up rooting for the Yankees, Dean moved to Vermont in 1978 and now considers it an "insult" to be called a Yankee fan. The state Dean governed is squarely part of Red Sox Nation, as is the first primary state, New Hampshire, so which team the candidate cheers for clearly matters.
But Dean also recently commented that he turned against the Yankees "when (Roger) Clemens beaned (New York Met) Mike Piazza, that was it." But that happened in 2000, more than two decades after Dean left New York. The discrepancy has the Kerry campaign screaming "flip flop!" and Dean taking offense; I personally don't know if I believe Dean. Being the year of the Bucky Dent game, 1978 was sort of a weird time for someone to switch from the Yankees to the Red Sox, and if Dean were a true Bosox booster, the Piazza beaning alone wouldn't have served to turn him against Clemens; Roger's departure from Boston in '96- and his decision to join the Yankees the year before the beaning- had already made him persona non grata (if not the anti-Christ) in Red Sox Nation.
Now such an issue doesn't seem so important on the New York side- after all, Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate from New York despite her dubious claims of lifelong Yankee fandom, and Michael Bloomberg won election to the mayoralty of New York City even though the Massachusetts native was up front about his lifelong love for the Red Sox. But New England is New England; until the Red Sox win a World Series, a Yankee fan running for office in the area might as well be running as a Communist.
This brings up the larger question, one I've raised before, of how any political liberal can justify rooting for the Yankees, the richest and greediest team in a league whose economic structure is sports' answer to Reaganomics. It would appear to make more sense for political progressives to root for the underdog Red Sox, though this year the Sox have a payroll of well over $100 million, good for the third-highest in baseball. My guess is that Dean really doesn't follow baseball at all, and was merely trying to do some easy pandering that backfired.
On the other hand, everyone in Boston thought for years that John Kerry was Irish, and he turned out not to be. Are we sure he really likes the Red Sox?

WHICH IS MORE LIKELY: A Red Sox championship in '03, or a Democratic victory in '04?

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:20 AM | Comments (0)

D-O-SINGLE-G: This blog's official Favorite

D-O-SINGLE-G: This blog's official Favorite Conan O'Brien Character, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, will finally release his long-awaited debut album , "Come Poop With Me," on October 7, according to MTV.
Originally titled "Songs in the Key of Poop" (Stevie Wonder probably sued; imagine trying to explain Triumph to a blind man), the album will likely feature songs the dog has performed before (such as "Underage Bichon") and will include guest appearances by Adam Sandler, Jack Black, Horatio Sanz, Subway's Jared Fogel, and Conan himself. I smell Grammy!

ONE MORE THING: The Conan 10th Anniversary Special was classic, of course, but I was perplexed by the inclusion of the character of Vomiting Kermit, an actual Kermit the Frog puppet who perpetually, uh, vomits. How the hell they managed to get permission from the Jim Henson people, I'll never know.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)

September 19, 2003

HELLO, DALAI: His Holiness the

HELLO, DALAI: His Holiness the Dalai Lama will appear in New York over the weekend, and it was almost shocking how little hype his visit is receiving, compared to his previous New York appearance back in '99.
Indeed, the Free Tibet cause (one which I support) has appreciably nosedived down the list of trendy lefty causes, what with the War on the War on Terror, the anti-Ashcroft stuff, anti-globalization, and all the other new stuff that's emerged in the last few years. The only cause that's suffered more was "Free Mumia," not that I mind.
Anyway, the Dalai Lama recently made some surprising comments, including expressing the belief that it's sometimes necessary to use violence to fight terrorism, and he was non-committal when asked whether or not he opposed the war in Iraq. Perhaps next he'll come around to realizing that after more than 40 years of futile non-violent direct action of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, maybe "passive resistance" isn't such a neat idea after all.
Meanwhile, Patrick French has a great op-ed in the New York Times about how Americans love to use the Dalai Lama to back up whatever their political beliefs are, often with no real understanding of his teachings at all. The practitioners of that weird "JewBu" fad come to mind first.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)

EX-SPIERS: In a bit of

EX-SPIERS: In a bit of news certain to gladden the heart of anyone with the career plan of parlaying their blog into a real-life journalism career, Gawker writer/editor Elizabeth Spiers has accepted a job as a writer with New York Magazine.
After eight months of running the blog that nearly overnight became a must-read for the Manhattan media elite, it was only a matter of time before the pride of Wetumpka, Alabama jumped to the dead-tree media. Hopefully Elizabeth didn't burn too many bridges in her time skewering celebs/hipsters at Gawker- and I'm also hoping she finds time to keep up the Christopher Hitchens Drinking Club.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)

ROCKED YOU LIKE A HURRICANE:

ROCKED YOU LIKE A HURRICANE: Hurricane Isabel's run is over, leaving 4 million people without power and 21 people dead, in addition to a flooded city of Baltimore. New York, however, remained largely unaffected, aside from some pretty heavy wind (a mighty wind?) last night and this morning.
Gregg Easterbrook's TNR blog (likely to be recycled in TMQ Tuesday) yesterday attacked the hurricane coverage, calling it "Category Two Storm, Category Five Hype." And while Isabel did manage to cause quite a bit of damage, there's no question it got more hype than past hurricanes that hit rural Florida, Louisiana, and other such places. Why's that? Three words people: East. Coast. Bias.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)

THREE QUOTES IN ONE PIECE

THREE QUOTES IN ONE PIECE I: From James Wolcott's piece on "MSNBC's Fox Hunt" in the October Vanity Fair (not online):
1. "Like Rush Limbaugh, [Michael Savage] thinks 'global warming' is a lot of hooey, and his anti-Arab sneers are indistinguishable from those of Ann Coulter, who appears frequently enough on MSNBC to warrant her own dressing room and bikini-waxer."
2. "[Joe] Scarborough acknowledges the copycat comparisons, informing the New York Observer that MSNBC staffers call him 'The Little O'Reilly.' Perhaps they do, one blogger joked, in the sense that Elvis spoke of his penis as 'Little Elvis.'"
3. "The production values of 'Savage Nation' were on par with Al Goldstein's 'Midnight Blue'- its film clips just as moldy too."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:23 AM | Comments (0)

THREE QUOTES IN ONE PIECE

THREE QUOTES IN ONE PIECE II: Matt Taibbi, in New York Sports Express, in a piece called "Jets Suck, Will Get Worse, Prepare For Loss":
1. "I think I'm just not even going to address the Miami game. It's sort of like sitting through your uncle's trial for flashing and child rape. We all saw what happened, and I don't think it really helps to discuss it out loud."
2. "And Ted Washington's ass, which Ted Johnson before the season said was 'big enough to show a movie on,' was indeed showing 'Ghost Dad' and 'Crossing Delancey' throughout most of the game."
3. "I will eat my own feces if Curtis Conway scores on Ty Law."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:18 AM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2003

HATE TO SAY I TOLD

HATE TO SAY I TOLD YOU SO: Forward editor J.J. Goldberg writes in a Times op-ed that the Jewish Population Survey numbers were phony- and the authors knew it. See, I told you not to believe that stuff...

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:55 AM | Comments (0)

HERE COMES THE STORY OF

HERE COMES THE STORY OF THE HURRICANE: Hurricane Isabel, which due to work I knew about two weeks ago, is scheduled to reach the Northeastern United States as soon as Friday. As if terrorism and blackouts weren't enough, now it's time for another calamity- one that I hope doesn't prevent my planned weekend trip to Philadelphia.
The process of naming hurricanes is goofy enough as it is, but one funny thing about Isabel is that as a six-letter word that starts with "Is" and ends with "el," I keep mis-reading it as "Israel." Which has led to some headlines that are just two letters away from an anti-Zionist wet dream:
"New York area expected to escape brunt of Israel" (New York Times)
"Washington shutting down in advance of Israel" (Reuters)
"Region braces for whatever Israel may bring" (Philadelphia Daily News)
"Israel shuts down US government" (News.au, Australia)
"Region warned to get prepared for Israel's arrival" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
"Bracing for Israel's blow" (Washington Times)

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:14 AM | Comments (0)

THE LARRY SANDERS CURSE: Warren

THE LARRY SANDERS CURSE: Warren Zevon and John Ritter both died last week; ten years ago this week (9/15/'93), both Zevon and Ritter guest-starred on the same episode of "The Larry Sanders Show." Also on that show was the just-as-deceased Gene Siskel, and Chris Farley made an appearance two weeks later.
I'd be nervous if I were current "West Wing" actor Joshua Malina, who appeared on the 9/15 episode as well.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:49 AM | Comments (0)

ANCHORS AWAY: ESPN is running

ANCHORS AWAY: ESPN is running a contest in which laymen will vie for the chance to become the network's newest SportsCenter anchor. Applying MTV's "Who Wants to Be a VJ" formula to serious sports journalism, the "worldwide leader" will conduct open tryouts in several major cities, and no broadcasting experience is required.
Because as we know, this same idea had great results when it was called "Project Greenlight."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:12 AM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2003

I CAN FEEL IT COMING

I CAN FEEL IT COMING BACK AGAIN: Especially after last night's big win:

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

.ivanC1063798562841{position:absolute;visibility:hidden;}Free Web poll for your

Posted by Stephen Silver at 07:34 AM | Comments (0)

655 AND COUNTING: Barry Bonds

655 AND COUNTING: Barry Bonds on Monday hit his 655th career home run, putting him exactly 100 behind Hank Aaron's record of 755, which has stood since Aaron retired in 1975. And after hitting 656 tonight, Barry is 4 away from tying his godfather, Willie Mays, for third all time.
Can Bonds catch Aaron? Bonds will turn 40 later this year, but until now he has somehow both gotten better with age and avoided injury; if he can keep that up for another 2-3 years, he's got it. He'll almost certainly reach 700 in 2004, and likely tie Babe Ruth's 714 in '04 or early '05; if he catches Aaron that'll likely happen in late '05. Can he do it? I'd peg his chances at about 50/50.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 07:15 AM | Comments (0)

ABC (ANOTHER BAD COMMERCIAL): It's

ABC (ANOTHER BAD COMMERCIAL): It's not quite as shameful as the Madden/Outback travesty, but a TV ad I saw tonight nonetheless still has me shaking my head hours later.
In the ad, actor Gordon Clapp (Det. Medavoy on "NYPD Blue") is shown arriving on set and crossing paths with an attractive young woman. As Clapp arrives all of the cameras, microphones and other electronic devices suddenly begin emitting a pronounced feedback noise, until the actor reaches into his breast pocket, pulls out a small recording device, and proclaims, "I've been bugged!" Then, the attractive woman to whom he'd spoken disappears- she was, it turns out, an undercover reporter for TV Guide, and we're supposed to think "ah, TV Guide, they've got the inside scoop all my favorite shows!"
The spot is in jest, of course, but from it we're supposed to draw four conclusions, all of which are false: 1) that TV Guide is known for their journalistic standards/for breaking stories (in fact, it's known for neither), 2) that TV Guide regularly uses the practice of planting clandestine recording devices on the sets of TV shows and/or the actors themselves (they don't, at least I hope not), 3) that such a practice is journalistically acceptable/ethical (it isn't, of course), and 4) that if TV Guide ever did engage in such a practice, they'd be good at it (judging by the feedback noise and Clapp's quick discovery before the scene even begins filming, they're not).
So essentially, the message conveyed by TV Guide with the ad is: "Subscribe to TV Guide, because not only do we commit illegal, unethical acts of journalistic misconduct, but we fail at them too!"

Posted by Stephen Silver at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2003

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "With

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "With the Howard Dean bandwagon rumbling toward carrying two, three or perhaps even four states in the 2004 election, everybody wants on board." -Gregg Easterbrook, who begins his latest Tuesday Morning Quarterback column with a large section lifted from his new TNR blog.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: From

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: From the Washington Post: "Delay Has Voters Feeling Queasy." That's the California recall delay, not Tom DeLay, although I'd imagine he makes quite a few voters queasy himself.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 08:18 AM | Comments (0)

SUMMER GAMES, CONT'D: In the

SUMMER GAMES, CONT'D: In the tradition of Skee-ball and Ga-Ga, I give you the volleyball derivative known as "Nuke 'em." When I went to camp Nuke 'em was always considered a kinder, gentler, form of volleyball or dodgeball, one for the younger kids not yet ready to play the more "grown up" sports. Though now that I think about it, I never understood how the "kinder, gentler" part dovetailed with the game being called "Nuke 'em."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 07:34 AM | Comments (1)

WE'RE #1: The Twins beat

WE'RE #1: The Twins beat Cleveland last night to take over sole possession of first place in the AL Central for the first time since June 30. Don't be surprised if they keep it.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 06:11 AM | Comments (0)

PATRIOT MISSILES: Tonight I attended

PATRIOT MISSILES: Tonight I attended a very interesting event, a symposium on the Patriot Act and other anti-terrorism legislation at the downtown New School (in the same auditorium as the famous Andrew Sullivan-Richard Goldstein smackdown of last year).
The intellectual star power was almost overwhelming- the panel included author Kurt Vonnegut, Harpers editor Lewis Lapham, Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff, author and CourtTV founder Steven Brill, ACLU head Nadine Strossen, and New York Sun Managing Editor Ira Stoll. I was also pleasantly surprised at the tone of the discussion: while I was expecting a nonstop Bush- and America-bashfest, the conversation remained civil while not in lockstep, nobody (unlike those idiots in Union Square the other week) called America a "police state," and only Lapham referred to the Bush Administration as "fascist."
The occasion of the panel was the 9/11 anniversary, as well as the release of Hentoff's new book on "The War on the Bill of Rights." Hentoff spoke first, and while I sometimes disagree with him, I acknowledge that he is one of the bravest and most admirable reporters in the country, and was greatly interested in what he had to say. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about Vonnegut: senility clearly seems to have set in for the 81-year-old novelist. Bearing a remarkable resemblance to like-minded Brandeis professor Gordon Fellman, Vonnegut rambled for ten minutes about Bush liking to dress up and pretend he's in a movie, spoke the absurdly incorrect statement that Iraq is "the worst strain American soldiers have ever been subjected to," said Bush is "at war with all of the Arabs," and then launched into a bizarre tangent about the Democrats being the "party of perversion," not even mentioning the Patriot Act or civil liberties at any point in his comments. Vonnegut, apparently realizing he'd bit off more than he could chew in agreeing to take part, didn't speak again for the remainder of the evening, except to say "I should've been in the audience." Maybe he should stick to fiction.
Token conservative Stoll, who used to write the anti-NYT SmarterTimes.com blog, filled the Alan Colmes role, as the spokesman for the minority viewpoint who was essentially set up to fail. But Stoll didn't help himself, stumbling through his opening statement, offering no original or substantive commentary whatsoever, and essentially punting whenever another panelist challenged or asked him a question. Every third word out of Stoll's mouth was "um"- if this guy can be the #2 editor of a daily newspaper in America's largest city, then I suddenly feel a lot better about my long-term career prospects.
The most impressive of the panelists was Brill, the founder of Brill's Content and author of "After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era," whose role was to act as an all-purpose bullshit detector for both sides of the debate. Brill pretty much articulated my own position: The Patriot Act itself has gotten a bum rap because it is essentially innocuous, and the majority of the "new" powers therein merely consolodated those that already existed. However, Brill argued, the real complaint civil libertarians should have with John Ashcroft's post-9/11 policies is his imprisoning of "enemy combatants," as well as the dragnet that resulted in hundreds of Muslims being detained. Brill, a lawyer by trade, also handled himself impeccably in the debate portion, having to argue the pro-Bush side at times because Stoll was napping.
The ACLU's Strossen was surprisingly pragmatic and sensible, but a few things she said stuck out: she argued that anti-terrorism measures as a rule "cannot be effective," (to which Brill retorted that they have been and inevitably will continue to be). Then Strossen spoke of having attended an ACLU leadership meeting at a coffeeshop in Washington on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, to discuss a response to whatever the Bush Administration's response would be. Remember that afternoon? Could you have imagined sitting down at that moment to plot strategy?
But most outrageous of all was Harpers' Lapham. One of those old liberals who has been turned by the events of the last two years into a stammering nutjob, Lapham went off on a long rant that was full of wacky statements- he ran through a laundry list of usual talking points about the "Bush-Ashcroft Administration," stating that they hate the American people, and are "more scared of American democracy than they are of the Jihadists," before predicting that one day the Wall Street Journal will praise Bush for his "fascist regime" (?)
In the panel discussion portion of the evening, Lapham was at it again: he referred to the War on Terrorism as "an elective war," which practically had me on my feet ready to take him on, and later stated that he doesn't understand why Al-Qaeda poses any more of a nuclear threat to the US than the Soviet Union did when, as any college freshman in Intro to International Relations could've told him, Al-Qaeda is a greater threat because, as terrorists who value martyrdom, the Cold War-era doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doesn't apply to them should they acquire nuclear weapons. Not to mention that Al-Qaeda has mounted an attack on the continental US, something the Soviet Union never did. Even Hentoff, a well-credentialed man of the left and perhaps America's foremost civil libertarian, acknowledged that we're in a war with barbarians whose goal is to destroy civilization- a fact apparently lost on Lapham, who seems to think Bush is the true barbarian.
The moderator, Brian Lehrer, noted before the program that this event took place before an audience in Greenwich Village, where by survey not a single audience member either supported the Patriot Act or had voted for George W. Bush. But Lehrer also told of another poll, by Gallup, which stated that 50% of Americans think the Patriot Act is just right, 22% think it goes too far, and 21% don't think it goes far enough. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, but keep one thing in mind: in a country with no rights or liberties, such a panel would of course never be possible.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)

HE DOESN'T LOVE FOOTBALL ON

HE DOESN'T LOVE FOOTBALL ON TV: The New York Post's perpetually pissed-off sports-TV critic Phil Mushnick has written the inevitable slam of John Madden's paralyzed-player-eats-Outback commercial, only about a week after I did. But then Mushnick follows that with about ten more things about the week in TV sports that he feels like bitching about; the headline, "Tasteless, Vulgar, and Everywhere," could've gone with any Mushnick column from the last five years. And watch him go apoplectic tomorrow about Monday Night Football having ended at 1:00 AM.
I think we can say at this point that sports have passed Phil Mushnick by, and his various beefs are less constructive criticism than pure hatred- Phil doesn't appear to have actually enjoyed sports in at least a decade. How about handing the critic's job over to someone who actually likes sports?

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:52 AM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2003

THAT CRAZY, CRAZY NEW YORK

THAT CRAZY, CRAZY NEW YORK TIMES: Front-page headline this morning: "Poorer Countries Pull Out of Talks Over World Trade." By World Trade, they mean "as in World Trade Organization [WTO]." But did the NYT editors not stop to think that, especially this week, when most readers see the words "World Trade," the first word in their mind afterwards is "Center"?

Posted by Stephen Silver at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)

ESOTERIC WEBSITE OF THE DAY:

ESOTERIC WEBSITE OF THE DAY: We already talked about Skee-Ball and Ga-Ga, but here comes a website devoted to another great summer sport- Capture the Flag! Though come to think of it, I think I remember, one day, my high school cross-country team playing a game of CTF, after hours, at school.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 08:05 AM | Comments (0)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Bill

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Bill Maher, on the Jewish population survey, as well as the claim by a Middle Eastern government that Barbie is a "Jewish doll."

New rule: Jewish people have to start fucking. The Jewish population in America dropped 5% in the last ten years, which may explain why this country's finances have gone to shit. Breed you sons of Abraham, breed! Without Jews, who's going to write all those sitcoms about blacks and Hispanics? Oh, and new rule: Barbie is a shiksa.
Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:37 AM | Comments (0)

FOR NEWMIE: Twins shortstop Cristian

FOR NEWMIE: Twins shortstop Cristian Guzman, half of what Aaron Gleeman calls the "Offensive and Defensive Abyss," on Saturday hit his first home run of the season after 500 at bats, the longest homer-less streak in baseball this season.
Guzman's homer could have been construed as a tribute to Twins third base coach Al Newman, who was hospitalized over the weekend after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Newman, when he played for the Twins from 1987-1991, did not hit a single home run, and finished his 7-year baseball career with more World Series rings (2) than homers (1, which he hit as an Expo in '85). We know Newman wouldn't want the Twins' current shortstop befallen by a similar fate- so knowing that Guzman hit the homer, for Newmie.
The Twins, meanwhile, won again on Sunday, yet remain tied for first place with the White Sox. Considering that all but three of their remaining games are against the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians, the Twins will have to blow it very badly in order to avoid winning the AL Central.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2003

KEEP RUTGERS TERROR-FREE: The Rutgers

KEEP RUTGERS TERROR-FREE: The Rutgers University anti-Israel conference scheduled for next month is officially off, after the national Palestinian "solidarity" movement decided in August to move it to Ohio State. Now, Rutgers has canceled what was left of the conference- much to the disdain of our friend Little Red Kaffiyah Hood.
Ms. Kates, the woman who has both called for Israel to be wiped off the map and entertained the idea of inviting Hamas members to campus, has written a public letter asking supporters to complain to university president Richard L. McCormick, who had the effrontery to call off the conference and openly give his support to a concurrent pro-Israel rally, called "Israel Inspires." The latter event will feature such speakers as arch-neocon Richard Perle, Clinton-era CIA director James Woolsey, and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky. Charlotte must really be angry about that last participant- not only does Sharansky represent Israel, but he was previously a dissident against her beloved Soviet Union.
The letter, of course, makes no mention of the decision by Kates' comrades to pull the national conference out of New Jersey, and dishonestly acts as though her plans were ruined by the Rutgers administration only. Kudos to McCormick for taking the right stand and not caving in to the usual college-president gutlessness; send him an e-mail here and tell him so.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)

MONKEYPORN: According to the New

MONKEYPORN: According to the New York Post, the latest must-have video is "Call of the Wild: Sex in the Animal Kingdom," a 60-minute anthology of various animals gettin' it on it with one another. The twist? The video was directed by Mel Stuart, who also made one of the most beloved childrens' films of all time, "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." The question of how the 75-year-old auteur went from that to animal porn in 30 years remains unanswered, as does that of whether or not the video features any Oompa-Loompa lovin'.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2003

A TALE OF TWO JOHNS:

A TALE OF TWO JOHNS: In the biggest day for simultaneous, unrelated celebrity deaths since Sammy Davis, Jr., and Jim Henson both bought the farm on May 16, 1990, country legend Johnny Cash and sitcom mainstay John Ritter passed away within a few hours of one another this morning.
Ritter's death is unquestionably the bigger shock, as the actor was only 54. The best thing I ever heard said about John Ritter (and I don't remember who said it) is that he took one of the stupidest shows of all time, "Three's Company," and made it consistantly hilarious. In Jack Tripper, Ritter created a character as iconic as any in sitcom history, one that made us forgive the show's often lame and always repetitive nature- when for a time I had two female roommates, I never minded being called "Jack Tripper."
Ritter went on to a semi-successful post-'Company' career, later starring in the underrated cop show "Hooperman" as well as in movies, his most memorable big-screen role being as the sensitive gay man with the funny haircut in Billy Bob Thornton's 1996 "Sling Blade." At the time of his death Ritter was starring in the sitcom "8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter." John Ritter will be missed, and I don't think I'm alone in the Blogosphere in wishing that it had been Saddam apologist Scott Ritter who died, not John.
I confess that I only became familiar with Johnny Cash's work in the last year or two, but the man was clearly a great performer, as well as a brilliant songwriter (if you don't believe me, go read the lyrics to "One Piece at a Time," or listen to the gradual walk-up-the-scale of "I Walk the Line.") The one country singer who for whatever reason the rock 'n' roll crowd always "got," Cash had a strange late-career moment in which he recorded a cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," and made a video that will be looked back on as nothing less than a self-eulogy. The video was nominated for seven MTV Video Music Awards, and rigged as those are I'd imagine Cash would've won Video of the Year had he not missed the ceremony for health reasons.
Hard-living as any singer in history, Cash nonetheless made it to age 71 before succumbing to diabetes. For the last week I've been trying to buy the last Warren Zevon album and haven't been able to find it anywhere in New York or New Jersey; we can now expect a similar run on Cash records.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)

THE BEST AMERICAN 9/11 WRITING:

THE BEST AMERICAN 9/11 WRITING: Since 9/11 was the event that more or less made the Blogosphere what it is today, and because much of the best writing on blogs in the last two years has been either directly or indirectly related to that very subject, I thought I'd do a roundup of the best blog writings of the anniversary:

-James Lileks follows up last year's amazing anniversary Bleat with yet another one for the ages. Not as long, but just as good.

-Asparagirl, who hardly ever seems to blog anymore (give her a break, she's getting married!) has some profound words for the bilingual (English/Hebrew, that is) among us.

-Andrew, of course, is on top of his game, and he even re-posted his original 9/11 comments that I forwarded to everyone I knew that night.

-Mike Silverman reflects on everything he did yesterday that he wouldn't have been able to do if he lived under Islamo-fascism.

-Jane Galt has the best WTC photo I've ever seen.

-Sheila O'Malley, who linked to me yesterday not long after her Instalanche- and Best of the Web-lanche (thanks, girl!)- has a ton of links to 9/11 testimonials, as do Meryl Yourish and Judith Weiss.

-The Vodkapundit, Stephen Green, on why it takes longer to "get used to" 9/11 than just about anything else.

-Oliver Willis may be a liberal, but that doesn't mean he's not still angry about "those bastards" who attacked our country, and he still doesn't give a shit about "their rights"- funny, neither do I. Oliver's got a Howard Dean logo at the top of his blog; if Dean can find a way to win over the Oliver Willis types (and there are many), he may just have a shot after all.

-And I already mentioned the "Voices" project at "A Small Victory," but it's worth another look.

As for me, I enjoyed the chance, while jogging late at night, to run by the Towers in Light the way I used to pass the Twin Towers, and it gladdened my heart to see the flags, candles, signs, and pictures of people once again adorning Sinatra Park.
And from a media standpoint, I was absolutely floored by last night's episode of "Countdown With Keith Olbermann," which toned down the snark for one night in order to deal with the anniversary- profoundly and tastefully covering the tragedy from all angles, without sanctimony, blame politics, or fearmongering. The best part? A montage of stories about the ubiquitous "missing person" posters, set to U2's "Joshua Tree"-closing "Mothers of the Disappeared." A new high, certainly, for what's becoming the best show on cable news- which probably means it's weeks from cancellation.

AND ON A LIGHTER NOTE: Bears jumping on trampolines!

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)

.ivanC10633902813375{position:absolute;visibility:hidden;}Free Web poll for your

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:07 PM | Comments (0)

BURN YOUR SIDDUR AWARD NOMINEE:

BURN YOUR SIDDUR AWARD NOMINEE: Taking that PR axiom about releasing bad news on Friday afternoon a step further, the United Jewish Committee chose to release their National Jewish Population Survey on the afternoon prior to the second anniversary of September 11.
The numbers are no surprise to anyone who's ever read such a study before: growing intermarriage rates and lower birth rates indicate that Judaism is near extinction, even though all of the unmeasurable indicators not in the study- i.e., Jewish influence in American culture, politics, and life, have never been better. The UJC survey even throws in some happy numbers- the intermarriage rate is only 30%, and synagogue membership and identification with Israel are both way up.
Douglas Rushkoff, in a great Times op-ed almost a year ago in which he argued that judging Judaism "by the numbers" is basically meaningless, wrote that this very survey was supposed to be released last November, but the UJC held off at the last minute due to "missing data"- I guess they ultimately decided to do the next best thing and put it out when no one was paying attention. (And yes, I see the irony in posting on Friday afternoon about the "no one will see it on Friday afternoon" phenomenon.)

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

STUPID OMBUDSMAN: "To tag Hamas,

STUPID OMBUDSMAN: "To tag Hamas, for example, as a terrorist organization is to ignore its far more complex role in the Middle East drama. The word reflects not only a simplification, but a bias that runs counter to good journalism. To label any group in the Middle East as terrorist is to take sides, or at least appear to, and that is not acceptable. The same holds true in covering other far-flung conflicts. One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter; it's not for journalists to judge." –Christine Chinland, the Boston Globe's ombudsman (ombudswoman?), refusing to "take sides" against a group whose sole reason for existence is to murder civilians. Which is more "not acceptable"- blowing up a bus, or calling the people who did it "terrorists"? What brainless, heartless, gutless vapidity.
But hey, who are we to judge?

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:01 PM | Comments (0)

THE WEDDING PLANNER (WANTS

THE WEDDING PLANNER (WANTS HER DEPOSIT BACK): The Affleck/Lopez vows are off, at least for the time being (the eventual divorce, however, is still on). The New York Daily News felt the need to share this news on their Thursday front page, even on the two-year anniversary of 9/11 (see above right; via Gawker). This shows once again why I don't read the Daily News- it has all the shallowness of the Post, but none of the shameless audacity.
The News' decision does have an internal logic, however, since the wedding was allegedly postponed due to "excessive media attention," and it was the NYDN who, in their biggest scoop of the year, published the day and location of the now-scuttled nuptials. But this doesn’t bode well for Ben and Jen- the last time something they worked on together was postponed due to bad media attention, they called it "Gigli."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2003

9/11/'03: Well, today is

9/11/'03: Well, today is September 11. It still doesn't seem right- at work today I typed out that dateline at least 10 times, and it never felt right, not even the 10th time.
I think what makes me uneasy most of all is that so many people seem to have decided to "not make a big deal" about the anniversary, at least compared to last year. Last year, in the period around the 9/11 anniversary, the mood of Fall 2001 seemed to briefly return: the flags, shrines, and pictures of people seemed to make a sudden reappearance, and with it came the post-calamitous, introspective atmosphere that almost naturally caused everyone to put things in perspective, count their blessings, and everything else. And honestly, that was a vibe that always, in some weird way, made me feel good. That vibe is no where to be found this year; in Manhattan last night I saw almost no indication or acknowledgement of the anniversary, aside from the annual birthday dinner of my friend, who was born on September 10. It took renting the surprisingly good Spike Lee movie "The 25th Hour" to recreate the feeling of post-9/11 camaraderie.
Yes, I know most people who feel that we need to be "protected" from thinking about the horrors of that terrible day are well-intentioned, ever-sensitive, etc. But in the lack of attention (and, by extension) respect being paid on this anniversary is undercut, I feel, with a sense of "it's been two years, it's about time we got over it."
At any rate, I know that I have NOT "gotten over" the events of September 11, I'm NOT ready to "move on," and I'm not entirely certain that I ever will be. I'm upset today not so much as those knuckleheads who will use the occasion to scoff at the American flag ("ewww, that's so jingoistic!"), or to attempt to turn Osama Bin Laden into some type of Che Guevara figure whose goal in knocking down the Towers was to crush globalization and get the workers of the world to unite (even Noam Chomsky has said that Bin Laden wasn't motivated by globalization, and probably doesn’t even know what it is). No, today I am upset at those, whether in media or everyday life, who want to infantilize us, and keep us from commemorating this anniversary and honoring the victims the way they deserve.
I will not use today's events to attempt to push any type of political agenda. My personal commemoration included, at 8:50 this morning, excusing myself from work to go stand on the Hoboken pier and pay my respects to our fallen brothers and sisters. I'll watch the TV coverage tonight, just as on the day itself and in the weeks afterward, I found that I couldn't tear myself away from the TV until I felt I understood what exactly had occurred.
Also, as I have periodically in the last two years, tonight I'm planning to dig out Sports Illustrated's post-9/11 issue (adorned with an empty seat filled with an American flag, and headlined "The Week That Sports Stood Still"). That issue taught us the not-altogether-contradictory message that sports are both meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and restoratative in the way they help the community out of its collective doldrums. I'll also be reading Michele Catalano's "Voices" project- a wonderful collection of people's thoughts, prayers, and recollections of that day. And finally, I'll be making one more trip to the Hoboken pier today, for the return of the Tribute in Light.
My all those victims of September 11, and all those who lost their lives and the resulting War on Terror, continue to rest in peace.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

GOING TO THE CANDIDATES' DEBATE:

GOING TO THE CANDIDATES' DEBATE: I watched the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday night with interest- I love the absurdity of a "2004 presidential debate" taking place with four months to go in 2003 (if Carol Mosely-Braun or Bob Graham drops out by the end of the year, did they "run for president in 2004?") The debate, also, was almost certainly the first (and probably the last) time that the Congressional Black Caucus and Fox News Channel have collaborated on anything.
I also loved that every candidate answered every question by ripping George Bush, stretching sometimes comically; Sen. Graham's hubris in using the word "quagmire" to describe Iraq, something not even the New York Times will do; and the bizarre resurfacing of the Lyndon LaRouche cult. The supporters of the noted perennial candidate/perennial nutjob attempted to interrupt Joe Lieberman nearly every time he opened his mouth- thus granting LaRouche more mainstream media attention than he's gotten since he was convicted of tax evasion nearly a decade ago.
Then there was Lieberman and Dean's sparring over Israel, with the Senator doubting Dr. Dean's commitment to the Jewish state, and Dean swearing that he can be trusted with Israel's security- after all, his wife is a member of the tribe! This followed a really disturbing Village Voice piece the other week that quoted the concerns of a bunch of leftists who don’t trust Dean –the most successful and galvanizing progressive political candidate in a generation- because they fear he is "too far right" (namely, because he doesn't support the immediate obliteration of Israel).
And speaking of Lieberman, his long-lost twin brother, the Dad from "Alf," was arrested on DUI charges last week.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

I’M IN LOVE/WITH THAT SONG:

I’M IN LOVE/WITH THAT SONG: But my favorite part of the debate, no question, was near the end, when the candidates were all asked to name their favorite song, and more than half of the people on stage managed to embarrass themselves. Obviously not having prepped for that question, the candidates struggled to come up with answers that fit their personas, pandered to key demographic groups, and didn't sound like outright lies. The candidates had varying success:

-Dean, smartly knowing his Historically Black College audience, named the Wyclef Jean song "Jaspara"- I'd have guessed he'd name something by his co-Vermonters Phish, or something. Even though the questioner said this was a question "for the Gen-Xers"- a ridiculously passé reference to people who are now as old as 36- Dean was the only candidate who named a song that was recorded after 1984.

-Lieberman named two tunes- Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop," which Joe probably has no idea was also Clinton's 1992 campaign theme song; would a President Lieberman be able to summon a reunited Fleetwood Mac to his inauguration? Joe also named Sinatra's "My Way." "The record shows/I took the blows"- also sounds more like a Clinton song.

-"Crazy Dennis" Kucinich said his favorite song is John Lennon's "Imagine"- a popular favorite, sure, but do we really want a president who wants us to "imagine no more countries"? "No possessions"? "And no religion too"?

-Al Sharpton listed James Brown's "Talking Loud, Saying Nothing," which he of course accused the president of doing. "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" would've been a more inspired choice for Sharpton, though for Al to drop out of the race immediately would be more inspired still.

- Most embarrassing was Richard Gephardt, who named Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA." Dick apparently wasn't paying attention to the flap in 1984, when Ronald Reagan used the song in his re-election campaign, unaware that it's not so much a patriotic anthem but the cynical lament of a disgruntled Vietnam vet. Even worse, Gephardt made the same mistake himself four years later, using the song as the theme music of his 1988 presidential run- and still unaware of the mistake, named it again as his favorite song on Tuesday. Maybe Gephardt finds the story of the angry vet inspiring, but that's not exactly conducive to a national campaign and besides, isn't "the disgruntled Vietnam vet" more Kerry's angle?

-Speaking of the Son of Kohn, Senator Kerry named another song from the "Born on the USA" album, the much less ambiguous "No Surrender." Not to be outdone, John Edwards called off "Small Town" by John Cougar [sic] Mellancamp, a song that's pretty universally regarded as a ripoff of another "Born in the USA" track, "My Hometown." A fourth song on the album, "Glory Days," was played at some rallies for candidate and former NBA star Bill Bradley in the 2000 race- which some objected to, since one of the verses tells of a washed-up former athlete driven to drink. And I'd imagine at least one candidate who's run for office in Darlington County, Oklahoma, has used that song in a campaign as well.
It wasn't quite Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer sparring over mosh pit dives and the nefarious influences of "Machine Unto the Rage," but still pretty funny nonetheless.
By the way, a special prize for the first person who e-mails me with the song that the subject line comes from.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)

COME WHAT MAYS: Lost in

COME WHAT MAYS: Lost in the excitement over tonight's Twins victory that put "Minny" a game behind the White Sox in the AL Central was the news that pitcher Joe Mays will undergo "Tommy John" surgery today and likely not pitch again until 2005.
Also, funny that the "Tommy John" nickname has stuck- yes, John was the first major player to receive the procedure, but can you think of any other athlete who has a surgery named after them? By the same token, no athlete since Lou Gehrig 80 years ago has become the namesake of a disease.
Linda Cohn, on SportsCenter tonight, called Mays' injury "devastating," apparently not ironically. Mays' stats this year: 8-8, 6:30 ERA, and he was pulled from the starting rotation on two different occasions. Has Linda not seen Mays pitch since 2001?

Posted by Stephen Silver at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2003

WEDGIES, WET WILLIES, AND IRAN-CONTRA:

WEDGIES, WET WILLIES, AND IRAN-CONTRA: John Poindexter, aka "the Dreaded Rear Admiral," has an op-ed in the New York Times, arguing in favor of his brainchild, Total Information Awareness.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: ""You

QUOTE OF THE DAY: ""You know what? I hated religious fanatics who wanted to murder me on September 10." -Dennis Miller, referring to two years ago today. (As quoted by my favorite blogging redhead).

Posted by Stephen Silver at 06:53 AM | Comments (0)

September 09, 2003

RE: PETE: My fisking of

RE: PETE: My fisking of Allen Barra's bizarre piece on the "persecution" of Pete Rose is online at BlogCritics.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)

"POSTURING LOONS": No, not the

"POSTURING LOONS": No, not the state bird of Minnesota, but rather those who idiotically misinterpreted 9/11 as some sort of Marxist revenge fantasy. Here's Christopher Hitchens, in a column on "how not to remember September 11," in which he finds time to bash those leftists, in addition to flagwavers, as well as those who practice "Ground Zero Kitsch." The best part:

Reflect upon it: Civil society is assaulted in the most criminal way by the most pitilessly reactionary force in the modern world. The drama immediately puts the working class in the saddle as the necessary actor and rescuer of the said society. Investigation shows the complicity of a chain of conservative client states, from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, in the face of which our vaunted “national security” czars had capitulated. Here was the time for radicals to have demanded a war to the utmost against the forces of reaction, as well a full house cleaning of the state apparatus and a league of solidarity with the women of Afghanistan and with the whole nexus of dissent and opposition in the Muslim world. Instead of which, the posturing loons all concentrated on a masturbatory introspection about American guilt, granted the aura of revolutionary authenticity to bin Laden and his fellow gangsters, and let the flag be duly seized by those who did look at least as if they meant business.

(Cue "Looney Tunes" theme song...)

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)

WEIRDEST HEADLINE OF THE DAY:

WEIRDEST HEADLINE OF THE DAY: From the Times: "Schwarzenegger's Achilles' Heel: Women." But aren't women every man's Achilles Heel?

FIRST RUNNER-UP: From the Washington Post: "The Snoop in Your Coupe." It's a story about surveillance equipment in new cars, and has nothing whatsoever to do with either Snoop Dogg or the Snoop Deville. Fo' shizzle.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

LENI RIEFENSTAHL, 1902-2003: The world

LENI RIEFENSTAHL, 1902-2003: The world is running out of centurians: filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, who made "Triumph of the Will," "Olympia," and numerous other hagiographies of Hitler that are studied in film theory classes to this day, has died at the age of 101.
For the last word on Leni, we go to my old film professor Thomas Doherty:

She's the greatest living female filmmaker, but the feminists kind of have a problem with her, because she was a Nazi.

The headline of the Times obit, incidentally, refers to Riefenstahl as "controversial." It's rare for the NYT to identify ex-Nazi associates as such; usually they save "controversial" for Communists, '60s radicals, and Hamas members.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 08:57 AM | Comments (0)

PARSELY SAGE ROSEMARY, ONE MORE

PARSELY SAGE ROSEMARY, ONE MORE TIME: Simon & Garfunkel, a band that is literally four decades past their prime, is expected to announce tomorrow that they will overcome their hatred for one another and go on tour later this year.
Bruce Springsteen putting on a better-than-ever show at 54, I think we can safely say, is the exception rather than the rule- as John Strausbaugh has long argued, rock 'n' roll is music that's by and for young people, not those at the far end of middle age still hanging on to the successes of decades past. Still though, for historical sake, and because I've never seen Simon in any incarnation, I may think about actually going.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 06:05 AM | Comments (0)

WORST COMMERCIAL OF THE YEAR:

WORST COMMERCIAL OF THE YEAR: We've already set a new low for football-related commercials this year, and it's only Week 1 of the season.
Late in "Monday Night Football" tonight, a commercial for Outback Steakhouse aired which begins with the semi-familiar sight of a football player lying motionless on the field, surrounded by concerned teammates. The camera then turns to announcers John Madden and Al Michaels, and Madden gives the usual spiel in that type of situation, i.e., "when an injury like this happens, it really puts the game in perspective," etc. Then, a trainer puts one of those "awesome blossom" things, or whatever it's called at Outback, in front of the injured man, and the formerly paralyzed player is so excited about the appetizer that he immediately smiles and gets up!
That's right- a TV commercial is parodying the concept of paralyzing on-field injuries. Who the HELL okayed this? After players such as Darryl Stingley and Mike Utley have been paralyzed in games, numerous other players have suffered dehabilitating concussions, and the Packers' Donald Driver landed on his head and lay on the field for 10 minutes on Sunday, someone thought it might be a good idea to "poke fun" at such things in order to sell chain-restaurant appetizers? What the hell is wrong with some people?
It's already been well established that John Madden will take money from anyone, and put his name on anything if the price is right. And since last year "Monday Night Football" has turned into pretty much one long commercial for Madden and his various products. When this commercial provokes a huge outrage (as it should), perhaps Madden will start to think twice about his blanket endorsements.
When Darryl Stingley was paralyzed in a game by the Raiders' Jack Tatum, Madden (then the Raiders' coach) famously visited Stingley in the hospital right after the game. But I guess the money from Outback, which also sponsors the announcer's "Madden Cruiser" bus, was enough to overcome the old coach's sensitivity.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:47 AM | Comments (0)

TMQBLOG: Tuesday Morning Quarterback and

TMQBLOG: Tuesday Morning Quarterback and legitimate genius Gregg Easterbrook now has a blog, hosted by the New Republic. Because I guess a weekly 5,000-word column in which he's allowed to talk about anything he wants and have it read by a wide audience wasn't enough, and Gregg has even more to say.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:34 AM | Comments (0)

MONDAY NIGHT SWEAT: A chunk

MONDAY NIGHT SWEAT: A chunk of several minutes of tonight's Monday Night Football was spent discussing the ass sweat of Tampa Bay center John Wade. According to sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero, Wade's sweat was such a concern that he considered changing his pants at halftime, lest the sweat cause quarterback Brad Johnson to fumble.
Unlike the case of Clemson's football team, which lost its opening game to Georgia by a score of 30-0 after center Tommy Sharpe vomited on the ball and caused a fumble, the sweat didn't get in the way of a shutout victory, as the Bucs beat the Eagles 17-0.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)

EXPRESS YOURSELF: The New York

EXPRESS YOURSELF: The New York Sports Express, the very good offshoot of New York Press that started the other month, now has an almost-fully-functional website. While you're there, check out the best piece in the short history of the NYSX: Matt Taibbi's "Sports Crime Blotter" column on the colorful history of mascots in baseball, specifically the Pittsburgh Pirates' Pirate Parrot, who was the middle man in that team's early-'80s drug ring.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)

September 08, 2003

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Here's

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Here's Al Franken, from his current book:

They don't get it. We [liberals] love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they [conservatives] love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.

I guess by that rationale, America is Johnny Depp's ex-wife.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)

WALKING AND TALKING: Yesterday, in

WALKING AND TALKING: Yesterday, in just seven hours, I completed the second annual Length of Manhattan Walk, walking almost nonstop from the Broadway Bridge (at 225th St.) to Battery Park, for a total of about 13 miles.
No huge surprises this year; unlike the first walk, when I ran into Alan Colmes in a deli. Of the four of us who started I was the only one who finished all 265 blocks; my co-walkers, to their credit, managed to reach 72nd Street- which is mistakenly referred to as "uptown" by most narrow-minded Upper West Siders.
For next year's third annual LOM Walk, tentatively scheduled for next June, I'm hoping for a bigger crowd, and hopefully we can also do it for some charitable cause. Let me know if anyone has any ideas for a worthy one.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)

NOTES ON WEEK ONE: Due

NOTES ON WEEK ONE: Due to the Walk, I didn't see any football yesterday aside from the ESPN game, but much as I love the NFL, I don't think I've ever spent an entire 6 hours in any of the 10 Hoboken bars that have NFL Sunday Ticket, and the alternative is staying home and watching the locally broadcast Giants and/or Jets games, neither of which I care too much about. As long as I get my Chris Berman/Tom Jackson highlights (complete with the best background music of any sports TV show, ever), my Sunday is always complete.
Anyway, based on those highlights, a few notes on the first week of the NFL season:
-Ah, after entering the season with no optimism whatsoever for my Vikings for the third straight year, they go ahead and beat the Packers, at Lambeau Field, in the first game of the season. Way to go, Vikes. Moss looks in top form, and even their defense, which unlike last year actually has some guys that I've heard of, came up with some big plays. If the Packers keep slipping, it could be smooth sailing for the Vikings in the NFC Norris Division, since neither the Lions nor the Bears appear to be going anywhere this year.
-I already defended the honor of Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt, who was called a "waterboy" during the off-season when he dared criticize his teammates for lacking heart. Well, let's just say I told you so, 'cause Vanderjagt kicked three field goals, including a 45-yard game winner, as Indy beat Cleveland.
-Blame it on the concussions, blame it on the Chunky Soup, blame it on his frightening wife- but any way you look at it, it appears there's a good chance Kurt Warner is finished. It's sad how the mighty have fallen, but even sadder that Rams coach Mike Martz left Warner in the game even after he knew KW had suffered a concussion. Like Sports Guy said, it's going to be interesting to see which coordinator job Martz takes after the season.
- Lawyer Milloy kicked ass against the Patriots five days after they cut him; in the future, expect teams to expect much more caution in releasing All-Pro players who may conceivably sign with divisional and/or Week 1 rivals.
-That's all; I already can't wait to read TMQ on Tuesday…

Posted by Stephen Silver at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)

KISS MY ASHCROFT: I was

KISS MY ASHCROFT: I was in the city Friday night and, walking through Union Square, happened to stumble into a medium-sized anti-Patriot Act protest/"street party." Aged hippies and NYU freshmen alike went through the motions of The War on The War on Terror, bashing Bush, chanting slogans, reading Allen Ginsburg poems through a megaphone (which one girl wasn't able to do without giggling, incidentally), and giving rambling speeches that I sort of found myself fisking in real time, in my head.
Most ubiquitously, several demonstrators held signs and wore T-shirts that said "Stop the Police State!" Now Lord knows I'm no fan of John Ashcroft- I find it hard to have any respect for anyone who feels the need to cover up a nude statue, or considers dancing to be "Satan's palsy." And there are certainly parts of the Patriot Act and other Ashcroft initiatives that I find not-quite kosher, most notably that whole holding-citizens-as-enemy-combatants thing. I generally consider Ashcroft and those like him as Exhibit A for Why I'm Not A Republican.
Yet at the same time, the whole rally sort of took on an air of absurdity once people starting throwing around words like "police state" and "fascist" to describe our government. Even moreso because, the entire 45 minutes or so I was standing there, I don't remember seeing a single cop, anywhere, despite about 250 people assembling in the not-very-big park. In real fascist countries (like, oh I don't know, Saddam's Iraq), you can't have an anti-government, anti-president rally in the center of the largest city in the country without the authorities coming down hard on you- usually with guns and/or tanks.
If you hold a "stop the police state" rally and the police don't even bother to show up, that might be indication #1 that maybe you're not living in a police state after all.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)

SCHWARZBANGER: I never thought the

SCHWARZBANGER: I never thought the day would come when a major political candidate, much less a Republican, could admit his participation in a long-ago gang bang, and not have it affect his electoral chances negatively. But that's exactly what's happening to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who admitted in a now-famous interview with the French porn magazine Oui that in 1978 he and several other men participated in group sex with a lone woman.
Californian blogger Mickey Kaus broke this story (by noticing the magazine for sale on Ebay before anyone else did) and has been all over the recall all along. But here's a weird argument he made the other day (scroll down to "Schwarzenegger's Defense: 'I'm a Huge Liar!'"), about why Ah-nuld may have made up the whole gang-bang story:

The more you think about it, the more Arnold's boasting to Oui smells like pure PR BS-ing. Schwarzenegger, remember, was determined to rid bodybuilding of its homosexual image. So he comes up with a group gangbang incident--not only is he straight, but all the guys in the gym were straight!

The mental image of seven naked male bodybuilders in a room engaging in a sex act with one woman is supposed to make the bodybuilding world sound less gay? I'd be more inclined to reach the opposite conclusion…
In other recall news, the all-purpose anti-Bush website MoveOn.org is now running a petition against the California recall, arguing that it "undermines," and "strikes at the very foundation of our democracy." Only in America, I suppose, can a constitutionally mandated election "undermine democracy."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

WARREN ZEVON, 1947-2003: Singer/songwriter Warren

WARREN ZEVON, 1947-2003: Singer/songwriter Warren Zevon died Sunday at the age of 56. Diagnosed with cancer nearly 18 months ago and given just three months to live, Zevon outlasted all expectations by far, even finishing his final album, "The Wind," which was released last month.
I don't pretend to be super-familiar with Zevon's music over the years, but I do know I'll be going out later today and buying "The Wind," and also that Zevon's most popular song, "Werewolves of London," has been played at every Minnesota Timberwolves home game that I've ever been to.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)

September 05, 2003

TICKED OFF KICKOFF: I said

TICKED OFF KICKOFF: I said this last year too, but I'm really not crazy about this idea of "kicking off" the NFL season with a single game the Thursday before. After weeks of preseason games on random weeknights throughout July and August, we're treated to- another game on a random weeknight, distinguishable from just another preseason game only by the presence of Britney Spears. I liked it better when everyone just started on the same Sunday, but that's just me.
Speaking of Britney, one hilarious moment- I was watching CNBC soon after the Britney/Aerosmith/Aretha concert ended, and the network reporter was clearly having fun ogling the Spears cheesecake, and the rest of the fun atmosphere. Then the camera pulled back to reveal that the reporter was about to interview… Paul Wolfowitz? Yes, "Wolfie" was there too, and the Deputy Secretary of Defense apparently had a great time.
As for the game itself, I had a hard time caring about either the Redskins or the in-last-place-and-staying-there Jets, but I did find it a bit ironic that five years after then-Florida coach Steve Spurrier memorably dismissed rival Florida State as "Free Shoes University," one of the recipients of those very free shoes, former FSU receiver Laveranues Coles, is now starting for Spurrier's Redskins. Of course, in the early-game intros, in which the players in the starting lineup of each team share their names and colleges, Coles said the name of his high school, rather than Florida State.
As for the season itself, I predict the Eagles, Rams, Bucs, and Packers win the NFC divisions, with the Giants and Saints as wild cards, while the Bills, Chiefs, Titans, and Steelers win the AFC divisions, with the Dolphins and Patriots winning the wild cards. Super Bowl XXXVIII? The longest Super Bowl name in history will be won by an equally long David Akers field goal: Eagles 31, Titans 28.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)

IT'S THE MUSIC, MAN: Music

IT'S THE MUSIC, MAN: Music will soon be cheap once again- well, cheaper, anyway: the Universal music empire has announced that they will soon slash prices on their CDs to as low as $10, as opposed to current state of affairs that has new releases "on sale" for $16.99. Good move, though whether it'll actually stop people from downloading is another question altogether. And besides- an even bigger problem these days than the lack of affordable music is the lack of listenable music.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

AND SPEAKING OF PIRACY: Damn,

AND SPEAKING OF PIRACY: Damn, that Mike Piazza just can't seem to catch a break. First he got hit in the head by Roger Clemens, then had a bat thrown at him (also by Clemens), then the Mets started sucking, then the whole gay thing happened, and then this year he got hurt and missed most of the season. But now Mike is caught up in yet another scandal- the Mets catcher appeared on a Q104.3 radio show last Friday night and played a new song that someone sent him in the mail- that just happened to be a new track by Guns 'n' Roses, called "I.R.S." The track, however, turned out to not be authorized, and the band's lawyers filed a cease-and-desist order to prevent further playing of the single.
"I.R.S." will presumably appear on the album "Chinese Democracy," which has been delayed for at least half a decade. The new Axl project is not to be confused with the planned album by Velvet Revolver, a band that combines several former Guns members (led by Slash) with ex-Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland. They've got a chance to be the second-best band to ever feature Slash, and also the second-best band whose name starts with "Velvet."
It's not like it matters anyway- Piazza made his major league debut in 1992, and G 'n' R hasn't been relevant since before that.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:14 PM | Comments (0)

GO SCHMO: I caught the

GO SCHMO: I caught the first episode of the new "Joe Schmo Show" the other night, and found it to be a subversively brilliant send-up of the reality-TV genre. About five steps ahead of the dumb-male audience of its network, Spike TV, "Joe Schmo" moves past parody and straight into genre deconstruction.
A real-life version of "The Truman Show," 'Schmo' purports to be a reality show called "Lap of Luxury"- at least that's what one of the contestants thinks. In fact, the rest of the people on the show are actors, constantly trying to keep up the con. Each cast member represents a reality TV archetype- the slut, the crusty old guy, the flaming gay guy, etc., and the show parodies all the various absurdities of "reality" shows, from scheming "alliances" to elimination ceremonies (on 'Schmo,' a plate featuring a likeness of the eliminated contestant gets tossed in a fireplace.)
When I first heard about the concept of "Joe Millionaire," I thought that was genre deconstruction- but then, as has often happened with similar movies, the entire genre evolved into the deconstruction- namely, 'Millionaire'-style "twists" and "deceptions." "Joe Schmo" takes it a step further than that, in that the show itself is the joke- and what is parodying is itself self-parody. If "Survivor" was "Halloween" and "Joe Millionaire" was "Scream," then I guess "Joe Schmo" is the new "Scary Movie"- except, you know, it's funny.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

SPORTS GUY QUOTE OF THE

SPORTS GUY QUOTE OF THE DAY: "To the current crop of star running backs -- Tomlinson, Williams, Portis, Faulk, Holmes, Alexander and McAllister -- the top seven picks in everyone's fantasy draft last month, unless you were in a draft with foreigners and chicks." -I was, in fact, in a draft with both, and those were not the top seven picks.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)

TERROR IN THE GARDEN STATE:

TERROR IN THE GARDEN STATE: According to an article in the Forward on the meltdown of Charlotte Kates' anti-Israel conference at Rutgers, one of the reasons for the split between Kates' group and the others is that Little Red Kaffiyah Hood's side actually entertained the idea of inviting Hamas members to their events.
And you thought it was a shitstorm when somebody like Ward Connerly, or Louis Farrakhan, came to campus. Had Kates and her pro-terror goons actually gone through with hosting members of Hamas- a group whose sole reason for existing is to kill innocent people- that's the point when you have to call the federal government and have people hauled off to jail, and/or Guantanamo. And had Kates or her group paid them to speak, is that not a federal crime itself?
In Chris Hedges' infamous Times profile of the Kaffiyahed One, our favorite ex-Scientologist spoke of being fired from her summer job after the New York Post outed her as a supporter of Jihadist terror. But would you want someone who openly supported suicide bombings working in your office? It would be sort of like inviting a freebase addict to sleep in your guest bedroom- Bad Idea Jeans.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)

REALITY BITES BACK: Wearing what

REALITY BITES BACK: Wearing what looked like a blond fright wig, Janeane Garofalo appeared tonight on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show. As readers of "Live From New York" know, Janeane has always been a nutjob, but her political extremism is relatively new- on the show, she referred to the "right-wing mainstream media," and lambasted Americans for "attacking" Johnny Depp, who just- wait for it- lambasted and attacked America.
Also new is Janeane's borderline-scary appearance- a very attractive woman as recently as a couple years ago, Garofalo now looks not unlike Sharon Stone in the final third of Scorsese's "Casino." After the show was over, did she drive over to Olbermann's house and repeatedly slam her car into his?

SPEAKING OF WHICH: What a horrible year it's been for all of the "Reality Bites" principals: Garofalo has descended even further into madness, Winona Ryder is now a convicted criminal, Ethan Hawke is about to get dumped by Uma Thurman, and Ben Stiller's new movie, "Envy," will not be released in theaters. At least Steve Zahn still has a viable indie career.
In the meantime, go read Roger Ebert's 1994 review of "Reality Bites." You know how you'll see a movie, and like it, but then you'll read a review and it'll come to you just how much the movie sucked? That's the case here. Here's Roger:

But of course these observations go against the deep-seated prejudices of the movie, which are that anyone who shoots documentary video footage of friends is a genius; anyone who is pushing 30 and has a good job has sold out; and anyone who is simultaneously unemployed and hostile is a reservoir of truth.

Hell, I know people who still think like that today.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:27 AM | Comments (0)

September 04, 2003

BEST FANTASY SPORTS TEAM NAMES:

BEST FANTASY SPORTS TEAM NAMES: Some real, some merely suggested. (*Denotes ones I've used myself):

-Albert's Poo Holes
-The Crazy Eyez Killahs
-The Dell Vikings*
-The Doug Christie All-Stars
-The Dreaded Rear Admirals
-The Elders of Zion
-The Ill Na Na's
-The Jewish Jordans*
-Johnny Chimpo and the Missing Kilos
-The KimBauers
-The LightSabres
-The Little Men From Another Place
-Men Without Bats
-The No-No Spots
-The Piss Men
-The Ralphie Treatment
-The Sack Kings*
-The Silver Sluggers*
-The Swollen Glands
-Team Opium (formerly The Michael Irvins)
-The Twinkie Defense*
-The Unmolested Alter Boys
-Victorious Secret
-Wasted Entry Fee
-The Zionist Hoodlums

Feel free to come up with more.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 08:58 PM | Comments (8)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The Broncos dumping Brian Griese for Jake Plummer. That's like trading syphillis for VD, isn't it? Even the Project Greenlight producers wouldn't have okayed this move." - The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, from his NFL preview column, comprised of quotes from "Top Gun." It's the first time SG has dragged out one of his best column formats, the analysis-using-movie-quotes, since he took the job last year as a writer for Jimmy Kimmel's truly unwatchable ABC late night show.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)

TWIN KILLING: After yesterday afternoon's

TWIN KILLING: After yesterday afternoon's dramatic victory over Anaheim (and Boston's defeat of the White Sox last night), the Minnesota Twins now have a share of first place in the AL Central for the first time since before their June collapse. Aaron Gleeman has a great account of the game's final play, which when all is said and done may be the second-most-played-SportsCenter baseball highlight of the season, after the Milwaukee Sausage Incident.
With a month left, there are six legitimate pennant races for the eight MLB playoff spots, including the latest Yankees-Red Sox war in the AL East, Mariners-A's in the West, the three-way battle in the AL Central, and the huge jumble in the NL that's reminiscent of last year's AFC playoff picture in football. Three teams are fighting for the NL Central lead, with six teams still in the picture for the Wild Card- and for one day last week, five different teams were tied for the NL WC lead.
In all, 17 of the 30 major league teams are still in playoff contention- parity in baseball, at least temporarily, seems to be for real, and the multiple pennant races envisioned when baseball first went to the expanded-playoff format in '95 are finally coming to fruition for the first time ever. It's going to be one hell of a last few weeks- but what if there's a three- or four-way tie for the Wild Card? Does Bud even have a rule for that?

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)

WELCHING: Matt Welch has a

WELCHING: Matt Welch has a top-shelf piece in the Columbia Journalism Review that's both a chronicle of the fall of alternative newspapers, and the rise of blogs. Check it out, especially if you're new to the blogworld and would like a primer.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)

THE PISS MAN REVISITED: News

THE PISS MAN REVISITED: News item: "MLB to Expand Minor League, Overseas Drug Testing"

Posted by Stephen Silver at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

TALKIN' KESHER: While at the

TALKIN' KESHER: While at the Kol Zimrah Friday night service/potluck in Riverside Park last Friday, I had the chance to meet Judith Weiss, co-propriator of the very good Jewish issues blog KesherTalk. Anyway, Judith has some great stuff today about the now-moved "Solidarity" conference at Rutgers- apparently, the Rutgers pro-Palestinian activists forgot that solidarity begins at home- the group couldn't put their differences aside and promptly split in two. And note that every one of the actual Arabs sided with the "less radical" group and against fallen Scientologist Charlotte Kates.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 01:41 AM | Comments (0)

HE'S SKEE-ING ON ONE SKEE!:

HE'S SKEE-ING ON ONE SKEE!: This weekend, at the very end of the summer, I finally made my first trip down the Jersey Shore of the year. And while our planned sojourn to Atlantic City was scuttled when my friend got a Bloomberg-mandated $300 towing fee in the city (which consumed the money Donald Trump otherwise would have) we instead headed for the Boardwalk in Point Pleasant.
While all eight of us both walked on the beach and hung out at Tiki Bar, the highlight of the evening was unquestionably Skee-Ball. Skee-Ball rules. It's not just a great New Jersey game- but a great American game. Not quite bowling, and not quite craps, Skee-Ball has such cult status down the Shore that Kevin Smith inserted a scene into "Dogma" in which God comes to Earth (in the person of Bud Cort) just to play Skee-Ball.
If they ever started a professional Skee-Ball league, I'd have to give serious consideration to quitting my day job and playing Skee-Ball professionally. The same is also true of the great Jewish summer camp game "Gaga." Gaga truly ranks up there with Middle East democracy, the Uzi, Dana International, Elite chocolate, and ass-kicking female soldiers in the pantheon of Israeli culture's greatest contributions to the world.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)

September 03, 2003

RED POLLARD: Ralph Peters has

RED POLLARD: Ralph Peters has a very brave column in the New York Post arguing against the release of Jonathan Pollard, the American spy convicted of selling secrets to Israel and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The most admirable part of the piece is that Peters (who I'm assuming from his name is not Jewish) makes several arguments that, many will wrongly argue, only a Jew should be making. For instance, rather than buy the argument that Pollard was a "Jew first and American second," he opines that Pollard betrayed both his country and his co-religionists. Then there's this:

Some American Jews may not understand what a precarious time this is beyond Manhattan's bridges and tunnels. The appearance that a number of appointees at the upper reaches of the Pentagon allow their loyalty to Israel to excessively influence American foreign policy decisions does not play well in the hinterlands.

The author's credentials give him the credibility to say such things- Peters, a former military intelligence officer, is a hawk (really, an ally of those very "appointees")who has long been an ardent supporter of both the US and Israel, and has gone out on a limb in favor of Israel enough times that we know he's no anti-Semite.
The Pollard case is sort of a more serious, geopolitical version of the Pete Rose question- a man is serving a "life sentence" that some consider unjust- and while no one that I know of has called for the death penalty for The Hit King (as Peters has for Pollard), I feel Pollard is even more deserving of his present fate than Rose is of his.
As Peters says, "Pollard needs to spend next year in prison, not in Jerusalem."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:48 PM | Comments (0)

NO CODE: Terry Eastland of

NO CODE: Terry Eastland of the Weekly Standard reports that an official at the Office of Civil Rights at the Bush Education Department has sent a letter asking that universities stop using "civil rights" as a justification for the Orwellian, First Amendment-bashing speech codes that so many of them have adopted in recent years.
It's about time, I say- if we can't prevent crazy professors from espousing their bearing-little-relation-to-reality theories, something should at least be done about a system in which someone can be threatened with expulsion for calling someone a "water buffalo."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)

FIRST FOOTBALL PLAYER WOUNDED IN

FIRST FOOTBALL PLAYER WOUNDED IN THE BUTTOCKS SINCE ALABAMA'S FORREST GUMP: Joey Porter, the All-Pro linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers who was shot in the buttocks and upper leg outside a bar last week, visited Steelers practice today and assured his teammates that he's feeling fine. Though he was shot as an innocent bystander in a drive-by shooting, the injury did not prevent Porter from being selected today in my office's fantasy football pool draft- though it wasn't by my team, the Dell Vikings.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)

THE WORM TURNS: The person

THE WORM TURNS: The person at least partially responsible for spreading the Blaster computer virus that caused millions of dollars worth of damage to computers worldwide turned out to be an 18-year-old high school senior from the Minneapolis suburbs, according to prosecutors.
Jeffrey Lee Parson, who maintains his innocense, is (or rather, was) a senior at Hopkins High School, which was and is a bitter rival of my alma mater, St. Louis Park. Yea, Hopkins was always better at football and basketball than we were, but I guess SLP gets the last laugh: we gifted Thomas Friedman, the Coen Brothers, and Peter Himmelman onto the world, whereas Hopkins gave us Jeffrey Lee Parson.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)

HUMAN/MUPPET SEXUALITY, CONT'D: Paul Katcher

HUMAN/MUPPET SEXUALITY, CONT'D: Paul Katcher has a review up of the "Muppets Take Manhattan" DVD, touching on several topics that should be famiiar to longtime readers of this blog. Money graf:

It was bad enough to hear Miss Piggy mention marriage to Kermit — a playa if there ever was one — but when she talked about having children, I almost Rowlfed. The image in my head of skinny-assed Kermit mounting that fat slut is going to stick with me for awhile. Elsewhere in the movie, Fozzie was getting spooned by a BBB (big, beautiful bear), Gonzo was lusting after chickens, and Rowlf was making nice with some bitch who got dropped off in the dog kennel. It was an animal love-fest.

Paul doesn't mention the near-affair between Kermit and the human female, but I digress- I told you I wasn't the only one who noticed a disturbing pattern of sexuality in recent Muppet material.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 06:12 PM | Comments (0)

CARNIVALE!: No, not that creepy-looking

CARNIVALE!: No, not that creepy-looking new HBO show starring the Man From Another Place from "Twin Peaks." Rather, it's the latest Carnival of the Vanities blog roundup- and this time, I'm in it! I think I'll celebrate by dancing!


Posted by Stephen Silver at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2003

JUST SHEA NO: The ESPN.com

JUST SHEA NO: The ESPN.com Ballpark Tour comes to Shea Stadium- and does NOT mention the airport noise. Say what?

Posted by Stephen Silver at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)

THE PISS MAN COMETH: I

THE PISS MAN COMETH: I have to give a thumbs-down so far to "Playmakers," the first-ever ESPN original dramatic series, for a few reasons. It seems like a celebration of everything I hate about ESPN's new direction- it celebrates bad behavior by athletes, aims itself far, far away from realism, and (worst of all) does everything it can to disingenuously pander to the hip-hop audience. Much like how every white SportsCenter anchor now spends half of each show doing a bad Stuart Scott imitation- the ubiquitous commercial for "Playmakers" with that "rolling along" song was bad enough, but it got even worse when Scott Van Pelt and the rest of the Bristol White Boy Brigade started singing it over the evening baseball highlights.
As for "Playmakers" itself, if you thought the first episode was laughable (such as when a star running back stopped to smoke crack right before the game), get ready for tonight's, which is called (I shit you not) "The Piss Man." The title refers to the league official responsible for league-mandated drug testing; last week's preview began with the ominous words "the Piss Man's coming," followed by 30 seconds of players injecting themselves with various substances, concluding with another ominous warning: "the Piss Man's here." Don't tell me you didn't see that one coming...
I'll give "Playmakers" one more shot, but from what I've seen so far I can't imagine I'll be watching it for long. That is, unless they can get Christopher Walken to guest-star as the Piss Man.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "[Arnold

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "[Arnold Schwarzenegger] is a candidate who can understand the Republican platform- in its original German"- Cindy Adams, Page Six. I don't agree with the sentiments, and I loathe Ms. Adams, but you've gotta admit that's funny.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:40 PM | Comments (0)

BOSTON BLUES: It was quite

BOSTON BLUES: It was quite a bizarre sports weekend in Boston this Labor Day, even by usual, self-loathing Beantown-fan standards. First we saw a sight- Roger Clemens tipping his Yankees cap and being cheered in Fenway Park- that as recently as a week ago looked about as likely as a Red Sox championship. The occasion was the Rocket Man's final career appearance on Yawkey Way, which happened to coincide with his 100th career Fenway victory.
And in other bizarro Red Sox news, slugger Manny Ramirez is in hot water with the Fenway Faithful because, despite missing last weekend's series against the Yankees, he was spotted at a bar on Saturday night along with Yankee infielder Enrique Wilson. Now as usual, I think the Sox fans have overreacted- after all, Ramirez lives in the Boston-area Ritz Carlton, where the bar was, during the season, and he is said to have not consumed an alcoholic beverage. But as with the Larry Eustachy incident, Manny's biggest crime of all was "fraternizing with the enemy"- namely, a Yankee. Dan Shanoff even suggests the incident will lead to Ramirez' departure from the team.
And in other Red Sox weirdness, this headline: "Martinez' Vicissitudes Keeps (sic) Red Sox Nation on Edge." "Vicissitudes"- that's kind of a big word for the Massholes.
Meanwhile, showing that the strange vibe has extended all the way down to Foxborough, the Patriots today released four-time Pro Bowler Lawyer Milloy, after failing to reach agreement on a restructured, more cap-friendly contract. Now I'm sure there's a good explanation for why they'd dump their team captain, one of the top defensive players in the league, days before the start of the season, without so much as a draft pick in return. But I don't know what that is... therefore, the Pats and their fans will have to adjust to life without the man Steve Rushin called "the second-most famous Lawyer in New England, after Alan Dershowitz."

Posted by Stephen Silver at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)

MAYBE HE SHOULD INVITE KELLY

MAYBE HE SHOULD INVITE KELLY OSBOURNE ON HIS SHOW: Here's Slate's Jack Shafer, with a compendium of every time Bill O'Reilly has told a guest to "shut up." Caution: this may take awhile to read.

Posted by Stephen Silver at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)