The Gil Meche Experience

How I Spent My CMJ

2010-10-29T00:52:00.007-05:00

When I see a band multiple times over a weekend it gives me the opportunity to find cracks in the façade. Do they go through the motions? Do they get angry at a lack of crowd participation? Do they tire out easily? Do they act like entitled jerks just because they play music? Tiny Victories, who played last Thursday, Friday and Saturday, didn’t crack at all. At a packed upstairs room at Pianos, a sparsely populated Matchless show and a beautiful late-fall night outdoors at Brooklyn Fireproof, Greg Walters (synthesizer) and Cason Kelly (drums) played energized sets of their anthemic synth-pop. And they were polite.

I’ve got punk roots and I’m still not completely sold on the synthesizer revolution sweeping the Indieverse but the essential life giving properties of Kelly’s live drumming gives a depth to Tiny Victories’ sound that separates them from other synthesizer heavy acts. It also helps keep them loud. They're loud enough, for example, to be heard crystal clear despite being confined to Matchless’ smoking cage and loud enough to get a stamp of disapproval in the form of a wet paper towel thrown down by one of Brooklyn Fireproof's neighbors.

There’s a touch of LCD Soundsystem in Tiny Victories' DNA. It’s easy to pick up in the swirl of melancholy and optimism Walters mixes in the synthesizer. Walters lyrics aren’t as funny as James Murphy’s but he’s got the potential to be based on some of the one-liners he casually tossed off (“If you’re looking for merch or CDs or anything…talk to another band because we don’t have any,” being my favorite).

Get Lost Mr Bones by Tiny Victories

If I had any doubt that this was a band that could keep their energy up it was dispelled when Kelly took advantage of Brooklyn Fireproof's spacious backyard to do a victory lap during Sunday night's set-closer "Get Lost Mr. Bones". It was the kind of joyous improvisational act I rarely see at shows, but maybe I just don't get out enough.

Full disclosure: Cason Kelly and Tiny Victories' manager David Teller are friends. Blogger's honor the above was not editorially compromised.

The Perils of Rooting Against, or, Playoff Omnibus Numero Uno

2010-10-08T23:40:00.005-05:00

Just because the Mets are too poorly run to make the playoffs doesn't mean I stop watching baseball after Oliver Perez has walked his last batter as a Met. Unfortunately for me, it also means watching at least one team I hate play extra baseball for a week, maybe even a month. More unfortunately for me, this year the Braves, Phillies and Yankees managed to make it to the playoffs. I would only be able to find a real life equivalence for that if I was dumped by my girlfriend minutes after losing my job and then was set on fire by a war protesting Buddhist monk who found self-immolation too constricting.

Rooting moderately hard against three teams takes as much of an emotional toll as rooting passionately for a team that I do like, with the added bonus of not giving back any comparable feelings of joy I get when the Mets win. It's just a moment of smugness that quickly goes away when I remember I'd give anything for them to just make the playoffs next year.

Watching the two games I did tonight, it feels a like I'm being punished for investing as much in a team I hate losing as much as I do in a team I love winning. However, my strict atheism forbids me from believing in any kind of gods, much less The Baseball Gods. No, the truth is that I hate three teams that are really good at baseball. Hell, two of them made the World Series last year and came into this year as the favorites. If I'm being punished by anything, it's baseball science.

The only team I can gin up any legitimate affection for is the Giants, a residual effect of living with Ush. Even with the Giants though, my good will towards them is tempered by their employment of the loathsome Cody Ross. Not to mention rooting for a team that's relying on Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell to carry the offense just seems so hopeless.

With the Yankees and Phillies already up 2-0 in their respective series, I can already feel my molars sharpened from the constant grinding. That I just turned off a game where the Braves came back from a 4-0 deficit mere hours after the Phillies had done the same thing will not help me avoid costly dental reconstruction. After tonight, there's a good possibility of a Phillies/Braves NLCS with the Yankees advancing to the ALCS, followed by the following nightmare scenarios:

The Phillies playing in a third straight World Series, winning their second in three years
The Braves winning a World Series in Bobby Cox's final year on the bench
The Yankees winning their second straight World Series

By then I may just have to throw in the towel and skip the World Series like I threatened to do last year. Not that I was able to, I enjoy the depths of addiction far too much.

Being a fan of things that are shiny and new, I started pulling for the Reds after the Mets disastrous, post-All-Star break road trip. Here was a Central division team that wasn't the Cardinals or Cubs, running away with the division. Plus the whole redemption thing after ten years of ineptitude. I didn't get to see much of them all year, so maybe if I had, my expectations wouldn't have been so high. They look terrible so far, chasing Roy Oswalt notwithstanding. Orlando Cabrera, "winning ballplayer" made the play to start the Reds' brain lock on Wilson Valdez' grounder in the second inning of Game 1. Wilson Valdez isn't Usain Bolt, go to first base, get the last out and go sit dow-. Oh no, definitely shovel the ball to second base using only your glove. Kudos as well to Scott Rolen for going to second tonight on an impossible play instead of taking the sure out.
The Reds were also singlehandedly outgamed by Chase Utley, who faked being hit by a pitch and missed third base when scoring later in the inning. The former is poor sportsmanship, but the Reds had a chance to appeal the latter and I can't imagine why they didn't.
Last night, I watched the Giants strand a runner on third with one out and thought, "Hmm, offense like that can certainly kill you." And so the Giants, despite getting an early lead managed to still look putrid on offense tonight, blowing a first and third with one out in the seventh inning. Atlanta scored three runs the next inning. People: runs left off the board count just as much as the ones you can get up there.
Dick Stockton and Bob Brenly made a big show out of talking about how Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell were college teammates and are now great friends. It makes sense on more than one level. Sure, maybe their personalities mesh really well, but they're also two guys who are always going to drag some vague sense of disappointment around with them to whatever team they end up on.
Brian Wilson isn't so damn special. He's got great numbers, but it didn't look like he was fooling anyone on the Braves. If your fastball isn't good enough to beat Alex Gonzalez when you miss with it belt high, you aren't going to anchor a championship bullpen.
Speaking of bullpens, the last bullpen I remember that collectively grew horrible beards is the Astros' bullpen from 2005. The Giants should be sure to remember that those beards only got the Astros to the World Series, it didn't help them win it.
I haven't seen much of Yankees/Twins, but I did see the Jesse Crain vs. Mark Texiera at-bat. From watching that one inning, Jesse Crain came out looking like one of those infuriating relievers who has a great fastball with movement and speed but is too afraid to throw it until his back is against the wall. Science has proven this is the most irritating type of relief pitcher in baseball. Number two? Kyle Farnsworth.
The most comedic play-by-play moment of the playoffs goes to whoever was calling Game 1 of Rays/Rangers who claimed having Jeff Francoeur batting seventh provided lineup insurance for the Rangers.
Lucky for me I have to go sling fish heads tomorrow while the Yankees and Twins play. I can't stand to watch this sweep happen.

One Nation, In Decline

2010-10-07T22:47:00.003-05:00

I'll start by mentioning that I was in a focus group once. I was unemployed and wandering around the city when someone in front of a movie theater invited me to see Killshot for free (it was terrible). It was boring for the most part, except for a terrifying moment when one woman in the group told another one that if she'd ever had a miscarriage she would have understood Diane Lane's horrible character. I felt bad for the people running it because they kept trying to wrangle straight answers about our feelings about the movie but we were all inarticulate at best, flat out stupid at worst. So I'll give credit to the three consultants who've been sitting in the living rooms of independent voters, it's got to be awkward.

Especially since just like my focus group, none of these people seem to have the slightest clue of what they're talking about:

[I]ndependent voters have tended to side with whichever party can legitimately claim not to be in charge at the moment, and ideology doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it.

It's a wonder that anarchy hasn't become a more appealing form of government with attitudes like that. On the other hand, it definitely explains the appeal of the Tea Party, since those assholes can more than legitimately claim to not be in charge of anything. As far as money quotes go though, our clueless voters only get better:

One woman described a food fight at the middle school that left a mess school employees were obliged to clean up, presumably because the children couldn’t be subjected to physical labor. A man complained about drivers who had grown increasingly hostile and inconsiderate on the roads, which drew nods of assent all around. Another described the Internet as just plain “bad.” [Emphasis added]

The internet as just plain bad. These are the words of a nation on it's way out people. While China is building bullet trains and showing some initiative in the forgery department, we as a nation are still struggling with the ideas of a globally connected system of computers that changed the world for good at least fifteen years ago. No one is forcing your children to overshare, your kids are just idiots.

Things are tough all over. I've got a college degree and I'm selling fish heads to get by. Some of my friends can't find work, others that do still can't afford to live on their own. Despite all of that, I've got a cell phone that communicates with satellites IN SPACE and gives me directions when I'm wandering around lost. You don't even need to be rich to own something like this, considering that I mentioned before that I'm selling fish heads. But yeah, the big problem with our society is that we're about as close to a collective consciousness as we've ever been.

You're angry at Washington? Get in line behind all the dead people. Being angry at those crooks in Washington has survived slavery, segregation, Manifest Destiny, non-integrated baseball, the Red Scare, the Cold War, the NES, Sega as a console producer and of course it survived our latest recession*. The anger and frustration is a great meme for voters and the media now because, as the narrative goes, Barack Obama promised change and has failed to deliver. When someone says "We are the ones we've been waiting for," it's more a challenge to act than it is a promise to wave a magic wand and make it all better. Yet here we are, two years later and a collection of ideologically empty jes' folks can't even articulate a vision for the future of the country they live in, much less make a coherent argument beyond "Road rage makes me sad."

___________________________________________________________________

*I guess you're supposed to call it The Great Recession, but I'm not going to sully the name of the actual Great Depression by tying to our sucky but not impossible times. We didn't have bread lines or Okies or whatever the shit it was that was going on during Carnivale.

___________________________________________________________________

I happen to have a vision. Two actually. The American voter can quit stuffing his face with Anus Burgers and spaghetti tacos and think clearly about the fact that a party left for dead because they couldn't or wouldn't follow through on their promises of fiscal sanity and moral leadership is about to storm back to power based on promises of fiscal sanity and moral leadership. Or she can ignore that, make David Brooks happy and vote for gridlock in Washington and then wonder aloud why Darrell Issa is greased up and nude on the steps of the Capitol and demanding Obama "release the tapes."

Either outcome is fine with me. I still have hope that Michael Bloomberg harbors a secret lust to separate New York City from this otherwise worthless landmass.

Pulp Luvs R.A. 4eva!!?!

2010-07-30T14:05:00.004-05:00

When I woke up on my friends' couch yesterday morning, one of the first things I saw was a SportsCenter crawl informing me Roy Oswalt had been traded to the Phillies. Not the first thing you want to see any morning, especially when you're about to head to Citi Field with four Cardinals fans. Well, technically, two Cardinals fans, one girlfriend and one girl just along for the ride. I ate my bacon and my donuts with a black cloud hanging over me, complaining that the season was officially over. It seemed completely insane to me that I had woken up at 9:30 in the morning to go catch a game at noon, but like the man said, buy the ticket, take the ride. As it turns out, my sarcastic taunts on the subway that R.A. Dickey would pitch a no-hitter were more accurate than my friends or I could have imagined.

That's getting ahead in the story though. The most important discovery of my visit to Citi is that before the game starts, the Mets invite you to send nonsensical text messages that will be displayed on the small scoreboards in left and right field. Since our visit coincided with the visit of every day camp and uncomfortably attractive camp counselor in the Tri-state area, the scoreboards filled up with nonsense like "Keith luvs [sic] Julie forever? [sic]" My favorite is displayed below.

There was also an umbrella giveaway, which delighted me more than most of the crowd, since I lost my Giants umbrella I got during my visit to San Francisco a few years ago. These are solid umbrellas, way more solid than I would think a team would give away, but I'm not complaining. What I did complain about was seeing that David Wright had been given the day off. "I didn't pay 25 fucking dollars to see Mike Hessman," I groused as we passed a group of children.

It was OK though, because Mike Hessman looks like a serial killer and that provided more than ample entertainment for me every time his face was splashed on the Jumbotron. I mean, it wouldn't be as funny if I were a sex worker and it was the last thing I saw as I ran through one of the swamps of Flushing, but I don't have to worry about that yet.

What were we talking about? Oh right, the baseball game. Even more entertaining than Mike "Mr. Brooks" Hessman was R.A. Dickey, hereby known as Rad Ass Dickey. To the family reunion sitting in front of us, I'm not sorry at all you had to hear me scream that at least once an inning. Half of you were Cardinals fans anyway. I'm also not sorry you had to hear me mercilessly scream taunts whenever Alex Cora was up, mostly because they didn't have any curses in them. Hey, did you guys know Rad Ass Dickey had a higher batting average than Alex Cora for most of yesterday's game?

Dickey had the Cardinals in the palm of his hand all game. No one on the Cardinals hit the ball hard, not even the feared Albert Pujols. In a rare instance in modern baseball, Dickey's pitch count was so low that I was able to start calculating the odds of him pitching a complete game by the sixth inning. It wasn't to be, but I can't remember the last time I was part of a standing ovation for a Met pitcher. It might have been 2005.

Ike took care of the rest, and my visit to Citi was an unqualified success. Except for some jackass behind me giving Carlos Beltran the Alex Cora treatment. The only thing stopping me from turning around and screaming at him (more than the one time I did) was my friend Dan telling me that when he went to the game Tuesday night, he saw people ejected from the stadium for fighting and it turned out they were both Met fans. Just a reminder of how tense things are in Flushing nowadays.

14 Point Treatise on Why Slayer Rulz (Or How To Make Fun of Brooklyn Hipsters for Hating Metal)

2010-07-27T20:57:00.005-05:00

1) SLAYER RULZ

2) ALL PEOPLE THAT RULE LOVE SLAYER

3) ALL THEIR FUCKING SONGS SOUND LIKE YOU'RE SUMMONING A DEMON IN YOUR STEREO

4) THE SONG ANGEL OF DEATH WAS WRITTEN ABOUT WHAT WILL COME TO TAKE YOUR SOULS IN WILLIAMSBURG IF YOU DON'T GET RID OF THOSE FUCKING HORNRIMMED GLASSES. ITS BEEN FUCKING 12 YEARS WITH THOSE FUCKING THINGS GET RID OF THEM ALREADY. YOU DON'T LOOK COOL YOU LOOK LIKE A JACKASS

5) HELL AWAITS

6) I AM NOT DRUNK

7) SHOW NO MERCY

8) BAD ASS FUCKING METAL SHIT

9) PULP ONCE SACRIFICED A GOAT TO SATAN OUR DARK LORD AND MASTER IN HIGH SCHOOL FOR 2 CREAM CHEESE BAGELS WITH DORITOS ON THEM FROM THE CAFETERIA AFTER A TWELVE DAY SLAYER AND GLUE BENDER

10) THE SONG HARDENING OF THE ARTERIES IS ABOUT DOMINO'S PIZZA GARLIC SAUCE

11) SATAN HIMSELF HAS ENDORSED BOTH SATAN AND SQUALOR

12) SLAYER HAS A PINBALL APP FOR IPHONES. SUCK ON THAT HIPSTER BROOKLYN LOSERS READING THIS SHIT

13) REIGN IN BLOOD

14) WATCH THE ENDING OF SHADOWGATE ON NINTENDO WITH SLAYER PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND - YOU'LL GET IT

The Northside Fest Gift Bag Was Full Of Useless Bullshit, But That's OK

2010-06-25T15:04:00.004-05:00

Taste the fucking rainforest

I have some scattered thoughts on the first day of the Northside Festival, even though today is the second day. Whatever, don't judge me.

5:30
When I went to pick up my badge, there was free beer. You can't ever go wrong with that. In fact, every time you pick up a ticket for a show, it should come with a beer. Thus begins my long day of drinking. While I go through the gift bag and drink my beer, someone keeps taking pictures of me. I try not to be self-conscious, but also refuse to take anything out of the bag at the moment.

6:00
I get home and look through the bag. There's a tank-top that's way too small for me promoting Splice. Even if it fit, it wouldn't crack my rotation of don't-give-a-fuck clothing, headed by my three ridiculous 90s basketball jerseys. There's some kind of gym thing, but I have no use for that if I'm going to die at thirty. Also some kind of Yerba Mate drink promising "a powerful rain forest experience" and calling itself "a flavorful tribute to the Ache Guayaki", a tribe that lives in the South American rain forest. Jesus. I eat a chocolate while talking to my roommate and head to Shea Stadium.

6:30
Shea Stadium is nice, especially the huge Met logo they have painted on one of the walls. Nothing much is going on and the promised barbecue isn't happening anytime soon. There's free beer here too though, so I help myself. There's a small deck that everyone seems to be on, I'm sitting next to two people who have a friend that's never seen a penis. Another person tells his friend he doesn't get enough ass, to which his friend goes nuclear, pointing to a girl and saying "She gets more pussy than you," and ending his tirade with "All my niggas get more pussy than you." I marvel at the fact that there isn't a cloud in the sky and choke down a salty Heineken light (free) before giving my Sharpie away to the bouncer.

7:30
I go up to Greenpoint, but there's nothing going on at the Warsaw yet. I go a little further north to a taco place, La Nortena, since I didn't get anything to eat at Shea Stadium. I ask the waitress to turn on the Met game since I'm the only one in the restaurant. "Oh, you want English TV?" Sigh. I should have paid better attention in Spanish class. Still, the tacos are good and the Met game is eventually put on.

8:50
Just in time for the end of open bar at The Trash Bar, where there's no music yet. In fact, I haven't seen any music at all, so after I finish my beer in the company of five people sitting around waiting for, something, I leave.

9:15
Finally, music. The Knitting Factory is hosting the illustrious opening night party for the festival, which means I get to catch a glimpse of lo-fi wiseass Dom. Everything is in the Wavves, No Age mold, which is cool. I'm amazed by how young looking the lead singer is. Also, one of my bosses is there. "Shouldn't you be chopping up trout?" I ask him. I stick around for a bit longer before heading back to Greenpoint.

9:45
Jesus Christ, there's still nothing is going on at the Warsaw. I lock up my bike and walk to Europa where a tiny group of people is watching Pillow Theory. Calling it sad would be meaner than I'd want to be, but the question keeps echoing around my head: who the fuck plays grunge anymore? Becoming uncomfortable, I walk back down to the Warsaw.

10:15
Finally, something going on there. The Hundred in the Hands is finishing up their set. They're a guy-girl duo, the guy plays guitars over electro beats and the girl sings. They sound a little like Blonde Redhead. I get a beer when the set ends and try to get my friend to come out for the show. He's acting like a forty-year old though, so I'm still going it alone.

11:00
Au Revoir Simone goes on shortly after 11, and I see my boss again. I make sure not to mention the chocolate. The set brings me back to younger me, three years ago to be precise. Back in 2007 was the first time I'd heard Au Revoir Simone and also the last time I'd been at the Warsaw. Back then I had a real job, with a suit and tie, but it didn't stop me from staying out until 2 AM to hang out with the Polyphonic Spree after a show there. Au Revoir Simone's music is bouncier than I remember.

Someone says, "The one on the right, she's so hot." Well, duh, all of the girls in Au Revoir Simone are pretty. I don't know how you'd test this theory, but you can't have an atmospheric, electro-pop girl trio with ugly people. It wouldn't fly. There's a guy with an Ed Hardy shirt just going nuts, whipping a shirt above his head. I wonder what brought him to the show.

In a heartbreaking moment for me, I don't get to hear the one song I really wanted to hear. These things happen. Au Revoir Simone end their show with a cover of "Boys of Summer." I identify it from the first chord, mostly because the mean Arab guy that does the music where I sell fish heads plays it all the time. When I nail the song so quickly, I tell my boss I've been selling fish heads for too long. He just laughs. He's been doing it way longer than me.

Midnight
The show is over. "Just as unrehearsed as I remember them being," my boss says. "Ah, but that's authentic," I respond. He laughs and we go our separate ways. I meet up with my roommate for a drink and we find a piano sitting out in the middle of McCarren Park. Apparently it's an art installation for Northside. A guy standing there with a girl tells us that she's played the piano for fifteen years, but she won't play anything for us. We stop in at Blackbird, where I sit and drink for a little while before going to Public Assembly.

1:45
The first thing that happens when I get to Public Assembly is some girl in large heels steps on my foot as she's being carried out of the club. I realize that no matter how far gone I've been in my life, I've never been that girl. I look at the stage to see Fang Island finishing their sound check. I knew a little bit about them, but there's still a shock at seeing four guys with guitars just wailing away in unison. It's like if Andrew W.K. and the Polyphonic Spree had a baby, a sonic assault,but a happy one. There's no letting up the entire set and I wish the room was more packed so I could stage dive. In fact, I can't believe I got in so easy, because what else were you going to do with a Northside badge at 1 AM, watch Ryan Schreiber DJ? I'm almost angry the room isn't wall to wall packed, but it's impossible to stay angry during this music. I do resolve to punch my friend in the mouth for offering me, then taking back, an extra ticket he had to see Fang Island at the Knitting Factory two or three months ago.

2:45

Six Months In A Leaky Boat

2010-06-24T00:17:00.003-05:00

I've got a bad habit of going to songs and song lyrics to try to make sense of it all when it comes to the Mets, but I think a song about a nervous breakdown is a pretty apt metaphor for looking at the life of the Met fan the last few years. Plus the baseball season is six months, so there's that.

Truth be told, it's not all doom and gloom here at the new TGME HQ (I moved). Even though I watched the Mets lose two games this past weekend, they still had a 7-2 road trip. If the losses had come in two consecutive games to, say, the Reds, it would hardly have mattered. Instead, the Mets lost two to the Yankees and all of a sudden it became imperative to come out and stomp the Tigers, to prove this team wouldn't undo all the progress they'd made.

Well, stomp they have. Most teams don't score nineteen runs in a series, much less in the first two games of the series, but the Mets have managed that feat in cavernous Citi Field. Add to that the fact that they seem to have their very own 2005 Aaron Small in R.A. Dickey and you would think there isn't anything at all to be worried about, much less have a nervous breakdown over.

And yet...

Every positive thing that happens with this team can instantly be set back by boneheaded moves from the front office. Actually, boneheaded doesn't quite grasp it. I've probably linked to this David Roth piece, in which he agonizes over how completely inexplicable the Mets' decision making process appears to be, before. I could point at that piece almost every day when I think about this team. For instance we've been treated to Jennry Mejia finally, FINALLY, being sent down to Binghamton. Presumably this is because Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel no longer see trotting out a buzzed-about prospect the only avenue to saving their respective jobs. Not that Mejia's ability would have saved anyone if this team were 30-41, but that makes sense because he's 20 and has barely pitched above A ball. Of course, the mystery remains what he was doing on the team until the middle of June considering that he wasn't the team's primary set up man, but good luck getting an answer to that question.

Also good luck to figuring out why there's any talk at all of Angel Pagan being the odd man out when Carlos Beltran comes back from the depths of the ocean. In what world am I living in when a team sees the need to keep Jeff Francoeur's one-dimensional ass in the line-up over a prototypical two-hitter that's finally living up to his immense talent? Because when I look out the window, the sky is blue, 9/11 still happened and it doesn't rain donuts. If Jerry Manuel wants to explain to me that in his universe, taking at-bats away from Angel Pagan keeps us from some terrible Homefront future, I'm all ears, but I'm also going to start putting lithium in his water.

Are we even going to go into the Johan Santana sexual assault thing? No, no we will not.

In the end, my big fear regarding this team is that the Braves are exactly as good as they're playing, the Phillies are better than their record indicates and that the Mets aren't quite this good. It's impressive that a team still missing it's All-Star centerfielder and getting basically no help from its big power bat acquisition is eleven games over .500 and half a game out of first place. I just don't know that it's sustainable.

Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock'N'Roll General

2010-06-23T00:32:00.002-05:00

Does anyone remember in 2003 or 2004 when John Kerry got interviewed in Rolling Stone and said George Bush was "fucking dumb"; or something like that? He also talked about his motorcycle and his leather jacket collection and generally made an ass out of himself. That's all I could think of when I woke up today and read that Stanley McChrystal was summoned to Washington to get yelled at because his aide said "fuck" and basically everyone involved with high level decisions in Afghanistan made asses out of themselves. Don't these guys know we have ~~a trillion dollars of resources to secure~~ a commitment to a democratic Afghanistan?

I haven't had the chance to read the actual McChrystal profile yet, but I did get to read all the juicy pull quotes and I have to say I'm truly disappointed. These people are supposed to be our hardest and meanest killing machines and their idea of a burn is turning "Biden" into "bite me." I get through more creative insults after two hours of selling fish heads then these guys do after looking death in the face every day. Well, I guess McChrystal does but his aides don't, which would explain why one of them called a dinner with a French minister "fucking gay." Send that guy on more night time raids until he learns how to call people, I dunno, "mutant, dog screwing fuckfaces."

The only truly unfortunate aspect of the entire article, again, from my perspective of not having had time to read it, is apparently that Team ~~McChrystal~~ America (seriously?) said Barack Obama was intimidated at a meeting of big shot generals. We have to stop playing these games pretending like liberal presidents don't kill foreign people with weird names. I know that between 1980 and 2008 we had one Democratic president, but he bombed the shit out of people with names we couldn't pronounce just as well as his Republican counterparts. Maybe even better. Doesn't anyone remember Behind Enemy Lines?

Shit, no, wait.

Damn that looks more awesome than I remembered. Netflix'd!

So let's drop this idea that Barack Obama isn't committed to continuing the war in Afghanistan. He's said he is a million times AND he sent 30,000 troops there. The skies of Afghanistan are still populated by killing machines that are basically flying Terminators. Rand Paul is more radical on the military-industrial complex than Obama, so let's PLEASE stop acting like mainstream Democrats are uncomfortable with war.

Media Matters Uncovers Important Information About Glenn Beck's Cock

2010-06-19T12:30:00.003-05:00

Namely, that he calls it "the panther." Uh, what?

From The 10 Stupidest Moments in Glenn Beck's New Novel:

Noah and Molly find themselves in bed together early in the book after a harrowing experience at a Founders' Keepers rally. They agree to sleep in bed together because Molly is too scared to sleep at home, but Molly insists that nothing sexual will take place. Noah agrees, on the condition that she "not do anything sexy." She presses her cold feet against his legs, and Noah responds:

"Suit yourself, lady. I'm telling you right now, you made the rules, but you're playing with fire here. I've got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don't tease the panther." [Emphasis theirs]

Then again, no one should be shocked by this. Since Glenn Beck is just an unhinged, Mormon Bill O'Reilly, it would make sense there's a terrifically awkward scene involving sex. We should just consider ourselves lucky Beck didn't include an actual sex scene.

When I Say "Hollywood Is Killing Me" This Isn't What I Mean

2010-06-05T16:17:00.003-05:00

From the Times:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The toxic metal cadmium has been discovered in the painted design on “Shrek”-themed drinking glasses being sold nationwide at McDonald’s, forcing the burger giant to recall 12 million of the collectibles.

Q: Didja hear the one about the underperforming Shrek sequel?
A: They're calling it box office poison!

Q: Could going to McDonald's still kill me?
A: No. As long as you don't order off the menu.

Q: What if I need to complete my Shrek cup collection?
A: Eh, buy one. You won't be missed.

Oh Save Yourself, Timothy Egan

2010-06-04T13:36:00.002-05:00

The biggest problem with the Times' Op-Ed page is that it's almost never funny. Not that they don't try (and fail). Witness Timothy Egan:

The millennials, that echo boomer generation born after 1982, have not been heard from of late, ever since proving that they could pull away from their Facebook pages long enough to help elect a president.

HA HA! KIDS AND THEIR INTERNETS! That a man from a generation that couldn't fulfill their own revolutionary promises makes that kind of condescending joke is irritating enough. That he makes it while begging everyone under thirty to come to the rescue of the country is just galling.

Egan is right of course that the Republicans retaking Congress would be a disaster and that Barack Obama needs to get them engaged in the midterm elections. That would probably be easier though if he hadn't been a disappointment even as a pragmatist.

Exiting the voting booth, I didn't expect Barack Obama to completely reflect my politics, but almost every time some right wing nut starts crying, this administration has given in. Why did I vote for this guy if he won't tell Joe Lieberman to shut the fuck up when he floats the idea of stripping citizenship from Americans? How could Obama possibly justify expanding off-shore drilling after he spent months being the candidate opposite the moron chanting "Drill baby, drill!"

If, according to a Pew poll that Egan cites, American kids are optimistic about the future, there's a word for that: delusion. He wants us to go volunteer to clean up the Gulf? Maybe when I've got a job that's better than selling fish heads I'll take some time to go down there. Because otherwise, these heads are just going to be rotting in the sun.

Just in case you didn't get it before, Egan ends with this:

Besides, with news that George W. Bush is now on Facebook, what better time to leave the digital den?

You are horrible, Timothy Egan.

Caroline Glick Almost Takes The Prize For "Most Loathsome 'We Are The World' Parody"..

2010-06-04T12:59:00.002-05:00

...but still can't quite beat out the Westboro Baptist Church.

As someone who loves the original "We Are The World" so much he has the video on his hard drive, I appreciate the Dylan and Springsteen impersonations. Spot on guys. Maybe next time don't do an Arab minstrel show though. Just a suggestion.

(video via The Awl)

I Understand There Are Changing Standards of Beauty But This Is Ridiculous

2010-06-03T22:22:00.004-05:00

Young people, as we all know, can't be trusted with anything. Unfortunately, they're prodigious spenders of their parent's cash, which means they get trusted with the keys to the pop culture car. Sometimes it spawns phenomena that are irritating but understandable. Other times, there's this:

3OH!3 - New Music - More Music Videos

Come on adolescents! You can't do any better than this? If you want music what with the throbbing bass for you to listen at your underage sex parties just listen to some fucking house music or something. I need to know what the purpose of this song/video is aside from providing sixteen-year-old boys with Ke$ha blowjob masturbation fantasies.

More importantly, I want to know if this guy is actually a teen girl fantasy:

Teenage girls hate the idea of sex with teenage guys because they're awkward, immature, and probably have braces. It's not shocking that even the most nonthreatening teen idols are older than their shrieking fans, but this guy from 3OH!3 is really pushing it. Really, what is this guy, six hundred?

Putting age aside, how is he even attractive to a ridiculous scene girl? Say what you will about Brokencyde (and Lord knows I have) but at least they look the part. This guy looks like the failed result of a Tom Brady cloning project, but not even the kind of failure that creates a bitter, revenge obsessed loner. He looks like your dad's creepy friend who works as a middle management failure and begs you to not mention the time he got drunk at the barbecue and put his hand uncomfortably high on your thigh. Makes me wish I was young again. I could compete with that.

It's Why I Don't Eat Before Watching Met Games

2010-06-03T17:25:00.003-05:00

"Living with you is like living in a living nightmare."
-Tad Ghostal

Our next possible GM (l) and his brain trust

Since it happens to the Mets only so often, I've come to like West Coast baseball. There are a few reasons, like being old enough to stay up and watch games and no longer needing to rely on the next day's paper to get a score and the fact that it happens mostly during the summer. When I was in school and used to be home for summer, I'd go out to my car, parked in front of the house, turn on WFAN and smoke while listening to the Mets play the Dodgers or Giants or Padres. The A's too a couple times, I guess. Of course, usually the Mets weren't doing too hot, courtesy of some kind of gypsy curse that doesn't allow them to win once they cross the Rocky Mountain range.

Jason Fry and Greg Prince have a much more encyclopedic knowledge of the Mets' Pacific Coast failures than I do, although I'll always remember last year's balk-tastic, base-running gaffe filled (oh look, both of them in one Top Ten list), impossible to believe losses. Because of those memories, I wasn't at all comfortable watching the Mets cling to a 1-0 lead last night. I went back to work hoping that Johan Santana would be rewarded with a win, but knowing full well it wasn't a guarantee.

Of course, isn't that why K-Rod was brought in? To erase memories of Braden Looper and Luis Ay-ay-ay-ala? That would be the case for a normal team maybe, but the nightmare of being a Met fan must go on, which means our heralded closer now has a save percentage with the Mets that's comparable to a barely acceptable stolen base rate. K-Rod has blown almost 20 percent of the games he's been brought in to tamp down. Not all of them involve blowing a game the Mets need to turn a disastrous road trip into a good one, but all of them hurt. Especially because in the off-season two years ago it was conventional wisdom that all the Mets needed to do to fix their rotten bullpen was bring a dump truck full of money to Anaheim.

So much for that. Between yet another sub-.500 road trip and the ongoing saga of Oliver Perez: Unkillable, the Mets are showing consistency in one department: being the baseball equivalent of that dream I have where I'm stuck in a warehouse district somewhere and people are trying to kill me but also reminding me I'm late for work and my bosses won't accept "lost in a maze with hired killers" as an excuse as to why I'm late. So thanks guys, I need something like that while I'm awake.

Some Metaphors Are Just Too Easy

2010-05-03T00:02:00.004-05:00

So it turns out we have enough footage in extension cords and power strips in my apartment for me to drag TGME HQ (my laptop) up to the roof of my building and watch baseball up there. It's great getting up to stretch and instead of seeing the fridge and the same old walls seeing the glittering expanse of Manhattan, from City Hall up to a little past the Chrysler Building. It would have made for a great "on top the world" metaphor following the end of Friday's game if I had decided write about it instead of immediately going out and ~~getting drunk~~ making a social call. Of course, a night like tonight it makes for a bunch of easy "stepping off the ledge/jumping off the roof" jokes," so I'll split the difference and go with neither metaphor!

Christ what a disaster. The shame of it is, despite fully expecting to lose Saturday's game, I also was finally starting to come around on this team a little bit. Friday looked like a squad that had found a groove, I saw a team that played a complete game in every way. No one, most of all me, expected the Mets to keep winning until September, but all that talk about hustle and heart and history was sounding less like horse shit. Two of three from the Phillies in the first series of the year was improbable enough a little over a week ago, but to do that while in first place was inconceivable . Which shows always go with your first feeling on a subject no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.

Or not. At work today I even said the fateful words, "I fully expect the Mets to win this game." I guess what I should have said was "I fully expect Johan Santana to pitch like he's hurt again and absolutely refuse to throw his slider." By the way, does anyone have a count on how many times Joe Morgan insisted Santana throw his curveball? Things seemed off when Santana went with a high fastball against Placido Polanco on an 0-2 count and they never really felt right the rest of the way, especially when we all came to the 1-2 count on Raul Ibanez. There's your damn turning point. There should have been no doubt Santana puts him away with some kind of junky off-speed pitch. Instead he goes with a fastball and gives the Phillies back a run and well, no one comes here for goddamn recaps.

It's too early to start worrying that Johan actually is hurt, and obviously even your top dog is going to crap the bed every now and again. This was pretty fucking epic though, to the point where I just knew the game was over when he walked Moyer. Truth be told, I don't even know where Shane Victorino's grand slam landed because by then I was lying flat on my back staring up at the cloud cover and cursing the fact that I had a bunch of wires to drag down the fire escape ladder.

So it's back to ambivalence about the Mets. I'm not sure how much of my summer they'll take up at this rate but I know for damn sure they won't be ruining any dates, because I really cannot imagine watching anything worse than what I saw tonight.

Things Done Changed

2010-04-30T18:30:00.000-05:00

In what has to be one of the most surprising stories of the young baseball season, the Mets have gone a whole week without losing, and not because they've had a week of rain delays. Let's take a trip in the wayback machine and check out what was going on the last time the Mets lost.

It was a simpler time, April 22nd 2010. Kick-Ass was a day away from ending its short-lived reign atop the box office. Mexicans in Arizona were free to rape and pillage to their hearts' content and the government was powerless to stop them. The US Senate wasn't on the brink of WAR. Gil Meche's ERA was 11.57 and Kris Benson was healthy. The San Jose Sharks were still deciding on whether or not to go through with another embarrassing playoff exit. Your esteemed host had no idea Hole was still around. Dirk Nowitzki was a happy Maverick. The Mets were in last place and not very good.

For an even simpler time, we look back to the halcyon days of May 2009, the last time the Mets put together seven straight wins. Michael Jackson and Ed McMahon were still alive, free from the clutches of the Summer of Death. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 8,574 um...points? Quadrants? Whatever. The country was in the middle of one of those sepia-toned depressions but wasn't yet in thrall to morons in tri-corner hats. God was punishing the Gulf Coast with soul crushing poverty, but that was nothing new. The President's approval rating was 65 percent on the strength of his promises to give everyone in America in free handjobs and health care. John McCain was an unhappy maverick. The Mets were in first place but not very good.

And now? Arizona is crime and meth free and patriotic Arizonians are lining up for landscaping and fruit picking jobs. Totally liberal and probably queer Charlie Crist has been chased out of the Republican Party by one of the good ones. The Dow closed today at 11,008 tribbles, no thanks to that meddling Kenyan, whose approval rating has plummeted to 49 percent. The President delivered on health care but the handjobs thing has caused enormous traffic jams trying to get to Washington, DC. Liberal claptrap How To Train Your Dragon burned its way back to the top of the box office. God punished the Gulf Coast with a massive oil spill because He hates either Bobby Jindal or poor people, probably both. Kris Benson is injured and Gil Meche's ERA dropped to 10.13 after a 6 inning, 5 run performance against the Red Sox. The San Jose Sharks are up 1-0 against the Red Wings in the second round. Dirk Nowitzki is going to end up on, oh let's just say the Grizzlies, and John McCain is unhappy but not a maverick and don't you ever say he was one.

And the Mets? They're in first place and still not very good. The more things change...

Metpocalypse Now

2010-04-27T02:39:00.003-05:00

Time was, when I had more of a heart for doomsaying, we did a thing here called the Apocalypse Forecast. I'm dusting off that dusty tag tag now because there are too many good feelings floating around the Mets. "Ohhhhhh, the Mets are 10-9! Let's have a splendid tea party!" That's what you're all saying out there in Met fan land, entranced by the low ERA coming out of the starting pitchers and the seemingly impossible to argue with 6-1 homestand. Well I'm here to argue with it, because the Mets' success is about as stable as a credit-default swap offered up by Goldman Sachs.

Here's something to keep in mind when you watch or listen to a game: ball four. The Mets are walking the world right now, starters and relievers. Taken as a unit, Mets pitchers are straddling an unsustainable 4.9 walks per nine innings along with a 1.61 walks to strikeouts ratio. The only starter with a BB/9 under 4 is Johan Santana. The team is third in baseball in strikeouts yes, but it also leads the league in walks, by fifteen over the nearest team. There's the matter of the Mets being 22nd in getting innings from their starting pitchers and 3rd in getting innings from their relievers, which short of a miracle is a recipe that's going to blow up in their faces. I've yet to see Fernando Nieve walk across Flushing Bay, so it's safe to assume the bullpen will crash back to Earth if they keep being worked like this.

Know what I mutter about under my breath while I'm at work? It's a constant loop of "Why can't the fucking Mets fucking hit?" Nevermind that Jason Bay has yet to hit a home run and that the man is striking out at a rate that would make Dave Kingman blush, our new leadoff hitter has a .302 OBP. There's also David Wright, striking out at a rate that would make Mark Reynolds blush. If only he could hit .260 like Mark Reynolds, maybe he'd inch his slugging percentage above .500 again. Instead he's changing his swing, can't hit an outside pitch and can't catch up to a high, inside fastball. Which begs the question: what can he hit?

Wright still usually looks better than Jeff Francoeur though, who's made swinging at everything into an art form, if being a cracker version of Vladimir Guerrero can be considered art. The best the Mets can hope for at this point is that Francoeur treads water where his stats are now, because he's at about his ceiling until he can keep the bat on his shoulder for longer than two pitches. His name remains impossible to spell without checking an official reference and he's batting a puke-inducing .114 since the end of the hitting streak to start his season. One of those things bothers me much more than the other.

More good news: Carlos Beltran's return is now so ethereal that Gary Mathews, Jr. put a downpayment on a house on the North Shore. Gotta love the diplomatic language of the official team site in relaying the news that Beltran's mid-May return "now seems less likely."

Oh wait, I think George Vescey has something positive to say:

“I didn’t see anybody offering me an extension,” Manuel said, laughing, as he does. He was referring to his contract being up at the end of the season. A week ago, it was reasonable to envision him not making it to the end of the season, but that is how things go in these parts.

“Everybody’s making a big deal about it,” said Alex Cora, the Mets’ old-pro utility man who will be managing a team one of these days, if he wants the aggravation.

...

What about the fear and trembling that was kicking around recently? “I never thought about it,” said Cora, who helped the Red Sox win the World Series in 2007, and knows from good teams.

Alex Cora is here for another season after this one thanks to a contract that was widely considered idiotic, you fucking buffoon! Alex Cora carried that Red Sox team with his .684 OPS and his seven errors in eighty three games. I don't even dislike Alex Cora, but using him as the linchpin in your "This team has heart" column is Sports Hack 101. They teach you how to be a relentlessly negative sourpuss in Sports Hack 202, a class I've been stuck repeating since 2007.

The Mets are 10-9 with a three gazillion dollar payroll, there's no telling what's going to happen to John Maine next (perhaps an anvil will fall on him or he'll get injured chasing a road runner), before last night they were staring up at the Nationals in the standings and to top it all off, Oliver Perez starts tomorrow. What a great time to revisit the fact that Bobby Bonilla's agent is obviously some kind of Rasputin-like wizard.

The Braves Got What Was Coming To Them

2010-04-26T12:45:00.003-05:00

Ordinarily I might be a little nervous that the Mets would get some bad karma from a rain-shortened sweep of the Braves, but not this time. I remember ~~and still have nightmares about~~ May 11, 2006. If you need something to remind you of that game, here's a Play by Play that dispassionately presents the third out of the first inning as "Flyball: CF." If only the play was so routine. Instead we get Aaron Fuckface Rowand.

I shouldn't even be angry about seeing Rowand crash face-first into the wall and still come up with the out, it was a ballsy, highlight reel catch. Not only that, but it was ultimately a meaningless loss because the Mets won the division by something like 100 games. Those were the heady, but waning, days of the Church of Nady, so to watch Rowand rob the man of three RBIs was seared into my brain. That, and the eventual bummer that was losing because of the weather.

I'm sure Braves fans were cursing this same exact fate last night. Even worse, it didn't even come with a highlight reel catch. It was just a bunch of strikeouts, walks and errors. Well, the Mets were owed one of these and I for one am glad they collected. There are no victims here, except maybe for the poor ESPN execs who had to eat a lucrative night of Sunday Night Baseball. A couple more goof-ups like that and someone isn't going to be able to afford the helicopter commute to work next year.

Tiny Improvements Aren't Much Better Than None At All

2010-04-19T02:01:00.004-05:00

The other night my friend Tim and I were sitting in the subway deep in Crown Heights when I noticed that the MTA had gotten around to adding one of the countdown clocks that can be found on the L line. That was cool to see, but all it actually did was let us know we'd be sitting in the station for 18 minutes until a 4 train showed up. So yeah, the MTA is still an unmanageable, deficit-ridden monstrosity, but hey, clocks! Similarly, the Mets are making some kind of stride towards mediocrity, but you'd never know it from all the other horrible things going on around them.

For instance, if you told people that Mike Pelfrey would be the team's MVP 12 games into the season, they would probably guess you meant it in a bitter manner and that the team had a losing record. They'd be only half right though, since Mike Pelfrey looks genuinely good. He's also been the only starting pitcher to end both of the Mets' losing streaks and has more saves than K-Rod. He's also batting .500.

In the grasping at straws category, there's Oliver Perez, who earned a big fat ND through no fault of his own. For the few innings I saw Perez, he at least looked like he knew where the ball was going and in one confrontation with Albert Pujols, he looked like a real major league pitcher. Of course all of his good work was undone when Jerry Manuel decided to play manage out of the Dada playbook again and have a righty pitch to a lefty and his LOOGY pitch to a switch hitter. I'm not going to lie, despite the fact that this team has ground down my enthusiasm, I was able to summon up a vile torrent of curses to scream while I watched the bullpen implode as it protected its first small lead of the season.

All of this comes back to something that's been on display on national television for the last two nights: the Mets just plain can't hit. That's funny in a way that's actually not funny, because on Opening Day Keith Hernandez posited that the Mets would have no trouble scoring runs but would have an enormous amount of trouble keeping other teams from doing the same. Instead they...can't do both? I guess balance is important, but when balance means Jason Bay striking out like his life depends on it and Jonathon Niese giving up a lead just for the hell of it, I start wondering about the NFL Draft. Like, is it always on 4/20 or does the NFL just figure a few more people will be sitting around at home on that random Tuesday and they'll turn on the draft? But I digress.

I should probably keep digressing though, otherwise this blog is going to have to be renamed "Gary Mathews, Jr. Will Drive Me To Suicide" (I wouldn't be shocked if someone took that Blogspot name already). I can't laugh about 20 inning games if the team plays like shit and loses the next night, because despite the eternal length of a baseball season, every one of these losses feels worse and worse. This is still a team with no direction, with tonight's proof shown in Jerry Manuel only turning to his "8th inning guy" after a crappy long reliever gave up a double to the opposing pitcher. You either have a set up guy or you don't. Saying you do and then not treating him like one is confusing and a little insulting to a fanbase that knows what the fuck the set up man's role is. Mike Pelfrey might finally be putting it together, just in time for the rest of the team to lose it. Don't give me clocks when the only thing they do is remind me of how long I'll be stuck.

Oh A Win! How Exciting!

2010-04-16T00:57:00.003-05:00

One good thing about following all of the big four sports in America is they overlap. Things going poorly for your basketball team? Try football or hockey! Baseball getting you down? Watch the hockey playoffs! Hockey team play lethargic and uneven for three-quarters of the season and your baseball team is a huge joke? West coast playoff hockey! It means staying up a little later, but for a Met fan, there's something familiar about the existential nightmare that is the San Jose Sharks. When the Avalanche scored last night on that freak play, I finally felt a little less alone in the world of rooting for professional disappointments.

This is supposed to be about the Mets, as much as I don't want it to be. The Mets are bad, I was wrong about them and Gary Mathews, Jr. the other day, what else is there to say? I guess I could go into detail about how bad the Mets are, like how it appears David Wright is pressing and is forever removed from that young third baseman who we all fell in love with, the one that drove the ball the other way with authority. It's unbelievable that teams aren't afraid to throw him off-speed slop away and even more unbelievable that last night I saw Wright swing at a pitch that bounced between the lefty batter's box and the outside corner. Jason Bay has performed as advertised, at least when it comes to strikeouts. The Mets have scored five runs in each of their last two games but went 5-24 with men in scoring position in those games combined. Forget Carlos Beltran, I'm eagerly awaiting the return of Daniel Murphy.

Even better, Jerry Manuel seems to have lost his damn mind. What exactly was the deal with pinch-running for Mike Jacobs with Fernando Tatis in the middle of an at-bat, did anyone ever get an explanation for that? Did anyone even ask him about it or did the reporter pool just figure it's in their interest to not cold embarrass the guy? He seems to have a knack for doing just fine in that department though, especially now that he's drawn attention to himself as the one guy that wants to keep Jenrry Mejia in the bullpen instead of developing him as a starter. Jerry may as well just wear a sign around his neck that says "MY TENUOUS JOB SECURITY WILL MAKE ME IRRATIONAL AND UNRELIABLE FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE."

What makes the win today nice is that 3-6 is better than 2-7. It's pretty simple really, getting a win staunches some of the bleeding. I'm not one of those dolts that's panicking about 1992 all over again, but I wanted to see a win just as much as them. Having that win spearheaded by Mike Pelfrey is only helping to push the team to theoretical mediocrity. If he's finally figured it out, the Mets would have two serviceable Major League starters on their roster for the first time since 2005 or 2006. Whether that's even going to mean anything by mid-May is open for debate and subject to the whims of John Maine and Oliver! So, I guess that means it won't mean anything? Man, what a short debate.

And All I Got Was A Laundry Day T-Shirt

2010-04-13T12:25:00.002-05:00

Last night was the home finale for the abomination that has been the 2009-10 New York Knicks, which the Dolan braintrust decided to dub Fan Appreciation Night. If the truth was ever in style at MSG, it would have been called Below Market Value Ticket Night, although considering how long it's been since I tried to get a ticket that could have been every night since the All-Star break. Apparently cheap StubHub tickets, free XL t-shirts and the infinitesimal chance to win a spacephone couldn't bring people in because there were huge gaps in the crowd, which I couldn't understand. Who wouldn't want to see the Knicks and Wizards play a game they were contractually obligated to?

My friends and I sat behind a father who had brought two kids to the game, which kept me from screaming more curses that I might have considering the quality of play we were seeing. The father was nice though and would occasionally turn around to ask why D'Antoni wasn't playing such and such player, lament the existence of Eddy Curry and also mentioned that the Nets were much better at being bad. At one point, with the Wizards up and the family wearing the blue shirts that had been given away, the dad told his kids they were rooting for the blue team now. "I'll do anything to get you guys a victory!" he wailed, only half in jest it seemed.

The dad got his victory, but the Knicks took their damn time getting to it, down through three quarters and barely showing any interest. The Knicks scored 114 points last night but I'll be damned if I could tell you how. In 48 minutes I saw one nice high pick and roll, but other than that it was a disorganized halfcourt game with players deciding unilaterally to run their own isolation plays. Weren't we supposed to be a fast break team? What is the philosophy of this team and why can't it ever find an identity? Remember when the Knicks were supposed to have two dominant big men and dominate the low post? Or the time they were going to combine two washed up, shoot first point guards and somehow create a contender? Shit, I'll give Scott Layden his due, the New York Jazz, as someone dubbed the Weatherspoon era Knicks at least had a philosophy: to be as boring as a white bread and mustard sandwich. A really, really expensive sandwich because for some reason Shandon Anderson cost a gazillion dollars to employ.

What kind of Knicks will those kids grow up with? For a decade now, this has been a franchise rotting from the inside out, going from boring to frustrating to comical to now this rudderless mess, a collection of players you've never heard of jogging back and forth on the floor of the World's Most Famous Arena. Lebron James is going to turn his back on the home town hero story to play with Danilo Gallinari? I think I could count on one hand the amount of times Gallinari strayed from the three point line last night. You're 6' 10" dude, get down low! Even if everything works out and the Knicks bring in Lebron and another free agent, that doesn't bring the team an identity. It's turning on forced trades in NBA Live and going to town. What then? Does D'Antoni actually institute the 8 Seconds or Less system? It makes more sense for Lebron James to recruit David Lee to Cleveland than it does for him to sign up with a team that's basically going to be a repeat of his rookie season.

It's incredible to think about, but two years after bouncing Isiah Thomas, the Knicks might actually be more hopeless than they were under his "leadership." God help them if they can't blow all their cap space this off-season.

When No Margin For Error Means No Margin For Error

2010-04-12T15:24:00.002-05:00

When you play 82 games of hockey, there's bound to be some stretch of the season where your attention span lags, you don't give it your all and you lose some games. Hey, it happens. Good teams don't let it happen too often, bad teams are constantly going through it and the Rangers are its living embodiment. This is a collection that played like a college student saving up all his effort for the last three days before the paper was due, finished the paper but then neglected to proofread it or include his citations. Not that I'd know anything about that. That's a formula for the NHL equivalent of a B-, missing the playoffs by one point.

Still, I'll give the Rangers credit for dragging their season out to the very last possible moment considering I wrote them off about three weeks ago. And then after that awful loss to the Canadiens and the more awful one to the Leafs. That says plenty about this team though. For three seasons before this one, the team started fast, ran out of ways to score and just barely snuck into the playoffs. That it didn't work this time shouldn't be a surprise but more of an indictment of how Glen Sather puts together a hockey team. Bad teams rely on just one guy to score. Bad teams stand around during power plays and can't get shots off. Bad teams hope against hope their goalie can keep other team from scoring more than two goals. Bad teams don't make the playoffs except when every other team around them are bad, and I'd like to thank the Flyers for being bad enough to keep me interested.

Being outshot almost 2:1 on the last game of the season when a win means a playoff berth means something just isn't clicking or the talent level isn't there. Some players showed some fire, and I'd be remiss if I didn't note that the season turned on Artem Anisimov being too aggressive during a penalty kill, but you can't be a Stanley Cup competitor if you leave your fans wondering where the effort is going to come from, if it will come at all. Forget the fact that Marion Gaborik didn't touch the puck during the shootout and that Olli Jokinen's shot wasn't much of one at all. The Rangers even finding themselves down to their last shot of the season says as much about their claim to a playoff spot as their record does.

I Will Not Be A Hurtbro

2010-04-08T21:58:00.003-05:00

It was really nice out today and I didn't have to work, so of course I hung out at the movies all day. Hey, that's what you need to do sometimes if you want to get cultured and try to learn something about human nature. Today I learned that Noah Baumbach wrote a wish fulfillment fantasy for dudes between the ages of 22 and 40 and he called it Greenberg. There's nothing wrong with wish fulfillment, per se, it's existed in entertainment since probably forever. It's just lame to sit through a movie that's supposed to be deep and meaningful when all it consists of is Ben Stiller falling between Greta Gerwig's thighs over and over for no reason.

Ladies, tell me, is there something irresistible about a 40-year-old dude fresh out of a mental hospital? Something that just makes you keep going back to him no matter how many times he freaks the fuck out about pretty much nothing? Stiller's character, Roger Greenberg, doesn't give off vulnerability so much as he puts it up as a false front in order to make sure people treat him with kid gloves before he walks all over them. Greenberg is an asshole through and through, the kind of person who doesn't drive but tells you the light has changed while he's riding around in your front seat. He lives almost completely in the past and expects everyone else to. Do today's kids want to listen to Duran Duran when they're on coke? No, of course not, but that won't stop Greenberg from trying to force it on them.

Who will save Greenberg? Unfortunately, that task is left up to Florence, played with actual vulnerability and flightiness by Greta Gerwig. It's bad enough poor Florence is confused by what she wants in life, doesn't speak up for herself and is bouncing around in unfullfilling trysts. The last thing she needs is a mental patient trying to go down on her after she and him each have a sip of beer. Yes, that actually happens. But OK, weird first date kind of thing, shit happens. That doesn't explain why she's ever interested in him again. A scene where she talks with her best friend about how vulnerable he seems just doesn't cut it. A woman as attractive and talented as Florence can do better than a mopey schmuck like Greenberg, especially after he blows a second chance to sleep with her by storming out of her apartment because he didn't like a story she told. The fuck?

Greenberg is by no means a bad movie. I understand Noah Baumbach's wheelhouse is people who act terribly towards each other, but in this instance all we have is one terrible person slicing through the lives of people who would dare to treat him like a human being while he's completely oblivious, even aggressively uninterested, about the fact that they care about him. There's some fantastic, bitterly funny dialogue, pretty cinematography and strong performances from the cast, but whenever the movie tries to convince us that Florence and Roger would ever be together it gets completely implausible. Florence tells Greenberg he likes her more than he's willing to admit and a drunken voicemail supports her theory, but it doesn't ever mean he'll stop emotionally abusing her and calling it honesty. That the movie ends with the two of them in Florence's apartment, treating each other sweetly, is simply baffling.

Taking A Step Back

2010-04-07T12:48:00.003-05:00

Last year, Opening Day was a trying day. The weather sucked, I couldn't find a place to watch the game and Johan Santana couldn't even get out of the sixth inning. Still, it was Opening Day and the Mets are charmed in that department and they pulled it out. This year was much better, with beautiful weather, a pirate Chinese broadcast on my computer and Johan Santana finishing six. I'm not going to let that be some kind of bellwether for life or for the season, even if I'm already dreaming about replacing last year's too rainy summer with a hot, sticky one that makes me nothing much more than a huge glob of sweat. I'm not dreaming about the Mets replacing their summer doldrums though, because like Gary Cohen said, Game 2 is just baseball as usual.

I'd feel remiss though if I failed to pat myself on the back for finishing my season preview project on schedule. All nine positions before Opening Day! It's like I found discipline or something, even if it took me almost two months to do. So in honor of that, I'll talk about the bullpen! Because I'm a masochist apparently!

We all remember the frenzied off-season moves last year, when the Mets brought on Frankie Rodriguez and J.J. Putz in a move that was probably described as a "coup" somewhere. We were all excited to be getting a proper closer in K-Rod, but Putz was what the bullpen hinged on. During the Billy Wagner era, the Mets didn't have a reliable bridge to the ninth inning unless you count Aaron Heilman's predictable awfulness as reliable. Putz was supposed to strike a ton of guys out based on his devastating fastball/splitter combo. There was talk of seven inning games, even six inning games. Hell, the Mets would be able to throw a starter out there for four innings and then turn to the bullpen.

Then it turned out J.J.'s elbow was still exploded, so the Mets’ top brass figured he might be able to get buy with hitters giggling about his name as strike three floated through the zone. That is the only reason I can think of why they ignored his injury and kept running him out there, because he was pretty freaking bad. Of course, the scouting staff failed to take into account that most major league hitters are not Jewish vaudeville era comedians and that plan failed too. So they just ran Sean Green out there everyday while we drank ourselves to death every night watching highlights of Darren O’Day in a Rangers uniform. The lesson management took away from this was apparently: a bunch of no-names in the bullpen will at least tamp down expectations.

With that in mind, the team went out and picked up precisely no one you've ever hear of to join Predo Feliciano and K-Rod. Oh and Sean Green. So there's Fernando Nieve because he's a long man. There's also Hisanori Takahashi because he's a long man and he's Japanese. That means I guess that Ryota Igarashi is there to keep him company? Because he's Japanese too? And finally there's Jenrry Mejia, who's up with the club so everyone can learn to spell and pronounce his name and so the Mets can claim they've got a youth movement while inexplicably screwing up one of the brightest pieces of the potential movement.

So the bullpen will either be really good or really bad. Yeah, just gonna go with that.

Still High Off The Fumes

2010-04-07T01:28:00.004-05:00

Seeing Mike Lamb in a Marlins uniform last night didn't make me feel old, even if my tweet about it could be read like that. That's not to say that Lamb turning up as a pinch hitter in a truly awful pounding didn't mark the passage of time in my life. The same thing can be said when I was watching the A's/Mariners game later that night and saw Eric Byrnes on the Mariners bench and and didn't see him again until he trotted out as a pinch runner late in the game.

When I went to college these two players had guaranteed jobs playing baseball because they both did it passably, if not especially well. Mike Lamb was the Astros' starting third baseman in their World Series run, and Eric Byrnes was discussed in trade talks for Mike Cameron to stave off the headache of having two alpha centerfielders patrolling Shea. Byrnes was also all over the TV taking up the plight of the Eckstenian player in this era of juiced up Hispaniards hitting baseballs 600 feet and breaking your car window and deflowering your daughter somehow. OK, I'll step off the ledge now and instead just note that sportswriters were forever talking up his grinderness.

Now? Mike Lamb couldn't make the Mets last year, spent the entire season at AAA Buffalo and hit all of five home runs there. As for Byrnes, the A's announcers described his role on the team as basically a 24th or 25th man. Don't forget Eric Byrnes plays on a team that employs 40-year-old Ken Griffey, Jr. as a DH, despite the fact that Griffey hit .214 last year. Not that I have anything approaching sympathy for either of them. They're still highly compensated professional athletes who have made millions of dollars playing baseball, which is just about the best way to earn a living ever. It does go to show though, that keeping track of who's on what roster can help prevent navel gazing posts like this one.

I'm going to have to do something like yesterday again sometime soon. Ten hours of baseball only helped to remind me how awesome the game is. I saw Johan Santana, Josh Johnson, Renyel Pinto, Francisco Rodriguez, Roy Oswalt, Tim Lincecum, Ben Sheets, Felix Rodriguez, Andrew Bailey and...Justin Berg. I learned Chris Sampson was a minor league shortstop and David Aardsma is a closer now. I missed getting extra innings in West Coast baseball by a half inning and got reminded of just how devastating Tim Lincecum can be. I wrote with a game on in the corner of my computer screen, which kept me from my usual goof off avenue of searching things in new tabs upon new tabs. I didn't see any baseball today and was kind of grumpy, grumpier than you should be when it's 80 degrees outside. Am I saying that baseball is awesome and makes you a more productive and better person? Yes.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of the position-by-position preview of the New York Mets and a healthy dose of Calm the Fuck Down Pills prescribed to me, by me.

Offense, Subs and Pitching

2010-04-05T21:00:00.002-05:00

As excited as as anyone can be for baseball to return to Earth, there's a point when Opening Day adrenaline leaves the system during a laugher like today's win over the Marlins. Eyes wandering during a meaningless Luis Castillo at-bat with the Mets ahead 7-1 in the eighth inning, you start getting into a Christopher Hitchens column during commercial breaks and maybe miss the first out when the game is back. Still, you watch until the end, because like Gary Cohen reminded us, day two of baseball isn't Opening Day, it's just baseball. But that's starting at the end and skipping all the wonderful parts of the beginning and middle.

My personal Mets victory anthem, BTO be damned.

Wonderful parts like Johan Santana opening the year with a crisp strike. The crowd at Taxpayer Field, obviously afraid that Johan's elbow would fly towards the plate along with the ball roared in approval as Chris Coghlan watched the pitch cross the plate, Santana's elbow stayed bolted in place and the game was on. Even without being dominating, Santana was controlling the flow of the game, impressing Keith Hernandez with his change-up and keeping the Marlins from putting together any sustained rallies. Speaking of Santana's change-up, Cameron Maybin is definitely going to be having nightmares of a yellow, blue and red colored man chasing him through Willets Point.

The Mets had an Opening Day lineup that inspired horror and mockery: Gary Mathews, Jr! Mike Jacobs! Alex Cora! All they did was go out and back up Santana better than the '27 Yankees could have. OK, maybe that's going a bit far, but my brain kind of melted when I saw Mathews chasing balls in the gap, running them down deep in center and picking up two hits to boot. Since it looks like he can still play he's obviously going to be super pissed when Carlos Beltran comes back. Hell, let's hope he takes the Wigginton Route too. David Wright stung the ball and his home run in the first inning probably caused a few wet spots to spontaneously show up around the New York metro area (I'll show myself out guys, no worries). Jason Bay proved himself to be strong of bat and of arm, his throw to almost get Jorge Cantu on his double was more impressive than his triple, if only because I didn't expect it. Jeff Francoeur walked! Oh and Mike Jacobs was terrible. Wow was he awful. Daniel Murphy can't get healthy fast enough.

Credit where it's due though, to the Marlins. When your organization cuts corners the way they do, aspects of your team will suffer. In their case, it's defense, with Jeff Francoeur's "double" the most obvious example of that, falling in between Cameron Maybin and Hanley Ramirez like an unwanted VHS copy of Tom Emanski's Defensive Drills . Gabby Sanchez, along with his officially noted error, was lectured twice by Ron Darling and Keith for failing to stretch properly to snare a couple throws, including the second half of a possible double play (that Dan Uggla didn't charge well to begin with) that set up Wright's home run.

Looking at the larger picture, and trying not to look too far into the future, this is a game that played like an exorcism. The Mets are supposed to bring out the very best in the Marlins, who according to media reports live to destroy the hopes and dreams of the Wilpons. Yet a potential year-long Adam Eaton situation was disarmed when the Mets tagged Josh Johnson with his first career loss against them, and the rest of Johnson's teammates played tentative, sloppy and all around weak baseball. The Mets meanwhile, got outs when they needed them, had their heads up and played the kind of baseball they seemed genetically unable to play last year.

1 down, 161 to go. On to the next one.

A Long Road From B.C. to Flushing

2010-04-05T00:26:00.004-05:00

For a guy that's hit 181 home runs in 6 full seasons, Jason Bay has been traded a lot. 4 times since his entrance into professional ball 10 years ago. When you look at the players he was traded for the first 2 times, you begin to see that trading any prospect can be disastrous and grow bitter at the thought that Steve fucking Reed was somehow worth a prospect 14 years younger than him. Seriously, where were the 2002 Mets going that Steve Phillips thought he could save his job by trading for Steve Reed*? Or maybe Jason Middlebrook was the real prize of that trade. Yech. Of course, you wonder how Expos fans felt when they realized Pittsburgh's spiffy new Rookie of the Year wouldn't have even been a Met, a Padre or a Pirate if the Expos weren't seduced by the charms of...Lou Collier? Smooth move there, Omar Minaya. Thank God there's someone smarter keeping watch over the Mets.

The next 2 trades involving Bay worked out better for everyone, with the Pirates getting one awesome year out of Oliver Perez (and Oliver Perez getting 36 million dollars off the Mets based on said year) and five and half awesome years of Jason Bay. OK, four and a half, considering that his OPS in 2007 was .746. The Padres got Brian Giles, who immediately stopped taking steroids or whatever but could still get on base and be a competent left fielder.

When the Red Sox traded for Bay, there was a chance for it to be disastrous considering it came in the middle of a playoff race and he was brought in to replace one of the best offensive players in Red Sox history and all of baseball history. All Bay did there was hit 45 home runs in a little less than a season and a half and post a .915 OPS.

All of this points to Jason Bay not having a hard time adjusting to New York, especially after dealing with playoff pressure in Boston for 2 straight seasons. So long as his knees and shoulder aren't literal time bombs, Bay will be an above-average offensive player for at least 2 years of his contract, maybe 3 if we're lucky. He'll add lineup protection and provide a cherubic white face for Vinny from Queens o point out to his kid. He'll strike out a ton and he won't be great in the field. Still, that's better than what we've seen in left field at Shea/Taxpayer since 2005. Jason Bay isn't super-talented but just as injury prone, he's not a 4th outfielder than got hot one year, he's not super-talented but old enough to have been around for teenage Jesus to umpire his little league games, he's not way past his prime and an asshole and he's not Daniel Murphy. Going by those metrics, Jason Bay is gonna be a goddamn MVP candidate this year. Huzzah.

*Bobby M. Jones (the bad Bobby Jones) was also included in that trade, following the trail of Bobby Jones (the mediocre Bobby Jones) to Padres two years after he'd signed on with the team. I don't know if two players with the same name have ever been on the same roster for two different teams two different years, but I like to think the Bobby Joneses are the first.

Carlos Beltran Is Very Very Good At Baseball

2010-04-04T00:50:00.003-05:00

There isn't much more to say about Carlos Beltran than the post title does. There's no arguing about this. It's a fact. Carlos Beltran is really really good at baseball. Not only is he very good, he's better than a lot of other people. So of course, the Mets need to trade him. What?

From 2006 to 2008 Carlos Beltran hit for .278/.372/.547. Wowwee zowee. 101 home runs, 66 stolen bases to only 8 caught stealing, 3 Gold Gloves, one top-5 MVP showing and general good guyness for three years. Yes, he had that crappy 2005, but come on, he's more than made up for it. Oh right, called third strike, blew the whole year for the Mets. Nevermind that he won Game 1 of the NLCS almost by himself, he totally sucks.

He's already all over the Mets' all-time leaderboard even though he's only played for the team for five years. Whenever he ends his Met career, he'll be one of the best Mets ever. Collapses be damned, he didn't have a bad September in 2007 or 2008.

Before the Mets faced Ragnarok, Carlos Beltran and David Wright had this team on their backs. They weren't great, but you would think after seeing what a traveshamockery the team was when Beltran wasn't there that he isn't easy to replace. Competitive spirit and ticket sales be damned, the Mets should have opted for surgery for Beltran last year when it was clear they were done.

Nevermind all that, this is supposed to be a preview, a look forward, not just a recitation of the fact that Carlos Beltran is sooo good at baseball. Because of the surgery kerfluffle center field belongs to Angel Pagan (probably?) until hopefully mid-May. I like Angel Pagan just fine, but he's merely good at baseball, sometimes he slips to being OK at it. That's better than Gary Mathews, Jr. though, and the fact that Gary Mathews, Jr. is in the conversation for the starting center field job shows just how hard Carlos Beltran is to replace. Well OK, not really, it mostly shows Met management thinks like the Burmese junta, but I think it also shows the first thing a little bit.

Just don't forget Carlos Beltran was hitting .300 and slugging over .500 before he got hurt last year, and that if, if, he's healthy, he'll go back to being very very good at baseball.

Broken English, Good Google Rankings and Footsteps

2010-04-02T11:45:00.003-05:00

A little while back, I compared Jeff Francoeur to Daniel Murphy, in that they were both rushed prospects who captured the imaginations of their fanbases before plummeting back down to Earth. While all of that is true, I forgot to mention that they also share the ignominious circumstances of playing in two positions where the footsteps of Fernando Martinez and Ike Davis are getting louder. But that's not the point of this paragraph. All of that was just a set up to link to the funniest/saddest thing I came across while searching for a picture of Francoeur: the Jeff Francoeur Sucks Forum. It is what you think it is, if what you thought it was is a poorly designed sub-forum of TalkSports mostly designed to catch people searching "Jeff Francoeur sucks." Hilariously enough, it also contains a warning not to post anything inappropriate while you're devoting your time to the message board specifically for denigrating a specific human being, because it is after all, a "friendly forum for fans."

Poor Jeff Francoeur, going from the cover of Sports Illustrated to getting booed by his hometown fans to getting traded to the Mets in the midst of one of their worst seasons ever. And yet Jeff persevered and was probably the best player on the team in his time in right field. Hell, he could probably be seen as the team MVP considering nothing else good happened after he got swapped in for Ryan Church. So would it be cool if he put up another .830+ OPS? Yeah, duh. Is it realistic to expect this from someone with a 4 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio? Hell no it isn't, especially considering he's batting something like .035 this spring. So I have a solution that benefits everyone. It's known as the Wigginton Route and I just made it up so don't steal it.

You remember Ty Wigginton, don't you? Of course you do, because you were a superfan of the awful 2002-04 Mets teams. Ty had heart but his heart dwarfed his offensive ability and intangibles only count when you're on a team with players that can cover for your deficiencies (The Eckstein Rule). By 2004, Mets fans had been hearing about this David Wright kid and were eager to see him called up. Coincidentally enough, David Wright was just cold murdering AAA ball. So while Ty put up great first half numbers, it was all for naught. When David Wright got called up, the Wigginton showcase was officially underway and he was swapped for the super average Kris Benson.

So Jeff Francoeur should play his damn Atlantan heart out, especially if F-Mart's spring training was a sign he's finally figured it out. If F-Mart keeps tearing it up and Francoeur plays alright ball, maybe the Mets can swap him to a terrible team looking to get rid of some perfectly average pitcher, which in the Mets' case would immediately give them a Number 2 starter. Everyone wins! Except maybe Jeff Francoeur who ends up on like, the Pirates or the Nets or something.

A List Of Movies For Jose Reyes To Watch With His Family

2010-03-17T10:53:00.003-05:00

I had a whole thing ready about Jose Reyes and how he's gone from franchise savior to ridiculously underappreciated in the blink of an eye, but then he went and got thyroiditis or something else that fits perfectly in the Mets' narrative the last year and a half. Seriously though, from age 22-25 Jose Reyes had better numbers than Jimmy Rollins, get off the guy's case. While trying to prevent rioting in Queens and other pockets of Mets support, Jose's agent, Peter Greenberg, assured us his client would rest up as per doctor's orders and "just watch a lot of movies with his family." Well that sure makes me feel better, but just in case movie night at the Reyes household is getting stale, I have a few suggestions that will entertain him and keep him connected to the team.

The Royal Tenenbaums
Don't get me wrong, the Mets don't have nearly the pedigree of the Tenenbaum family, but things rapidly improved in 2005 and 2006 to the point where Omar Minaya looked like a genuis, Willie Randolph looked like a managerial prodigy, Jose Reyes and David Wright looked like future Hall of Famers and the Carloses Beltran and Delgado would provide stability for a time. Then Omar lost his touch, Willie lost the team, Jose lost his brain, David lost his power swing and one Carlos lost his knees and the other his hips. Also, family friend Paul Lo Duca made racially charged comments about the fact that his teammates didn't talk to the press.

The Big Lebowski
Where's the money ~~Lebowski~~ Wilpon? The absurdist farce that is the Mets front office is at this point comparable to the circular non-logic that dominates the world of Lebowski. Bunny was kidnapped, except that she wasn't. Omar Minaya is the top decision maker...except when he's not. The Dude isn't a private dick but everyone thinks he is. Jeff Wilpon isn't a real baseball executive but he thinks he is. There never was any money in the suitcase. It also appears there's none in Flushing. (Note: This selection can also be replaced with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead)

Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America
Pretty self-explanatory I'd say. The Mets rash of injuries last year spread like a virus that no government could stop, starting with Carlos Delgado's hip and peaking with Johan Santana's elbow exploding and David Wright's brains getting scrambled. Admittedly, this one has been sitting on my shelf unwatched, so I don't know if it's any good, but I do know that it's about an overhyped barely pandemic that was supposed to kill us all. Also it has Ann Cusack, who I guess is that Cusack no one talks about. I wonder why.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
What a classic. When Jose and Mrs. Jose have put the kids to bed, they can cuddle up and watch this one and learn that even the most painful relationships aren't worth completely erasing from our minds. Except of course in the case of the 2007, 2008 and 2009 Mets. I recommend this one with the hopes that Jose shows it to the Wilpons, who then use whatever remains of their Monopoly money to fund research for memory erasing technology so that we can all just forget the last three years.

Step Up 2: The Streets
Dude loves dancing.

Finally, Some Good News

2010-03-10T04:03:00.004-05:00

The David Wright portion of the Spring Training Preview Spectacular could be one sentence: David Wright will be fine. One sentence is for Twitter though, and while I've slowly begun conquering that realm, I still do have a ton of virtual space to fill. So on with the worrying. Not that much worrying though.

For a little while, I wondered about Wright catching the Hank Blalock pox, but then I looked up Blalock's stats and noticed he never really came close to Wright. There are the possible lingering effects of Matt Cain's stupid goddamn fastball to the head, but as incompetent as the Mets are, I see them learning from their Ryan Church concussion-related history and paying close attention to Wright's brainpan. It might not even be about learning, it might be the front office gets gripped with the kind of temporary focus that helps you jump out of the way of a speeding car, a survival mechanism that while something as amorphous as "a team" shouldn't have, it does and keeps it from doing anything monumentally dumb. There's the Citi Field problem, but now that some of the hype and panic has worn off the place, maybe Wright will be more at ease. Hell, maybe the blue walls are what the team really needs to succeed there.

Even in his weird-ass freak down year, the guy hit .307 (he was at .324 pre-concussion) and drove in 72 runs in 144 games. RBIs are a bullshit stat yeah, but those 72 runs were all of the Mets' runs, so the number is much more impressive when you think about it that way. Wright's offensive slide coincided with losing Carlos Beltran as lineup support on June 21st, and it's hard to blame him considering that meant he was the last professional hitter standing in Queens. Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes were lost in May, never to return. Gary Sheffield? Please, he wagged his bat into irrelevance by the middle of July. Keeping that in mind, Wright will at least have Jason Bay in the lineup with him, and Bay shouldn't start approaching awfulness until at least the third year of his contract. There's also a rejuvenated Jose Reyes on the horizon and Carlos Beltran coming back in the middle of the season from an injury as opposed to leaving in the middle because of one.

It's just impossible for me to worry seriously about David Wright and I'm not going to be down on the guy's prospects in March. Yes, like Johan Santana he's basically the linchpin of the offense and if something goes wrong with him, the Mets will be not only worth tuning out by August, but I'll have to tune them out for the sake of my mental health. That day will not come though. At the very, very least the Mets will have the Johan and David show and my gods did this post get depressing by the end. Mets have to start putting up 80 runs in4 games that actually count, I'll tell you what.

What Is It About Big Ben That ESPN Can't Bear To Tarnish?

2010-03-09T04:09:00.004-05:00

Contrary to the post title, this is actually the write up for David Wright. And if you believe that, you probably believe that an athlete retreats to a VIP-section where only women are allowed in to protect his privacy and doesn't point to our acceptance of a rape culture. And if you believe that, you're an idiot. Yes that's right, it's time to take a break from previewing the Mets position-by-position to engage in a little media criticism, specifically, ESPN bashing. Oh happy day!

My own ambivalence of this notwithstanding, how can anyone look at Disney Sports' coverage of this second sexually driven clusterfuck in under a year and wonder what the hell is going on over in Bristol? For starters, after reading about Big Ben's latest trouble over at The Hater Nation, I could barely find anything on ESPN.com about it, so I had to turn to a Google News search. Now tonight when I got home from Food Jerk, there was in fact a front page story on ESPN.com about Big Ben. But it wasn't much more than a press release from his high priced attorney saying that of course Ben Roethlisberger did no wrong and the skies will rain blood before you and some whore can prove otherwise. I'm glad, by the way, that the facts already show no criminal activity took place, because that means we can avoid the bother of a trial and police work and all those things that could possibly show criminal activity maybe took place.

Doing my best not to wander into territory covered much more competently by Sports On My Mind, I have to ask: why is that the front page story? We're talking about a high-profile athlete already dealing with one sexual assault accusation in a lawsuit, and now with a second one speeding towards his kneecaps like a cranked up linebacker, we're expected to remain dumb enough to be happy with a statement from the defense and not one bit of actual, y'know, journalism. Of course, by journalism, I mean an orgy of speculation and talking head jackassery. I want Skip Balyess calling for Big Ben to be chemically castrated, then changing his mind and declaring Roethlisberger has bathed in the blood of the Lamb when Michael Wilbon suggests Big Ben needs to get his act together, and then going right back to the castration just to get some poor schmuck to spit his coffee up at ol'Skip's unpredictability.

And I certainly don't mean the WTF moment when Kelly Naqi mentions that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation wouldn't go into whether Roethlisberger's accuser was credible. Are you fucking kidding me with this credibility thing? I don't think I can name another famous human being in my lifetime who's been accused of two rapes in this short a time frame, and I sure as shit can't name one who anyone would ever think of as remotely credible. Unless of course he had a multibillion-dollar media conglomerate trying to shove his lawyer's communiques down our throats.

Because We Always Need A Scapegoat

2010-03-04T04:27:00.004-05:00

Just in time for George Vescey's sympathetic profile of him, I turn my sights to the oft-maligned Luis Castillo. Vescey hit all the requisite notes, talking up Castillo's manliness in facing the media after The Drop and how he actually had a ~~damn fine~~ competent year at the plate. Why oh why then, do we meanies in Queens keep calling for his head? Many reasons, George, and most of them have very little to with The Drop.

Part of it, I think, has to do with the ridiculous merry-go-round that has been second base in the Omar Minaya era. Every Met fan knows that since the club formed we've employed literally one million third basemen and that with David Wright manning said corner bag we could all rest easy. Except that in the Minaya era, the following ridiculous people have played second base for the Metropolitans: Miguel Cairo, Chris Woodward, Jose Offerman, Kaz Matsui, Anderson Hernandez, Jose Valentin, Ruben Gotay, Damion Easley, Luis Castillo, ~~Exxon~~ Wilson Valdez and Alex Cora. Oh, and Marlon frakking Anderson played for four innings in 2008. Eleven second basemen in five seasons doesn't breed much confidence in the position.

Why did this happen? Well, Omar got lucky and struck oil with Valentin in 2006 and thought he could repeat his performance in 2007. This made sense because gambling on a 37-year-old who strikes out a ton and never hits for average is the number one rule for success in "How To Build A Better Baseball Team". It's on the front cover actually, in a red starburst with white lettering. In call caps. But duh, Valentin was old and hurt and hey does anyone remember how he struck out with one out and the bases loaded in the sixth inning of Game 7 against the Cardinals? That all he had to do was put the ball in play? How he struck out against Jeff fucking Suppan? That the odds of the Cardinals winning the game when he came to the plate was a paltry 29 percent? That's OK if you don't, go on blaming Carlos Beltran for striking out against a guy who had nastier stuff than Suppan finds on the bottom of his shoe, I'll just be here bitterly remembering how it had come right after The Catch and how the Mets had a ton of momentum before The 'Stache did us in for good. But now I'm off the rails completely and I'd like to get to bed sometime tonight/this morning.

ANYWAY, as the Mets struggled to find an answer at second, Omar finally brought in Luis Castillo, about two years past his expiration date. Still, he was alright and it's not like he did anything to directly aid in the collapse and a month into his Met career he had a walkoff RBI against Trevor Hoffman. When the season was over and the free agent landscape wasn't great at second base, no one would have been apoplectic if Luis came back. Until of course Omar Minaya had some kind of stroke and gave a 32-year-old with creaky knees a four year contract. What?

2008 was of course horrible and forgettable and appeared to be a sign of things to come for the next three years. Castillo showed up next spring talking about how in shape he was, how his knees had been replaced with computer parts and how he would show us all. And show us all he did, at least until that fateful night in Yankee Stadium where I almost collapsed on the bar floor, barely mustered up the focus to continue along on my date and actually called my dad to see if he had survived it. From them on, it wouldn't have mattered if Luis Castillo batted .400 and offered to rend his garments after every game. A team that was a poorly assembled, injured circus show found its defining moment, and all before the All-Star break.

The other reason everyone hates Luis Castillo is that his name isn't Orlando Hudson. Hudson has basically thrown himself at the Mets for two off-seasons now and the Mets have coughed, looked embarrassed and stuttered something about how "This never usually happens" before Orlando found homes with better teams. Here's something you may not know about Orlando Hudson: Luis Castillo had one more extra base hit for all of 2009 than Hudson had home runs and triples, 16 to 15. Another thing you may not have known was that Orlando Hudson's defense was worth 3.5 runs to the Dodgers. Luis Castillo's defense was worth -5.9 runs to the Mets. Sadly, that was an almost 8 run improvement for Castillo from 2008. This is why I stand by my contention that continuing to play Luis Castillo and Daniel Murphy on the right side of the infield will be a disaster. Really going out on a limb there, I know.

So yes, Luis Castillo, if he repeats his 2009 offensive year on a team that will theoretically run actual major league players out there, will be less of an albatross than he appears to be. But he'll still be merely average compared to his peers and that's discounting his deteriorating defense. So to answer Vescey's question of why Met fans pick on Luis Castillo, I'll simply answer that he just isn't very good at baseball.

Spring Has Sprung In Bizarro World

2010-03-02T14:53:00.001-05:00

The Mets are beating the Braves!

Dammit, I need Bushido to give me the Twitter password already.

Scout to Wojo: "Hurrrr"

2010-03-01T15:37:00.002-05:00

Back in the glory days of the internet when the FJM crew ruled the media criticism landscape, you could usually expect one or two broadsides a week against morons and their fetishistic attachment to the win. The pitching statistic, not the actual claim a team gets on a victory. Now they're gone and darkness rolls across the land again, with ESPN articles featuring wisdom from scouts like this:

Cain can really pitch, man. Lincecum, he's a freak. He weighs 160 or so pounds. He's a max-effort guy with a bad delivery. Don't get me wrong -- he punched out 261 guys last year and he might pitch forever. But it's just that Cain pitches with such ease. He won 14 games last year with a 2.89 ERA. Lincecum won 15 with a 2.48. See what I'm saying?

I don't see what you're saying at all, but I do understand why you asked to remain anonymous, Scout X. Because if you want to take Matt Cain, who is very good, over consecutive Cy Young-winner Tim Lincecum because "Hey, wins" you should be fired. I don't even know if that's what he's going for, because he undermines his case by pointing out that Lincecum won more games anyway. Something about he'd rather see a guy pitch who uses the "Pitcher 3" delivery from MVP Baseball 2005 instead of the guy whose rocket scientist dad built him a delivery using cybernetic implants and necromancy. Christ, this guy works for the Mets, doesn't he?

The Mets are a poorly put-together team.

Well, at the very least he knows us like the back of his hand.

The "Luck of the Irish" Is a Purely Ironic Phrase

2010-03-01T03:30:00.005-05:00

We all know that of course. After all, the Irish are so unlucky that going through their entire wretched history is a downer even for your average Met fan. From the potato famine to the migration to America which found them nothing but "No Irish" signs in storefronts to their use by WASPS as a convenient bulkhead against blacks to the awful appropriation of St. Patrick's Day (during which I will be ~~vomiting up a storm~~ participating in full, as usual) to the fact that they're the only English-speaking tribe in the world still living under the yoke of the terrible British, the Irish are just plain unlucky. So it stands to reason that young Daniel Murphy would not escape this curse. Then again, I don't even know for sure if Daniel Murphy is Irish, I just know it's a convenient jumping off point for discussing him. Know who else is that? This guy:

If Daniel Murphy and Frenchy aren't the best of friends and road trip roommates already, someone should get them moving towards that, because they have a similar history of being prospects rushed into the limelight and quickly seeing their weaknesses exposed by superior big league talent. Yes, even Steve Trachsel. I don't know why the Braves bought Francoeur up before he was ready because I'm not a goddamn Braves historian, but I do know that the Mets brought Dan Murphy up too early because as usual in the Minaya era, they had no reliable back up plan.

So Dan Murphy came along and did his best to put a happy ending on the Mets' disastrous 2008 campaign and his best was pretty damn good. The kid hit for average, had a good eye, hit in the clutch and was generally that white dude that Vinny from Queens could talk about with pride on the FAN because he wasn't DominiMexaUelan. In other words, Eric Byrnes but good at baseball.

Then 2009 came and Murphy didn't have a position. God knows he wasn't actually playing left field, unless you count possibly blowing a Johan Santana no-hitter six games into the season "playing" any position. So it was off to first base because Carlos Delgado came down with a terminal case of old. Despite looking better there then he did in left, Murphy still couldn't completely avoid catastrophe, like in this awful game, the recap of which I'm actually quite glad I can't embed.

Bad enough he couldn't field, Murphy's golden bat turned to cardboard and his hawk-like eyes seemed to replaced with Woody Allen's. Instead of a first baseman who may not hit for much power but could at least walk and hit for average, we had a first baseman who could be sub-par in every offensive and defensive category. Sure ~~forty~~ thirty-nine doubles should not be scoffed at, but with twelve home runs and a paltry .266/.313./.427 line, I can forgive a little scoffing.

So what does the future hold for the previous Great White Hope? Hearing footsteps mostly. Despite his .282/.313./.485 line in the second half of the season, Met management is chomping at the bit to not learn from their mistakes and rush Ike Davis up the ladder. That is, provided that none of the ridiculous trade scenarios involving Adrian Gonzalez come to fruition, which they won't. To stay on the Metropolitans as anything but a super-sub or something, Murphy is going to have to add a bit more oomph to his swing and learn to hit lefties. The first is certainly possible but the second less so because he'll be platooned with Fernando Tatis.

Ah yes, the second half of this equation, a man who I'd totally forgotten was part of the plan until I started writing this preview. What about Tatis? Well, what about him? He's 35, got forced into too many at-bats last year and spent about two straight weeks doing nothing but grounding into double plays. Provided he doesn't have to play every position on the field because of ridiculous Indian burial ground-curse injury problems he'll hopefully provide more of a 2008 Tatis than the slightly dminished 2009 version.

A shorter version of all this is that on a scale of 1 to 10, the best a Met fan can hope for is Lyle Overbay.

Squatting Towards Oblivion

2010-02-27T13:49:00.000-05:00

My goodness, I know I made that joke about my work habits when I started this season preview but I never thought it would be this bad. Then again, I haven't had a moment to myself since that wonderful day about a week ago. Since then, I've wrested a bocce ball court away from a couple bors and ruled it (semi-)benevolently, worked two consecutive fourteen hours days on a movie set, visited our nation's capital and got lost in a mile high snow drift. Meanwhile, the Mets took a proactive, solution oriented approach to catcher and brought in a candidate with experience and more importantly, a slugger who hit nineteen home runs last year. Not to mention...hahaha, just kidding. Rod Barajas, you guys! (PS: Fuck off, Klosterman) Not to worry though, we've got an All-World backup in Henry Blanco, who's old enough to have seen all the world's history. Get it? Laughing yet? You should be, because otherwise you'll be crying.

Just a little bit of crying though. There wasn't too much out there in catcher land, and despite Tim Marchman's strong case for Bengie Molina, I can't say I'm shedding any tears at the idea of the Mets missing out on having a 36 year old catcher on the hook for 6 million clams next year. Oh sure they could have hired Xe Services, mounted a daring night time raid and stolen Victor Martinez away from the Red Sox, but considering those goons are a little too trigger happy they'd probably end up capping Jonathon Papelbon and the Mets would end up having to forfeit a couple future first round draft picks. Plus we all know the Wilpons would probably just cheap out and hire those jerks what with the vodka ass shooters.

Realistically, the Mets' probable platoon doesn't put them any worse off than most teams when it comes to catcher, which is an improvement somehow on last year. Last year was bad enough that I started rooting for Brian Schneider to hit under .200, just to have something to remember him by. Omir Santos was passable and Josh Thole was rushed and Robinson Cancel ended up on the roster AGAIN, so when you look at it that way, a platoon of Barajas and Blanco, Esq. doesn't seem horrible. It just seems terribly average, a little above average provided Barajas is able to match what he put up last year.

After all, Barajas hit 19 home runs and drove in 71 last year, he's only 34 and only 5 years removed from his best season, so the odds of him repeating last year's output can be found between Paul Shirley taking a gig as a spokesman for the International Red Cross and the House passing the Senate health care bill tomorrow. Wait, he's surprised he couldn't find a job? Jesus, this recession has made us all crazy. Knowing that, I will reiterate my belief that we can still expect better production than last year from catcher. Just not that much.

Like The Saying Goes: 80% Is Better Than None At All So Shut The Fuck Up You Godamn Whiner

2010-02-16T17:31:00.008-05:00

Because I've got nothing else to do, I'm starting a Mets season preview, position by position. Yay! I'm going around the diamond beginning with the starting pitchers (yay?) and if my work habits are any indication, will be done with the thing sometime around June, just in time for Bobby Valentine to replace Jerry Manuel.

So anyway, pitchers. Can't live with'em, can't just replace them with machines that throw hellish 98 mile per hour sliders. Not yet, anyhow, which means Met fans have to choose one of the following:

Rationality: Johan Santana is the only thing going for this group but he's also awesome so the team will be worth watching every fifth day.
Hope: One of the young Met pitchers (Mike Pelfrey, John Maine, Oliver!) who wandered in the wilderness last year will put it back together and the Mets will have a decent 1-2 punch.
Optimism: A second pitcher from that group will put together a season that's a little better than average thus giving the Mets the same kind of rotation most of the league has.
Irrational optimism: Pelfrey, Maine and Oliver! all have repeats of their best seasons*. Comes with a free copy of Dow 36,000.

It's barely even worth talking about Johan Santana, because he says he's healthy and can get back to his natural release point and if that's what says, I'll believe it. In a way, I have to, because despite the fact that he could still dominate while he was hurting, if he isn't healthy the Mets don't have a season, nor much of a future. But I won't panic, because it's not like the guy had Tommy John surgery, he got bone chips removed. It's the other yutzes I'm worried about.

Mike Pelfrey: Want to know what will be good for Mike Pelfrey? The left side of the infield with the continuing emergence of David Wright as a good defender and the return of Jose Reyes to shortstop, replacing future first ballot Bautista High School Wall of Famer Alex Cora. What won't be good for Mike Pelfrey is the right side of the infield with Daniel Murphy and Luis "Oldboy" Castillo playing what can only charitably be described as first and second base. The only way those two could be more dangerous for Pelfrey is if they actually planted land mines around the mound. My only hope is that lefties get so pull crazy on him trying to hit to Murphy or Castillo that they just roll over the ball and tap out weak grounders. FUN FACT: In three of his four professional seasons, Mike Pelfrey has had n unsightly 5+ ERA!
Oliver!: I think a better thing for the Mets to do with Oliver! than expect him to pitch well would be to put a blindfold on him before he goes out there and then have him let loose. See, it's psychological warfare, just daring the batter to step in there and possibly catch a fastball to the dome. And even though he whined about the blast shield being down, being blindfolded helped Luke Skywalker become a Jedi, so, you know, this system does have a history of positive results. Anyway, Oliver! can't possibly be as bad as he was last year. FUN FACT: That is something Mets fans will be telling ourselves for at least one more spring! ANOTHER FUN FACT: "Jedi" is a proper noun!
John Maine: The forgotten man, mostly because he embodied more of the hurt side of the team than the awful side last year. The worst you can say about John Maine is that you don't trust him to ever be healthy again, which is bad, but even with his severely weakened shoulder or whatever it is he had he was just below league average. Just below average would have been miraculous on last year's Met squad and maybe they could have won 80 games instead of 70. Yipes. Of the group of three, I think it's most reasonable to expect something from Maine, a flyball/strikeout pitcher in a huge ballpark. FUN FACT: There was another John Maine in the Mets' system in 1970! He was terrible!

So if you've been paying attention at all, you'll notice something is missing here. If you haven't noticed, go ahead and count how many starters I went through above and then think about how many starters are usually in a rotation in the modern era. So am I pushing the idea that the Mets should kick it old school and go with a four man rotation? God no, the thought of Mike Pelfrey getting the yips in 40 starts instead of 32 is nightmare inducing.

If the Mets aren't going to a four man rotation, then only one thing is possible: they had so much fun not having a fifth starter last year, they're going to do it all again! In a race that's impossible to handicap, the likes of Nelson Figueroa, Fernando Nieve, Jon Niese, Sandy Koufax, Weff Jilpon and Hisanori Takahashi will compete this spring to be the guy Met fans wish was Joel Piniero. All of these players have various weaknesses (we don't know if Niese still has a hamstring, Jilpon is obviously just Jeff Wilpon in a Kenny Powers mullet wig) but the most interesting one is Takahashi, who is described as a Tom Glavine type, which obviously means he can most relied upon to give up seven runs in one-third of an inning against barely MLB-grade competition when his team needs him the most. Hachachachacha!

It's gonna be a long season.

*Best seasons with the Metropolitans, that is. Anyone who thinks Oliver! is going to repeat his 2004 season, ever, is beyond help.

My Star-Studded Reunion Anniversary Knicks/Rangers Mid-Season Review Spectacular: In 2D!

2010-02-16T03:51:00.002-05:00

Knicks: F

Rangers: F-

Goodnight everybody!

The Least Wonderful Time of the Year

2010-02-12T03:26:00.003-05:00

I was sitting in the breakroom at Food Jerk (a wholly owned subsidiary of Cerberus Capital) today, or maybe it was yesterday, all the days kind of run together, when one of my bosses threw down the sports section of the paper and whined that this was the worst sports period of the year. No football, baseball not quite started, all we have is mid-season basketball and hockey. Desperate as always to disagree with a superior, I looked for a way that he was wrong, but I couldn't. I couldn't, and this is coming from someone who likes hockey and basketball. All I've got right now are snarky reviews of Valentine's Day and hoping that it flops and oh my gods the movie is playing fucking everywhere. It doesn't have to be this way. About sports I mean, I guess Valentine's Day is just unavoidable.

It is this way though, because the only fun to be had watching any team in the tri-state area is watching the Nets flop around the court, and even that's depressing because anyone with half a brain realizes that in the near future, the Nets will be flopping around Brooklyn in an eminent domain-enabled, poorly thought out mess of a stadium filled with bandwagon fans who are desperate for a piece of apparel with "Brooklyn" on it and don't seem to realize there's a motherfucking Brooklyn Industries storefront a mile away.

Of course, maybe there would be something for those dummies to cheer about in midtown if the Knicks or the Rangers were competently run. What's the latest on the Knicks, aside from their plummet out of the ~~first round sacrifice to the Cavs~~ playoff race reaching terminal velocity? Oh, only that they blew a 15 point lead at home to a team with four wins on the road. The Sacramento Kings have been bad in a way that leads to non-entity status for the past few years, unlike the Knicks who have been circus bad. And yet here we are, with the Times running a kind of sad, kind of weirdly brilliant "analysis" after said loss to the Kings that concludes that Knicks...have no talent. The casual fan might think that the Knicks have perhaps a person on their team that's good at basketball, but Howard Beck shows us that three of the four highest paid players on the team can't even crack the goddamn starting lineup. (For shits and giggles, the fourth player in that equation plays maybe 20 minutes a game) And they want to pick up injured and unhappy Tracy McGrady! Whee!

The Rangers on the other hand, have one of the most talented players in all of hockey in Marion Gaborik, which sounds like a good thing. Yet when I came home last night I almost threw up on my keyboard when I saw he was scratched with a "lacerated knee". Yipes! Sure this puking business might seem like a tad much, but I know a poorly kept secret about the Rangers: everyone else is terrible! The second highest goal scorer on the team has scored less than half the goals as Gaborik and if the Knicks downward spiral is at terminal velocity, the Ranger has reached escape velocity. Please note I am not a physicist and I have no idea if my analogies have made sense, I'm just that angry.

And there's still the Mets, who were so bad last year Tim Marchman refuses to do a position-by-position breakdown of them this year. Maybe I'll do it. Here's a preview: Everyone gets an F!

How About Watching a Future Hall Of Famer Today?

2010-02-07T15:29:00.005-05:00

I'm not actually a big football fan, but I will be watching tonight to see one of the greatest players in the history of the game. Sad but true, Peyton has reached a level of utter absurdity.

It reminds me of watching the old high school tapes of NBA players. You know, these games you can find on the internet with professionals utterly obliterating a variety of teams with a nasty collection of dunks, crossovers, three-pointers, and no-look passes? I can imagine what the shots of the stands must look like... mothers crying and stuff as their son gets viciously jammed on by some grown man-child. Kevin Garnett's old footage is him in a 6 foot 9 high school frame, hanging on a rim and screaming ferociously while give poor trembling high school students lay on the ground beneath the hoop. ("Give Kevin the and 1, ref").

As good as Manning is, I'm not talking about watching him tonight on the big screen at the local pub. No, I have a different name to drop for you: Sam McGuffie

I teach high school students on a regular basis, so I hear the smatterings and rumors that go on in their everyday lives. That's how I found out about this kid.

This guy is made to play football. Watch this freaking kid and remember his name. I would list for you all of the intricacies of the dips, dives, hurdles, leaps, spins, stiff arms, and sprints that this sucker serves up for every poor, star-crossed defense that comes his way, but I recommend you watch for yourself...

Well That Was Fun

2010-01-27T03:08:00.003-05:00

Excuse the radio silence, it mostly had to do with a brutal all day hangover followed by the remarkably dumb idea that I could go drinking at midnight on a Monday and still get home at a reasonable hour. Who's a champ? I am.

First, most importantly, let me thank the New Orleans Saints for preventing my, Katie Baker's and a terrified nation's nightmare of Favre v. Manning in Miami. The amount of Manning home movies and "Like a kid out there" pabulum would no doubt push an edgy populace into open revolt. Now then, with business out of the way, let's get to the teeth gnashing.

Nah, just kidding. As much as it sucks to watch your team give away an 11 point lead in the AFC Championship game, it hurts a lot less when they had almost no business being there. When I was at Retail Hell today, I was talking about the game with a co-worker. We both agreed it was a hell of a run, although maybe I went a little far when I said "Anyone who said at the beginning of the season that this team would be in the AFC Championship game and have a lead at halftime should have been institutionalized." I still believe it though. Rookie coach, rookie QB, a new system for everyone except maybe Bart Scott and Jim Leonhard to learn, Jets fans weren't expecting great things, and that's before taking into account the Just End The Season mentality that we have.

Sometimes, like the first three games of the season, it was great. Sometimes, like the middle of the season, it was painful and we covered out eyes but didn't lose faith. Oh sorry, that should have read "totally gave up." Then things got miraculous (discounting the loss to Atlanta), which is a word that hasn't been ascribed to the Jets for forty years. Of course, every miracle carries the capability of running into a propeller of science and cold logic, and this propeller happened to have a laser rocket arm.

Yeah, I'll give Peyton Manning some credit, although you never would have guessed I could be that gracious during the game as I showed the world a ludicrously high person could be driven to screaming fits of "How the fuck do you miss that call?" and "Fuck yourself Dwight Lowery!" Dude adjusted and realized that Dwight Lowery was horrible and picked on him all the way downfield until the Jets would go into that zone coverage with ten yards between them and the end zone. So congrats Manning, I hope you throw four picks in Miami.

So I suppose now we wonder how to proceed. As the clock ticked down to zero, I tried to figure out what the Jets needed aside from another corner, and according to ESPN's ludicrously early Mock Draft, the Jets also need a wide receiver, specifically Notre Dame's Golden Tate. I'll take it, although I wonder about the kind of hatred a pretty boy USC QB teaming up with a ND wide receiver would elicit. It's already for the best to not go on the road, I don't even want to think about what would be next.

There are real downers in this of course, like the fact that Mark Sanchez will not be buying me that drink at the Northeast Kingdom. As a Met fan, I also can't help but wonder if this is a glorious retcon of a typically downtrodden franchise or just another 2006 NLCS. Getting close and not quite making it doesn't hurt as much if you think there's a bright future and before September 2007 that's what it looked like the Mets had. Stop laughing. Also, the Times also has a pessimist's view of potential off-season moves, but anything that involves getting rid of Lito Sheppard has to be seen with a silver lining.

Now that the magical ride is over, the question must be asked: ~~Is our children learning (#Leno style)~~ Have we learned anything about ourselves in the process of devoting our lives to genetic freak millionaires? Ordinarily I'd say no, but for once, I have learned something about myself, and it came on that fateful Sunday. As it turns out, I am absolutely horrible at explaining football to the uninitiated. I was sitting at a bar with my friend when the game came on and she asked me to explain football to her. For some strange reason, I started with the role of the offensive linemen, before going into the whole four downs thing, and then started trying to explain it by drawing the offensive and defensive lines. I mixed those up, using X for offense and O for defense and things eventually got to the point where she took my pen and drew a beard on Angelina Jolie to match the one on Brad Pitt. Admittedly, it was a pretty good beard.

So, while we probably retire the "FOOTBALL" tag for the foreseeable future, save for maybe a couple Super Bowl related posts, I can be content following the other teams I love, like the Knicks. Or uhh, the Rangers. Annnnd...the Mets? Christ, wake me up when Brett Favre is putting on his Bears jersey.

The View From There

2010-01-23T03:26:00.006-05:00

I'll admit there's a little bit lacking in my trash talk this week. Most of it has to do with the fact that without someone that I know personally on the other side, there isn't that visceral sensation of hurting someone's feelings that goes along with trash talking on the internet. Where once I had Ush to kick around, now I feel fortunate I can even point out Indianapolis on a map. There's also the fact that the whole idea of talking shit about opposing cities was kind of murdered here.

Still, I had to do something. So over the last few days, I checked out the Indianapolis Star, the one newspaper in all of Indiana (TRUE FACT) and the bad guys' hometown paper to try to find something to pump me up more and maybe learn something about Indianapolis. Unfortunately, the people of Indiana are very tame, because even when I came across an article called "Jets' victory was a G-I-F-T, gift, gift, gift", it had a passage like this:

Listen, the Jets don't have to apologize for accepting a gift less than a month ago, don't have to take any grief about backing into the playoffs. You get there how you get there. To their great credit, they've made the most of their opportunity. Theirs is a great story, a reprise of Super Bowl III, starring the same franchise that legitimized the old AFL, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

No Bob Kravitz, you listen: disrespect us, please! Tell Jets fans to apologize. Are we no longer just a collection of left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers to the people of flyover country? What else is there to do to fill up a week, file painfully earnest reports about how Jim Caldwell feels the Colts are prepared? Very prepared even? Jesus people, get angry!

The only other remotely interesting thing I saw also turned out to be a mirage. "City blocks N.Y. writers' offense" sounds like maybe some Post beat writer got too uppity and got banned from the one bar in Indianapolis. Turns out it was just a blog post about how the Daily News has a couple guys writing mean things about the ~~city~~ farm town. Even more disappointing is the tone of the post, which takes a kind of "Mom shaking her head but also smiling about the crazy kids down the block and their antics" look at Filip Bondy and Matt Lysiak. Not surprisingly, it took a New York who moved to Indy to stick up for the burg:

In Anderson's letter to the Daily News, he wrote: "As a life-long New Yorker who moved to Indy 31/2years ago, I had to wince at the newfound inferiority complex of my hometown."

...

"Nothing about it is serious," said Anderson, who will attend Sunday's game. "This is the New York Daily News we are talking about. . . . My tactic was, the only good defense is a good offense."

HAH! It's the Daily News we're talking about, indeed. Although considering there are more people that work for the Daily News than even live in Indianapolis (ALSO A TRUE FACT) I can see why the corn-fattened yutzes turned to a New Yorker to defend their honor. Seriously though, we hate you and will break your legs.

The most curious thing about reading the Star was the paper's inclusion of biographical information of the writers and a phone number to reach them. We'd never do that in New York. Not only would anyone reading the Post or the News not really care if you were born to a banker and an artist or if you're married and have too many emotional problems to count (I guess that's not :(, it's funny?) but some crazy bastard would definitely use that information to do harm. I mean, come on, we all know Filip Bondy isn't Filip Bondy's real name, that's a ridiculous name. And we all also know that while Phil Mushnick is the man's real name, he files his columns from an undisclosed location, lest his hard-hitting anti-gang commentary move the Crips, Bloods and Latin Kings to form an alliance and take him out.

So now that I've gotten off track and would feel bad about categorizing this as a FOOTBALL post, let me end with this: The Colts will lose on Sunday, and before and after the game, Mark Sanchez's beard will be sideburns deep in some farmer's daughter's muff.

You Can Take That Razor And Recycle It Somewhere Responsibly

2010-01-22T00:05:00.004-05:00

You worry too much Tex. I can assure you that I've been vocal about hating Brett Favre over at the Food Jerk, cursing and all. It's just that football hasn't come up much at headquarters (only once this season and not at all in the 2008-09 season), so I'm not gonna waste my time on the old man. I have better things to spend my time on, like Mark Sanchez's beard.

The beard, previously mentioned before the Jets matched up with some LOSER team, has only grown in stature now that it's won two playoff games. It also has the added effect of absolving Jets' fans of growing our own horrible playoff beards, which, considering my last playoff beard scenario, I am quite thankful for. I am also thankful for this hilarious Times puff piece on the beard, containing gems like:

On Wednesday, the Jets’ locker room seemed divided between pro-beard and anti-beard contingents. Tight end Dustin Keller described Sanchez’s facial hair as “terrible” and said Sanchez was aiming for the Bushwick Bill look. Others called the beard patchy, uneven and wooly.

Or even:

“This feels right,” Sanchez said. “This feels good. It feels like you dream it would feel. The biggest thing is not getting caught up in it.”

And, of course, continuing with the beard.

The ever-wise Tony Richardson of course, has the money quote:

“He doesn’t look like a kid anymore...He looks like a grown man now. He’s not playing like a rookie, either, so more power to the beard.”

More power to the beard indeed, Tony.

Even with the Jets locker room divided, I know if Sanchez keeps up his awful/awesome facial hair, he'll fit in getting off at the Myrtle/Broadway stop on the JMZ. If the rook brings home a Super Bowl will we see him sucking face with Cassie Ramone at a Market Hotel show? Our crack legal team begs me not to say "Yes, definitely", but will not stop me from saying "Probably, sure."

Rare Exercise of the Right to Post Silliness on this here Blog

2010-01-21T00:00:00.007-05:00

Old fashioned, head to head playoff matchups smack of college, so I thought I'd ride the nostalgia to a comeback cameo post.

While said roommates were locked in a skirmish of words (more like a blogosphere bleating, I suppose) I thought about how the Texans have a QB that is more talented but less scary than Mark Sanchez... which is saying something... unless he wins the Super Bowl.

-Pulpman, I know you're happy, but I'm worried about you. How could there be so little Favre-hating when he is having a season like this? I know you don't want to discuss the bastard any more than you have to, but you might want to slam him a little to make up for this. And this. He's definitely in that so good you have to watch the game category now. Put him in with Clemens, Bonds, Kobe, and everyone else the sports world hates. Ridiculous.

Anyway, the Mechites demand vitriol, Dave.

-Did you know that, until that last post, this blog had a post labeled "Brent Barry" but no "Barry Bonds"? Only in Mecheland...

-Then again, I'm blaming a lack of Barry Bonds on Ush. Sorry buddy. It's your territory.

-I know that it's been beaten like a dead horse, but may I point out (yet again) that this is the most pathetic Super Majority ever enjoyed in Congress? Did someone pass a law when I wasn't looking that literally changed the rules of numbers? I feel like some Republican got Washington drunk, told the old dirty bastards that ride pretty on our public dollar that there was a party in the Capitol Building, and convinced them to sign a bill called the Arithmetic Resolution. I could see it now:

HR 137
Arithmetic

WHEREAS

60 has been bigger than forty-one in oppressive fashion for too long

WHEREAS

41, should like, be a bigger number than any number EVER

WHEREAS

59 is the new 49, (or is 60 the new fifty)

We move to forever make numbers irrelevant in votes...

-Pretty soon, 33 will be the new 67 and the Righties will be easily overriding vetoes.

-I mean, for crying out loud, Brown should have needed 60% to take Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.

-By the way... you suck, Massachusetts. Your candidates were both terrible, terrible, terrible... weak, weak, weak... Stick to baseball... Where this election will curse you for another 2,000 years.

-Actually, I don't wish that on anyone. Houston hasn't won anything since the mid-nineties, but we cling to that like it's yesterday.

-The sports deities have nearly delivered Tracy McGrady to the all-star game. How's that for cruel fate? We can't get any of our very good players into the game, but we can get the star that slid to the back of the bench. McGrady should join Stephon Marbury in China so they can lose together in the first round of the Chinese playoffs.

-What's this about Lebron "going to the Clippers"? Jesus Christ, I wish there was a futures option on THAT. I would short the hell out of that. There is a ZERO percent chance he is going there. Money? LA? You're saying the two biggest players in the world? They can't even face off in the finals because of the East-West structure of the NBA.

The Clippers are out.

-Shaq has it right. Dunk for Haiti.

-Good luck to the Jets... Last men standing from the apartment teams.

-Tex

The Jets' Belief System Is No Business Of Mine

2010-01-19T23:58:00.002-05:00

So what if the Jets' and Rex Ryan's constant return to making things true by believing in them is eerily similar to the hooey peddled by the folks behind The Secret? Sure, any rational person will tell you that the Law of Attraction isn't just hogwash, it's dangerous hogwash, but it's the Jets. What else is there to explain the magical ride we the fans are being taken on? This is a fan base that's used to January news conferences explaining all the things that went wrong during the year, and if we're lucky, maybe a playoff game to get stomped in.

Not no more. Now we have Calvin Pace talking about how the defense thought it was letting Rex down when they had a situation like Miami in Week 5 or Jacksonville in Week 10. Nick Mangold is quoted as such:

"It’s like a proud parent who believes in you and wants the best for you...You want to go to school to get the good grades to make them even prouder. He says, ‘We’ve got the best offensive line in football.’ Us as an offensive line take that as let’s make sure we don’t make him look silly and not be the best. It’s a trust thing. It’s a belief that he has in us that we’re going to do the right thing to get the job done."

Even the Daily News' resident football curmudgeon, Gary Myers, who less than two weeks ago wrote a column titled "There's no defense for New York Jets coach Rex Ryan's bold declaration" (clunky headline alert!) is now predicting Jets 23, Colts 20. It would seem the only way this could happen is Rex Ryan sat in his coach room and thought positive thoughts for months on end. So if he'd be shocked by a Jets loss then so will I, because right now, I'll follow this chubby, jolly motherfucker to the end of the Earth.

Omens 'n Things

2010-01-18T02:07:00.003-05:00

I'll admit I was nervous heading into this game. Of course, it's not like I was going to be under center and fleeing 340 pound freaks of nature, but after a week of trash talk, it was very possible the Jets were going to get blown out by a San Diego team with a lot of weapons and a pumped up fanbase. I must have been so ~~high~~ nervous last night, because when I titled my post, I flubbed the BSG reference. For those that aren't eagle-eyed nerds, it should have read "All Of This Has Happened Before, All Of This Will Happen Again". Apparently though, I wasn't nearly as nervous as Nate Kaeding, who will be having green tinged nightmares for the rest of his life, providing Chargers security is able to safely escort him out of Qualcomm Stadium.

Then there were the omens of course, which I strenuously refuse to believe in, except in those times that I do. Last week, before heading out to my friend Dave's place to watch the Jet game, I was transfixed by a flock of birds that had taken up residence on my fire escape. I thought they were pigeons at first, but looking closer, they had big, pink puffed up breasts and bright heads. I have no idea what kind of birds they were, but stopping to watch them was instrumental in causing me to show up at the subway platform just as the L train's doors were closing in my face and me missing part of the first quarter. This week, thanks to the rain, I didn't get to see any pretty birds, but, thanks to my own laziness, I faced the same exact subway situation and same exact first quarter situation.

Last week when I was walking to Dave's place after getting out at his stop, I saw a cop car parked in front of Sal's Pizzza's Italian flag-painted fire hydrant. Same thing happened this week. I could swear the car hadn't moved at all. It's these little things you notice as you get acquainted with a neighborhood that could turn into omens, either good or bad, when you follow a historically bumbling franchise into the playoffs. But what would it be: no birds, no win or parked cops FTW?

We know the end of that story, and while I don't believe in curses or omens, it'd be hard to not wonder if the Chargers corporate offices were maybe built out of black cat skeletons. How else but by supernatural chicanery does a team that wins thirteen games take three personal fouls, not to mention a block in the back and facemask call? How does that ball bounce off Vincent Jackson's leg and land in the middle of Revis Island? How do Jackson, Phillip Rivers and Antonio Gates team up to gift wrap an interception for Jim Leonhard?

It isn't curses though, it's coaching. Proving once again that bloggers know more than jerks working at real papers, Chargers fan THN commends the Jets for being "disciplined" and "well-coached". I'm sure Chris Baldwin will tell you otherwise, but Rex Ryan coached the shit out of this team tonight, bringing out a squad in the second half that did just about everything right. Going into the second half, I think every Jet fan felt they were in good hands, that Rex and Schotty wouldn't panic. They'd tweak and adjust and find the weaknesses in the Chargers. They did that and then some, considering they fooled the hell out of me on that 3rd and goal play action touchdown. As if it needs to be pointed out, for all the bluster and wit, Ryan and this team work extremely hard at all aspects of this game. Now the Jets get a chartered flight to glittering (?) Indianapolis to beat the Colts a second time. It was an impossible dream in December, but it's starting to look like I'm gonna have to take February 9th off.

And as if it needs to be said: Good game Ush, I'm sorry it had to be your guys.

All Of This Has Happened Before, All Of This Has Happened Again

2010-01-17T05:04:00.003-05:00

Now only hours away, I leave the blogosphere with three things to think about heading into this afternoon's game. None of them are anything like "The Jets will have to use the I formation to counteract the Chargers defense" or anything remotely resembling actual strategy. Just more things I think that point to a Jets win.

1. The Jets believe that Chargers are soft. Echoing comments made around Food Jerk by my co-workers, the Jets are mocking the Chargers for being soft and frolicking around in the sun, while they faced the unconscionably cold New York winter, with its howling winds and snow. Hell, Damien Woody promised he would personally break the knees of each and every D-lineman the Chargers run out there.

2. The sins of the father are not visited on the son. This is not necessarily true or false, it only becomes so when you want it to be. So in this case, Ush can take his "Schottenheimer Syndrome" and sink it in the San Francisco Bay. As this Times profile incontrovertibly proves, Brian Schottenheimer is some kind of child genuis who has been designing football plays in the sand since the age of five. I don't even know if Norv Turner had a childhood. Probably didn't.

3. Mark Sanchez and I are similar in more ways than you would think, especially if you first thought we were similar in zero ways. And yet, according to this poorly sourced tidbit on his Wikipedia page, Sanchez once broke a window at a frat party. Now, some of you may not know this about me, but I once kicked a hole in the wall at a frat party. True story. Put my foot right through it. Something tells me Sanchez didn't run from the house at nearly the speed I did after performing his pointless yet awesome bit of destruction, but in my defense, I'm not, nor was I then a 6'2", 225 pound human.

It's A Game That Means More Than You Think

2010-01-15T00:44:00.005-05:00

You know Ush, I'm terrifically excited about this whole thing. It's given us each a new burst of energy and the site is actually alive for once. We should think of a way to keep this up even after the Chargers lose.

Just thought I'd chime in again to show you how determined the Jets are to take this game. That's right, Jerricho Cotchery is bringing it back to grade school days. From America's Finest Tabloid:

Cotchery, the Jets receiver, and Rivers, the Chargers quarterback, starred together at North Carolina State and also were high school rivals growing up in Alabama.

...

"It is a little weird, because we're very familiar with each other and the chemistry we had at N.C. State was unbelievable," Cotchery said yesterday. "I still owe him from high school, though, because he knocked me out in the second round of the playoffs my senior year, and that still hurts. I still remember that and I'm sure he still remembers that as well. I'm trying to get some payback for that."

That's right motherfucker, our guys have many shoulders and many chips. Speaking of, tell me, really, was this comment left by you?

(Click to enlarge, dummy)

P.S. I got rid of my shift at Food Jerk, so I'll definitely be watching the game. See you Sunday.

Reasons why the Chargers will win Sunday: Schottenheimer Syndrome

2010-01-14T23:46:00.001-05:00

Nobody in San Diego thinks Norv Turner is a good coach. Even though he has the highest winning percentage in Charger’s history. Even though he is tied for most playoff wins in Charger’s history. Even though he has never lost in December as the Charger’s head coach. He sounds like an idiot. He has no presence on the sidelines. He often appears confused, impatient, and seems to lack a comprehensive game strategy. He teams often seem to underachieve, even while blowing out an opponent. He could go 19-0 next year, and I still wouldn’t be convinced he’s any good.

However, he wins. Damn it all, the guy wins. Especially in the playoffs. The past two years, he’s taken an underachieving team into the playoffs and suddenly they appear- as a complete, talented, disciplined team that wins in January.

This is in stark contrast to Marty Schottenheimer. Marty breathed like an NFL coach. He screamed at his players like one. He stalked around on the sidelines like one. He was charismatic, funny, tough, and led some pretty phenomenal Charger teams. He created defensives that could control every facet of the game. The loyalty he received from his players was something organic, that could not be faked or manufactured. And yet, when playoff time came, you could smell disaster coming. In 2005, he took a Charger team from the bottom of the NFL to division champions. And in the way only Schottenheimer could, he sucker punched San Diego. His team played scared, tense, overly emotional, and when it counted, scared against a mediocre Jets team. In a game that Bushido Brown and Pulp know well, the Chargers ultimately showed that old Marty was unable to do what all NFL coaches are paid to do; win in the playoffs.

So the Chargers head into Sunday with a uninspiring defense, a lackluster pass rush, a weak rushing attack led by a fading legend. They pass first, throw long, and seem to be uniquely situated as the exact type of team that shouldn’t hold up in January. However, this is where Norv is at his best. And unlike 2005. the Jets have the Schottenheimer.

Breathing Into A Paper Bag Is So 2009

2010-01-14T02:45:00.003-05:00

All that crap about baseball season never ending goes out the window when the football playoffs involve the most important team in the Universe. Therefore, it was much, much easier to take the news that the Mets and Carlos Beltran could end up in surgery court or something, rather soon. Who cares about panicking over whether this will do untold damage to the relationship between the two parties when you can dream about Darrelle Revis touchdown dances. Pause.

Anyway, continuing the theme of the week, piling on Ush because he is terrible for liking the wrong football team, I would like to relate the fact that the Jets are capturing hearts and minds across this great city. When I walked into Food Jerk (a wholly owned subsidiary of Cerberus Capital) today to put in my time, there was a "Go Jets!" sign, green and white everywhere and half-naked cheerleaders pouring liquor into customers' mouths while they stood in line. This did not happen when the Hated Yankees were in the World Series, which leads me to believe people are buying into the whole New Jets thing (because Lord knows it worked for the Mets). They are also calling your boys a bunch of chokers. They're pissin' on your lawn, man. What are you gonna DO about it?

The Real Reason The Jets Will Win

2010-01-13T05:45:00.002-05:00

In true New York hipster fashion, the team has its own beardo. From the Times:

Over the past month, teammates noticed the changes in Sanchez. He seemed more confident and comfortable. He played smarter, within the offense. He grew a beard his parents dislike [Emphasis added].

Fear the beard Ush, fear the beard.

Reasons why the Chargers will win Sunday

2010-01-12T00:25:00.004-05:00

Reason #1

Hit the hole! Challenge that play!

And Starring Tony Richardson As Michael Scott

2010-01-11T00:47:00.003-05:00

Jim Halpert:	Several times a day, Michael says words that are Way beyond my vocabulary--
Michael Scott:	I know where this is going!
Jim Halpert:	Do ya?
Michael Scott:	No.
Jim Halpert:	Ok. Remember spiderface?
Michael Scott:	No.
Jim Halpert:	Ok because the quote was, "cut off her nose to spiderface."

-Courtesy of the aptly named OfficeQuotes.com.

"I told him before the game, you don't have to have some outer-body experience [Emphasis added] today. Just go out and play the game, the same game you've been playing since you were a kid."
-Tony Richardson on his advice for Mark Sanchez Sunday night

Just kidding Tony, love your blocking!

As long as I'm taking silly pot shots at the man, it would also be unconscionable of me not to note the Times' mini-profile of Richardson, and to congratulate the Jets' fullback for winning his first playoff game in 15 seasons in the league. And also for lasting 15 seasons playing football. On to the next one!

I Shouldn't Get That Mad Because Metro Is Barely A Real Newspaper, But Still

2010-01-07T01:21:00.003-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Baldwin, "Rex remains a better promoter than coach" and the "That Yellow Bastard" vibe that Metro's design team give to his face.

I promise I won't go line by line with this. Except this line, because I just hate it.

It was easier to get into the AFC playoffs this season than a White House state dinner.

Actually, the answer the judges were looking for was: "It was easier to get into the AFC playoffs this season than Tiger Woods' sex van." Which was quite easy to get into. Know what isn't easy? Making the playoffs any year with a rookie quarterback. Since 1990, five teams have done this with a rookie starter. Well, six now with the Jets. HAH!

Want to know why the Jets did that? Because Rex Ryan is in fact a better coach than he is promoter, dummy. You think the Jets defense shot up to number one in everything with some magic beans? Shit, this team was missing Calvin Pace for four games and lost Kris Jenkins and Leon Washington in October. All you had to do was watch the defense hopping around and scaring the shit out of opposing offenses to know they were ready to break some necks this year.

And who do you think made the decision to run more and give more touches to Brad Smith, Zeus? Ryan promised to get more involved with the offense after Week 11, he did, and it worked. He didn't talk a new offense into existence, he schemed it, you know, like a coach does. A good coach.

Eugene Robinson Reveals His Previously Unknown Relation To Mentok the Mind Taker

2009-12-08T01:29:00.006-05:00

Separated at birth?

After stating, "I'm not going to pronounce judgment on [Tiger] Woods's moral fiber", Eugene Robinson still doesn't really see a problem with going above his pay grade and peering into Woods's very soul. Sure it's just ridiculous linkbait, but it's really good ridiculous linkbait. Boweeeeeeop.

Here's my real question, though: What's with the whole Barbie thing?

No offense to anyone who actually looks like Barbie, but it really is striking how much the women who've been linked to Woods resemble one another. I'm talking about the long hair, the specific body type, even the facial features. Mattel could sue for trademark infringement.

This may be the most interesting aspect of the whole Tiger Woods story -- and one of the most disappointing. He seems to have been bent on proving to himself that he could have any woman he wanted. But from the evidence, his aim wasn't variety but some kind of validation.

I'm making a big assumption here that the attraction for Woods was mostly physical, but there's no evidence thus far that he had a lot of time for deep conversation. If adultery is really about the power and satisfaction of conquest, Woods's self-esteem was apparently only boosted by bedding the kind of woman he thought other men lusted after -- the "Playmate of the Month" type that Hugh Hefner turned into the American gold standard.

...

His taste in mistresses leaves the impression of a man who is, deep down, both insecure and image-conscious -- a control freak even when he's committing "transgressions."

Just Hook It To My Veins!

2009-12-08T00:46:00.002-05:00

Yes! Fuck yes! Oh please please please make this happen.

Malik! Mailk! Mailk!

2009-12-01T04:18:00.002-05:00

CSTB linked to a Larry Brooks screed bemoaning the shootout and using all sorts of scary "numbers" and "facts" to show that the NHL is backsliding into it's "play for the tie" ways. Not that this should be shocking to any hockey fan considering that, "At least we'll get a point out of this" should be their top phrase to mutter after losing in overtime. Of course, that doesn't make overtime very exciting, and considering that the only other way to emphasize the "sudden death" of the extra time is to randomly plant bombs around the ice, maybe it is time to shake up or do away with the shootout. Of course, without it, we wouldn't have ever had moments like the above, without a doubt one of the coolest sporting moments I've ever been witness to.

Something like the Malik goal turns a mundane, early season game into one that you forever regret not seeing, if you didn't get to. I did, and therefore can still recall almost everything about the best shootout that ever happened, a little over four years after the fact.

I was lucky to see it, since the only way to catch Ranger games in Washington, DC was for them to be playing the Capitals. Lo and behold, the day I was driving back from Thanksgiving break and into DC was the night of the game. During the drive, I got an excited text from Slammer imploring me to watch the replay of the game, it had been the best game he'd ever seen. So I figured I'd stay up for it, maybe even go invite the out of my league cute girl a floor above us to watch, since she was a Caps fan. Yeah, ring in the post-Thanksgiving period in style.

Instead of coming home to my empty apartment though, I ended up face to face with Tex's boarder from Hell, whose name I can't recall right now. She was supposed to have stayed with us for a few days and the stay just kept getting longer, but she was definitely supposed to be gone after Thanksgiving. So much for cute girl on the floor above. Maybe I should have gone for it anyway, but one kink in the plan allowed me to rationalize being shy and now we're getting off track.

The game came on around 11, I think, or whenever it was Comcast usually replayed games, and I did my best to ignore/vaporize with my mind Tex's friend. Despite figuring that the Rangers were going to win, since I didn't think Slammer would heartily recommend a loss, things got tense as the Rangers blew a two goal lead and there was that infuriating overtime penalty on Jaromir Jagr for an illegal stick. I then sat rapt for all twenty minutes or so, convinced that the next round would be the one that would let me leap off the couch in ecstasy. That it came after a bizarre circus shot that I have never seen performed again made it all the better.

Marek Malik's is a seminal moment in the strange ride that was the '05-'06 Rangers and if I'd be flat out lying if I didn't say I had to shootout to thank for that. So maybe it can stay.

Yellow Light!

2009-11-30T02:30:00.003-05:00

So Mark Sanchez needs to play Red light/Green light in order to be an effective NFL quarterback. He also can't explain the rules, but humanity has never required a pretty face to have an answer, so why start now?

Although the Jets lost two fumbles, and Sanchez missed four plays in the third quarter after injuring his left leg, his mistakes were minimal as he employed a newly implemented code system designed to remind him of the level of care he should take when throwing the ball.

Sanchez said the code was too complicated for him to explain. Ryan, however, said it was merely a three-tiered framework, communicated by words and colors to Sanchez before each possession and each passing play by Ryan and the offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer.

Sanchez Limits Risk; Color Jets Impressed - NYT 11/30

So cool, another one of my team's picks up a possible franchise player who can't think good. Let's see, Sanchez can't manage risk and Mike Pelfrey loses focus and possible tips his pitches. It's like "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" except that they aren't teammates and don't even play the same sport. But that's what reading about the latest Mark Sanchez travails has reduced me to, thinking "Mike Pelfrey" and shoehorning in forced metaphors. And that's after a win. Obviously, The Year of Suck (patent pending) would include young pieces counted on to perform coming up short.

I don't know, maybe this happens with every team. I never read up, for instance, on Yankees prospects as closely, but maybe Jorge Posada had to tell Joba Chamberlain to stop shouting his pitches into a megaphone before throwing them. I somehow doubt it though.

Well Thank God That's Over

2009-11-05T03:14:00.003-05:00

Somewhere along the way, my hopefulness turned to sadness,
Somewhere along the way, my sadness turned to bitterness,
Somewhere along the way, my bitterness turned to anger,
Somewhere along the way, my anger turned to vengeance.

-Julian Casablancas, "Out of the Blue"

Starting a blog post with a song lyric (starting anything but a song with lyrics) is fucking lame. Having established that, this bummer of a baseball season is perfectly summed up in the first four lines of that song, so I guess I'll just have to live with myself.

I've been a Met fan my whole life, and I'll say I have twenty years of conscious memory about my team. I can say without a shadow of a doubt, no season was nearly as painful as the one that just ended in probably the worst fashion I could have imagined short of Johan Santana being fed into a wood chipper in some kind of kidnapping scheme gone awry.

Yankees/Phillies. It seemed more and more inevitable as the season went on, especially once the Giants and their playoff perfect rotation fell out of the race in the middle of September. Then the Rockies, Twins, Dodgers and Angels proved completely inconsequential competition and I had a doomsday scenario on my hands. For awhile I told myself I could ignore the World Series, except that, oh, I live in fucking New York City, so yeah, good luck with that. Then I earnestly hoped for something like a meteor or another great flood to prevent a champion from ever being crowned. As a back up plan, I swallowed my pride, decided a Phillies win was better than living in the middle of a two week Yankee victory buzz and followed along with my hands over my eyes as the doomsday scenario to end all doomsday scenarios slowly unfolded.

I watched tonight on my lunch break, reasoning that I'd hear about the game from people at my job even if I completely skipped it. It was a mistake though, because the game went from being a distraction to being a burden. It should never be a burden, sports, even when they totally suck. Still, the utter hopelessness of the situation dredged up a bunch of other shit and made the rest of my time at work a living Hell.

People had worse days than me today I know. My friend got her bike stolen and her car blew up, and some people don't have cars or homes or blogs. Even with that serenity prayer kind of philosophizing, I felt plenty bad as I walked through the (fortunately) quiet streets of Bushwick carrying an actual burden in my flat tire having bike, I told myself that no one felt worse than me. The Yankees won spectacularly, the Mets flamed out early and never stopped embarrassing themselves. Whatever joy I had gotten out of baseball was pretty far gone and I was still in thrall to it like some kind of worthless junkie,

When I wake up in the morning I'll feel a little better. I've got a day off and I can avoid collectible Daily News covers and twenty pages of special coverage stuffed in the middle of the Post. I'll get my bike fixed, do my laundry, get clean. Then I'll see if the Rangers are playing, because it's hockey season.

As for the possibility of congratulations:

I'm a bitter person and can't stand losing. Sports, politics, job hunts, love, writing projects; I don't handle these things very well when they go badly. I don't think I pretend to though and therefore, I'm not going to do the right thing, the mature thing and congratulate the Yankees and their fans. They can rot, as can the Phillies and their fans. The great part about not actually playing the game is that you don't need to be a good sport about it.

Answers Like They Oughta Be

2009-08-18T02:30:00.004-05:00

Matt Cerrone posted a tweet from some fan asking why the Mets didn't trade for Aubrey Huff. No, not in 2006, like, now, as in 2009 in August. Matt runs a family friendly blog and also seems like a level headed guy, so obviously he didn't respond the appropriate way. Instead, he was very diplomatic, pointing out that it's not June and the Mets are very much out of it. Still, I think jma201 deserves an honest answer and I'm very much prepared to give it to him.

Are you fucking brain damaged buddy? Have you looked at a little thing called the standings? Because if you had, I'm sure you would realize that the Mets currently sit eight games under .500, and it's August. Fucking August! In what possible world would giving away a minor league player, any minor league player, for Aubrey Huff make sense when your team is obviously dead in the water? I mean, if the player you trade ends up becoming even David goddamn Eckstein, YOU FUCKING LOSE! You've traded league average production for a quarter season's worth of utter crap. And for what? Obviously you live in some kind of fantasy world, but if Aubrey Huff on the Mets is your fantasy, your parameters for this endless world of imagination are completely fucked up. You need to get out more, you really do.

Why wouldn't the Mets trade for Aubrey Huff? Maybe because since June 1st, Aubrey Huff has put up the following ~~Ruthian~~ Aaron XXIV line: .242/.307/.347. Well good fucking God, who could possibly look at numbers like that and not be blown away...by how brain meltingly dumb you are for suggesting the Mets import that. For comparison, Daniel Murphy's numbers in the same time period: .249/.303/.357. Yes, that's right, Daniel Murphy, widely considered an enormous disappointment has been outclassing ten year veteran Aubrey Huff at the plate. But no, you're right, it makes perfect sense to bring him on board and displace Murphy so that we can watch our "left handed power bat" be outslugged by Luis motherfucking Castillo.

Honestly, it's going to be a certified fucking miracle if Aubrey Huff manages to hit 20 home runs this year. And this, this is the answer to you? What else do you have on the MENSA agenda after fixing the Mets' offensive woes with this trade? Solving global hunger through a "Food Is Good" campaign? With some posters and large rallies and imporant celebrity PSAs? Because you're so smart? Aubrey Huff was never the answer in 2009 and the idea that anyone thinks he was should just go play in traffic on the Van Wyck for all the good you're doing as rational human beings.

Aaaaaaaaaand I'm Spent

2009-08-06T22:34:00.002-05:00

Somewhere across the country (OK, San Diego) the Mets are getting killed by some team (OK, the Padres). Daniel Murphy just hit into a rally killing double play with two men on and nobody out, making the score 7-3 Padres. I'm too lazy to look up the last time the Padres, the worst team in baseball not named the Nationals scored seven whole runs this season, but I'll just assume it's never because their offensive strategy consists of "clone Adrian Gonzalez when the technology becomes available".

Who's the ace keeping the Mets' ~~powerhouse~~ Little League offense under wraps? Why none other than future Hall of Famer ~~Jake Peavy~~ Clayton Richards! This is the life of the Met fan this year, a guy with 23 career starts walks four in 5.2 innings and the Mets can only manage three runs and you're left hoping that Angel Berroa can keep an inning going. Spoiler Alert: He pops up.

That the season is done isn't even a question at this point, considering the Diamondbacks are closer to catching the Mets in whatever race they're in than the Mets are to catching the Wild Card leaders. Everything the team had moved towards in that five game winning streak came apart at the seams, and it's tough to know what was worse: dropping three of four to the DBacks or splitting a pair with the Cardinals but somehow losing three more players to injury. The former is disheartening because the DBacks were talked up (down?) as a terrible team the Mets could steamroll and get over .500, the latter because when you lose someone to the dugout steps you realize that the baseball gods have turned their backs on this team a long, long time ago.

So as I listen to Tim Redding struggle and go 3-1 on Tony Gwynn (Jr.) [UPDATE: Walked him with the bases loaded. What do you want for nothing? Rubber biscuit?] I can really only think of next year. That the Mets can't in good conscience bring Jose Reyes back this year or push Johan Santana, or even David Wright. As for Carlos Beltran, if he comes back in September, despite the looming spectre of microfracture surgery, there'll just be nothing to say about the competence of the Mets' front office. Carlos Beltran needs to start getting healthy for next year, competitive pride be damned, there's absolutely nothing he can do for the team this year except help them finish 82-80. There isn't a Met fan on the planet who would care about that, especially if he ends up sitting out all of 2010.

As the Mets face their looming mortality in this game, with four outs left, and their season, with 55 games left, it's hard to pay attention, much less care, but despite one eye on 2010, I'll keep on with them. Baseball, like summer, is more fleeting than its long season would promise and you always miss it after Game 162 no matter how bad a season is, like you miss those sweltering days in August when compared to a bitter cold February morning.

Just Use The Time Machine

2009-08-01T04:01:00.003-05:00

Can we go back to Thursday at around 4:00 PM? Because things were looking pretty effing good for the Mighty Metropolitans that afternoon and I was feeling pretty good as a result. I woke up at noon on my day off and took advantage of the lazy opportunity and turned on the radio to bask in Johan Santana's glory. And what glory it was. No hits until two outs were left in the third inning, only one walk, eight strikeouts, seven innings of a pitching clinic. Not even the concerned tones of Howie Rose and Wayne Hagin discussing the velocity of Johan's first two fastballs could dim my mood. After all, I was laying in bed listening to baseball. Does it get any better than that?

By the time it was all over, the Mets had dinked and dunked their way to a 7-0 win, a win that included a totally unexpected Angel Berroa double. Seriously, I was listening, it happened, it wasn't just a dream. Wayne Hagin even proved useful, relaying the story of Jeff Francoeur's scouting report on Jason Hammell sometime in the second or third inning. Maybe the fourth? Get off my case. At that point, I started wondering if Frenchy would end up more useful than anyone ever imagined, even if he never fucking walks.

So I got out to enjoy the weather. I rode my bike to Williamsburg, to Two Bridges, onto the Brooklyn Bridge, sat on a bench on the Brooklyn Bridge and watched dusk fall over Manhattan. I thought of a lot of things, and one of those things was the possibility of the Mets sweeping the Rockies and then plowing over the Diamondbacks this weekend. It wasn't just the nice day getting to me or the exhaustion from riding all the way from Bushwick to Manhattan and over two mile-long bridges, the team was playing crisp baseball and maybe was (finally) finding its identity.

Then I went to a bar during the sixth inning of the second game and proceeded to argue with some moron who insisted that Luis Castillo was totally worth the money and Orlando Hudson was garbage and would never acclimate to New York if the Mets signed him. And that he was happy with the team as it was now constructed because "it's a bunch of kids." He also insisted that Jerry Manuel have Jonathon Niese finish the seventh inning so that he would "earn it." Nevermind this was after Niese had given up a double to the pitcher, a lucky out to the lead off man on a fantastic catch by Fernando Tatis, a home run to Clint Barmes and a hard hit single to Todd Helton, so there was no wi to earn. This guy couldn't even verbalize what Niese would "earn" if he kept getting knocked around but still finished the eighth. I let it go, watched the Mets lose and shrugged it off, knowing that they can't win every game and that the Rockies weren't some cream puff team. Hell, the Mets had even mounted a threat in every inning, which was way better than the laying down and dying they had been excelling at earlier this year. Then I watched the Yankees lose with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and felt a little better.

Tonight I got score updates from a friend at work and left when it was 2-2 late in the game. I went to see True Romance at the Sunshine and kept baseball off my mind. Apparently Sean Green was busy doing the same thing. Maybe he was thinking of Patricia Arquette circa 1993, which I will give him, is quite distracting. That's the only way I can explain how a guy who was clawing his way back into the hearts of the New York Met fan managed to botch a game they really needed against a terrible opponent. A wild pitch of all things. The Mets already lost a game becuase of balks earlier this year, so I guess it only stands to reason that they would lose a game on a wild pitch as well. And of course that it would be Sean Green throwing said wild pitch. The poor guy just seems destined to have the Schoeneweis/Heilman role this year as the reliever who gets saddled with terrible things happening to him. Not like he didn't earn it early this year with his godawful pitching though.

If the Mets are going to go 91-71 and be a viable wild card team, they have 18 more losses to dole out over August and September. I say this just to show how bleak things really are. It would have been nice to win tonight and have 19 losses to fall back on for the rest of the year, but nothing this year has been easy. And if by the end of this week the Mets have only 15 losses to lean on, the only easy thing to do will be to tune them out and wait for basketball.

Circus Tricks

2009-07-29T01:21:00.002-05:00

I haven't watched a Mets game in some time, nor have I even caught a glimpse of one in close to a month. This is what happens when your team bottoms out and runs a minor league line up out every fucking night. But check this reversal of fortune. Last time I saw a glimpse of a game, I stopped outside of a bar in Williamsburg to look in and get a score. Instead, I saw the Dodgers stepping out of the dugout and congratulating each other before the SNY graphic with the score popped up. Dodgers 11, Mets 2. Fucking yikes. Tonight, as I rode down Atlantic Avenue after work, I looked into the local watering hole to see the Mets congratulating each other on the infield. "Son of a bitch," I muttered to myself as I rode, "they won again."

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that the circus is still in town. But fuck it, as long as the circus is still here, why not go all out and add some death defying feats? THRILL to Mike Pelfrey putting 10 MEN on base in 6.1 innings and still somehow giving up NO RUNS! COVER YOUR EYES as he loads the bases in TWO different innings! STARE IN AMAZEMENT as Jeff Francoeur sees SEVEN pitches in three at bats and still somehow manages a base knock and an RBI! ASKK YOURSELF SERIOUSLY if a team with playoff aspirations should go TWO MONTHS before winning four straight games again! WONDER ALOUD how Sean Green pitches a scoreless inning!

OK, so maybe that last one is a cheap shot what with Bad For The Irish's turnaround since his April troubles, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let that go so fast. If it takes Luis Castillo having the third highest OBP among all the second basemen in baseball to get Met fans to accept him, Sean Green's going to have to cease giving up runs from here until the end of the season, ~~whenever that is.~~ WHOOPS still don't believe there'll be a game 163! The Mets still owe me a game and half in the standings before I start doing desperate things like going and getting drunk down the block and watching them on their lunch break, or even going to a game with a couple of Cardinals fans next week.

So before we get all jacked up on hope and start screaming to the world about the Mets being back and this blog getting two new sets of eyeballs in Yitzie(sp?) and Brian (shout out accomplished), let's look at two ugly facts, sponsored by the Ugly Truth, starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. Hah hah hah, sellout. Even if the Mets sweep the Rockies in this series, they still need to climb over the marginal contenders: the Brewers, Astros (sorry Tex), Marlins and Braves. Then they need to climb over the Cardinals, Rockies, Giants and Cubs, and two of those teams are good enough to have been picked to win the NL Central. Second, the Mets are still three games under .500. Fucking yikes.

Good Things Come To Those Who Wait (A Really Really Long Time)

2009-07-28T00:46:00.004-05:00

It's been a really, really long time since anything good has happened to the Mets. You can tell not by looking at the standings or watching a press conference, but by listening to Howie Rose call Fernando Tatis' game winning grand slam. He sounded surprised about everything: the ball going back, the ball clearing the 125 foot wall, Fernando Tatis being the guy who hit it out, the home run kind of maybe counting in a grander sense than just scoring runs. Not that Howie was the only guy that was surprised considering I was zoning out playing video games and only half listening to the maddeningly unlistenable Wayne Hagin. Shit, I was one more DP away from renaming Fernando Tatis "Fernandoubleplay Tatis." No it doesn't roll off the tongue, but either do most of my sputtering curses as he kills another rally.

Of course, if you want to get technical and don't want to bother listening to a confused Howie Rose, you can look at the Mets' schedule and note this is the team's first three game winning streak since May and that Jim Tracy apparently thought so little of this game that he brought in a pitcher with a 6.00 ERA and a 1.59 WHIP and sat and watched him walk the first two hitters he faced before deciding drastic action needed to be taken. You can wonder what the hell is going on in the front office and why all of a sudden the usually media savvy Omar Minaya declared open war on Adam Rubin at a press conference designed to sweep bad feelings away from the team.

Shit, look at the box score too and note that Jeff Francoeur saw 8 pitches in the three at bats he had before being intentionally walked and that his intentional walk was his first as a Met. Or take note that Oliver Perez walked four batters in five innings. Actually, that one could be construed as a positive, since it means he pitched more innings than the number of men he walked, a feat he's accomplished less than half the time he's started this year.

Oh right, they won tonight.

Fuck, what do you want from me? Matt Cerrone was watching with playoff intensity and Greg Prince isn't sure what to make of all this. At this juncture in the season, Tatis' grand slam has a better shot of turning out like Ramon Castro's home run against the Phillies in early September 2005: the last roar of an underachieving team up to its neck in water. I don't want to be a downer, but wake me up when the Mets are four games back and they don't have a AAA line-up and Johan Santana isn't giving up career highs in everything bad. I'll still listen because I'm an idiot and because I'll miss baseball when it's over, but I'll be damned if I'll believe.

Unless of course, I wake up and they're four games back.

TGME on Twitter - A New Frontier

2009-06-19T11:05:00.004-05:00

Forget about all that Iran Revolution crap, the real news on Twitter is that your good friends at The Gil Meche Experience have decided to grace that world with our presence.

No, this has nothing to do with my lack of a desire to write anything longer than 140 characters...but I digress.

So follow us at http://twitter.com/gilmecheexp, and may god have mercy on your souls.

Human After All

2009-06-03T02:40:00.002-05:00

All this time I thought Johan Santana was a ~~killer~~ pitching cyborg sent from the future to redeem us of all our sins in fandom and lead us into a glorious new age of Metropolitanality. Now that he has been struck and bleeds like a normal man, I'm not so sure.

No no, I'm not panicking and getting on the "Trade Santana" bandwagon, if such a thing exists. Still, I was hoping that after enduring a brutal start against the Natinals, Johan would be able to recover against the Pirates and keep the Mets loss the night before from metastasizing into a losing streak. Shows what I know.

Is it all Johan's fault? Sadly I don't know because I didn't see much of the game, being stuck in class. But I do know that the Mets have a scary lack of depth. Not that this hasn't been harped on before, but if the Mets keep trotting out this line up, they're going to find themselves seven games under .500 as opposed to over. It's frustrating of course, because short of Carlos Delgado getting shelved for over half a season, it's tough to predict that your starting shortstop will go down right at the same time as your backup does and that your right fielder will strain a hamstring just standing there and that your centerfielder will get swine flu or an ulcer and his backup will pull his groin and your hotshot setup man will come down with a case of Heilmanism, but Omar Minaya makes a lot of money to watch over this team and he should really have a "Plan Q" out there. And it should not involve the words "Ramon Martinez."

Whatever. A team with as much history as the Mets is always concocting some new and terrible way to torture their fanbase. Obviously for my generation, it's going to be the Pittsburgh Shuffle from here to eternity. It's a simple dance really: Put your arms out like you're flying high and at the moment you feel the grandness of flight, take a running leap and fall flat on your face. Try not to lay there too long though, because no one is going to help you up.

Like It Never Even Happened

2009-05-31T01:49:00.003-05:00

The peculiar, and frankly, great, thing about a baseball season is the incredible amount of games played over its course. People talk about the NBA and NHL seasons being long slogs and those are merely 82 games. And forget the emotional rollercoaster of the NFL season, where none of the 16 games your team plays is too important to overlook, unless you happen to be a Jet fan, like I do.

In baseball, the 162 games means that sometimes, even early in the season, you end up with a lineup where Carlos Beltran is the only recognizable name and you go back to bed because Tim Redding has already given up four runs and Josh Johnson is pitching. Four months from now, it will be like this game never even happened. Even if the Mets miss out on the playoffs by one game, no one will point to this game as the one that got away.

Not to say I'd rather the game didn't happen, because I'm always glad for baseball, especially as the weather heats up and the outdoors become more and more preferable. Anyone watching got to witness not just Fernando Martinez's first major league hit, but his first two. Maybe now Tim Marchman won't want to trade him for Mark DeRosa. Kidding, Tim, kidding!

And give this much to the B-squad: they showed some spark in the ninth when they had the whole night ahead of them to get drunk and chase tail. Bouncing the opposing team's closer always feels good, especially when he comes in to a not quite save situation looking to get some work in. Honestly, did anyone expect to win this game? I don't even think Tim Redding did, but if I were him, I would start practicing human sacrifice or even worse, look into The Secret, anything that will get him to control his fastball, before Nelson Figueroa or Jon Niese punches his ticket to the bullpen or the DL. Not to say he doesn't have time, what with Ollie getting more tendinits, coincidentally right after walking five guys in a Triple A game.

So tomorrow it's John Maine and the A ~~team~~ squad in a game we're back to expecting to win. It would be a 5-1 homestand and if Maine pitches a good game, you can probably finally stop worrying about the rotation and officially pencil it in as a strength. We shall see tomorrow.

Vaya Con Dios, Castro! Viva Santos!

2009-05-30T00:40:00.004-05:00

So sure the Mets victory is going to overshadow yet another blockbuster deal the team has made in 2009, but I'd rather talk about Ramon Castro than go over the Mets beating the Marlins. A team that talks about World Series aspirations should do that, especially with the number two starter out there.

Ramon wasn't going to be a Met his whole career or anything, but he still provided some good memories as a prankster (as I was reminded by Jason Fry) and as a hitter. Ramon pushed the 2005 Mets to what was probably their peak, on August 30th against the Phillies. I didn't actually get to see the game, being down in DC I was forced to follow it on the Gameday display while IMing Bushido Brown. It was mostly teeth gnashing (probably) until the incredible happened and Ramon stung Ugeth Urbina for a 3 run shot in the bottom of the 8th. Mets win, 6-4, and "VIVA CASTRO!" messages flowed across the internet. Flew? Zapped? Whatever. It's a shame the Mets ran out of gas after that, because Ramon would be a folk hero if they had managed to make the playoffs.

I think we were all waiting for Ramon to keep doing that, especially after his impressive 2007. Sure he went on the DL, but he still got out there for 52 games and hit the crap out of the ball, allowing Paul Lo Duca a reasonable amount of rest. Even with Brian Schneider coming aboard last year, there was open talk about "Fluff" seizing the starting role. Then he got hurt at the beginning of the season. And then in the middle of the season and the Mets were playing Robinson Cancel and Gustavo Molina and we were all looking around for guns to shoot ourselves with.

And now this year he's been replaced by his non-union Mexican equivalent. Just kidding, Omir Santos is Puerto Rican. And super awesome. Well, we don't know that yet, but something tells me the Mets are hoping he fulfills the Castro prophecy from last year and provides a little punch as opposed to Schneider. Thus far Omir has shown a flair for the dramatic and for run producing, two things this team is going to have to dig around for and grab anywhere they can get it. I don't know how a long season or better scouting reports will affect his hitting, but obviously I hope he keeps hitting like he is. If he finishes the year batting .276, the Mets will have gotten solid production out of their catching.

Which means Brian better watch his ass. It doesn't matter how many meta car commercials he makes because New York literary nerds who are also baseball fans appreciate a cather's RBIs more than his ability to discuss the works of Thomas Pynchon. Though that is a plus.

Oh right, something something Lance Broadway. Whatever, toss him on the pile with Jon Adkins and Jason Vargas.

Stange Days

2009-05-28T03:04:00.002-05:00

Strange days in Met land. After traipsing through the daisies in early May, the Mets made a brutal slog through a baseball minefield and took pretty heavy casualties. I don't know if a four game losing streak and a ten game road trip are supposed to feel as long and draining for the fans as the players, but the schedule makers took pity and gave them (and us) the Nationals for being such troopers. Sure the schedule makers didn't know for sure the Nationals would be quite this bad, but 2005 and its 81-81 record is a looooong ways away.

The only normal game in the series was the first one, and that's including the home run review call that went against Long Beach native John Lannan. The next night Mets fans were treated to the spectacle (the good kind) of Livan frakking Hernandez being the first Met pitcher to pitch a complete game in 2009. Once again, everyone who predicted that, raise your hands. And you are lying once more.

Then we get Johan Santana striking out eight through three innings before deciding to pitch with his eyes closed or something for one inning. It cost him thought. Not the game, because this is still the Nationals we're talking about here, but his ERA rose to an unsightly 1.77. Hah! This guy is so awesome even when he sucks he does everything right. Just let it sink in that Johan Santana has allowed more than three earned runs just five times since last year's All Star break. Johan also struck out double digit batters for the fourth time this year, something he only did four times last year total. You know, the other day I couldn't remember who was traded for him outside of Carlos Gomez and Kevin Mulvey. God, remember when we had our hopes invested in Kevin Mulvey?

And finally of course, the insanity of Citi Field literally swallowing up a home run. Did Daniel Murphy's home run really leave the field? Someone who scored way better on the physics regents than me (I got a 65, I think, may have been lower) says it was a home run, and since the only other explanation for the trajectory of that baseball is that the Wilpons installed baseball attracting magnets to drag down potential home runs hit by the opposing team and now the magnets are malfunctioning because the stupid Wilpons cheaped out and now the magnets are dragging Met home runs back into the stadium. That is seriously the only other explanation for why the ball would travel like that.

The Man Who Left Earth

2009-05-07T02:28:00.002-05:00

I don't sit in bars and watch entire baseball games because that shit can get expensive and you can't whoop and holler if no one else is paying attention to the happenings on TV. Well, you can, but everyone just looks at you like you're weird. Still, I stuck around from the second inning on for this game because I wanted to watch a master at his craft. And Chan Ho Park did not disappoint.

Does anyone miss Carlos Gomez? Yeah, thought so. As The Reign of Santana continues its ridiculous domination, I will say with only a little bit of hyperbole that I feel privileged to watch Johan pitch. It's like watching Paul Offit create the Rotavirus vaccine or if there was a real life Rambo, watching him kill a bunch of Washington cops. Or Chinamen. Whichever one you like I guess. In Johan Santana, the Mets have a new dominating, star attraction in their pitching rotation they've been lacking since Pedro Martinez ended his 2005 season.

Oh sure Johan pitched last year too, but there was a feeling out period, that was obvious. You can't argue with his results since the All-Star break last year though, an obscene one loss in 23 starts. It just isn't possible to have a prolonged losing streak when every fifth day you've got a guy who has allowed less earned runs than number of games he's started and has three double digit strikeout games in six starts.

Even the offense again taking a snooze in their non-support of Mr. Wonderful could barely raise my ire. I just wanted to keep watching Santana paint corners and throw ridiculous change-ups that dropped off this plane of reality and made Jayson Werth consider suicide. Hell, I got the feeling Johan walked Chan Ho Park twice just so he could remember what pitching from the stretch was like in case the unfathomable happened and he got in trouble.

The scary thing, if you're not a Met fan, is that April and May are typically Santana's worst months. I don't know what that means for the rest of baseball outside of a lot of soiled drawers every fifth day for players with "Marlins" or "Cubs" or "Padres" sewn across their jerseys, but for Met fans it means more performances that are becoming baseball's version of heroin: soothing and addictive. I missed Seaver and Koosman and Ryan, I was two when the '86 rotation ran roughshod over the league and was a little too young really to form any specific memories about David Cone, but one day when I have kids I can tell them the story of the time Johan Santana struck out ten Phillies en route to having an ERA under one for the entire season. Those damn kids better listen.

Lake Show? More Like Fake Show

2009-05-05T13:34:00.006-05:00

Today I'm taking a guest post on this damn blog. Why, you say? Well, an epic playoff run will get you into all kinds of crazy non-sense, and I'm coming off of an epic playoff win high.

If you are not a Rockets fan, you probably do not understand the depth and complexity of last night's victory. Everything worked perfectly last night, and there ws enough drama to make thi one a masterpiece. The Zen Phil Jackson said after the game that his team didn't play well, but we all know the truth about yesterday's game. Consider:

1) After having trouble with fronting against the Blazers, Yao Ming took it to the Lakers front court. The banging Pau Gasol? Neutralized. Bynum? Foul Trouble. No matter what they threw at Yao, be it double teams, traps, elbows... he took it all and slammed it down their throat. When he was out, Chuck Hayes was containing the centers and picking off rebounds. Since the backup center is out (and by the way, that backup center went down with a major injury in the first series of the playoffs, and he happens to be one of the greatest defensive centers of all time), Hayes' performance was miraculous and spectacular.
2) Aaron Brooks is the fastest man in the NBA. Last night proved it. Even Jordan Farmar looked like Sid Bream out there. Wait until this kid improves and seasons over the next few years.
3) Rick Adelman actually outcoached Jackson. By putting in two small guards in the back court and letting them run wild, the Rockets drove the Lakers freaking bananas last night. Brooks and Lowry were unstoppable. The scheme was brilliant, and hopefully Adelman has a few more tricks up his sleeve. This is a huge problem for Jackson. He has to choose whether to put in Vujacic and kill the size of the team, or let a big guard get smoked by the little back court combo. If Vujacic is managing to contain either one (which he won't because he plays defense like my Grandma), Adelman can slide one of the little guys over and bring in the athletic arl Landry to dominate the middle section of the court.
4) Ron Artest... He looked like T-Mac's offense coupled with the normal, Ron-Ron defense last night. He was everywhere we needed to be.
5) Brent Barry is back, bitches! The old man popped a three pointer early when the Bayou Biys needed some points.
6) Shane Battier's performance was electric. Shane turned Kobe into a volume shooter and still managed to contain the team defense. He was slipping around picks, stripping balls at the waist, swatting errant passes, stealing rebounds... Just unbelievable. When Vuja-bitch fouled him with an obvious flying arm early in the game (the little bastard was trying to swat away a rebound that was already Shane's), Shane came away with a crimson mask worthy of Arturo Gatti. He then proceeded to PROTECT THIS HOUSE. Kobe was 8-22 when Battier guarded him.
7) Finally...

Yao Ming's return after going knee to knee with Kobe was epic. He may not be the best center in NBA history, and he may not have been so injured on that basketball court that he could not play later in the series, but the entire city held its breath while he went to the lockerroom and returned to DOMINATE late. Ming's knee is very close to Schilling's sock.

The difference is, we saw Ming's injury take place...

(It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that Ming)....

BEAT LA.

-Tex

Rain Out Non-Blues

2009-05-04T01:57:00.003-05:00

Meche bless the rain out.

I was planning on waking up today and doing some editing while I listened to the game. But as I lay in bed and listened to the telltale signs of raindrops, I had a feeling that there was bad weather in Philly too. My hunch confirmed, I went back to bed and woke up just in time to run to work. If the Mets got an unexpected day off, I figured I could take one from most of, if not all my responsibilities, so another day goes by with my laundry situation at Defcon 1.

The silver lining to the rainout of course was that it made it impossible for the Mets to lose their series against the Phillies. Kidding, kidding, I wasn't that pessimistic about today. I actually thought it was a winnable game with John Maine coming off a solid if not spectacular start and Joe Blanton having a Perez-like season thus far. I've got hope for John Maine, that as he gets more comfortable in his return from surgery he'll regain the form that made him one of the better third starters in the National League. And don't scoff about a third starter, because who doesn't want a decent number three?

Not worrying about the Mets was nice though. This season has involved a lot of anxiety and hand wringing, so maybe a break for both fans and players can lead to a little mental reset and strong showing this week in Atlanta. That's what I hope anyway. Losing to the Phillies in Philadelphia sucks, but I've spent too much time as a baseball fan hating the Braves to ever take a loss to them lightly. The Mets could win the World Series this year and open next season with a loss to the Braves and my blood pressure would spike. It's just the way things are.

Oh, and in other news, The Meche picked up a W today. Way to go, Gil.

Oliver

2009-05-03T02:07:00.003-05:00

Oliver, I know this game is killing you
Oh, Oliver, your aim ain't true

And to think, I thought I was making a joke last night when I said Oliver Perez was going to give us all nightmares. Shouldn't have had that can of chili before bed. What's that, this afternoon's game was real? Yikes.

I don't think it was a coincidence that "Allison" was playing at the bar while I was watching the Met game, what with its "aim is true" chorus and talk of killing. The killing in this case would be the Mets momentum and fans' braincells from banging their heads against whatever hard surfaces were around when Ollie walked Jamie Moyer with the bases loaded. That entire third inning was brutal to watch, from Ollie throwing five straight balls to watching him get angry at himself, all for naught as he missed badly against Jamie Moyer, who I don't believe has drawn a walk since this guy was pitching.

There was more badness of course. Carlos Beltran grounding into an inning ending double play with first and third in the tenth inning. I didn't see that, but I did see him pop-up on the first goddamn pitch after Luis Castillo worked a lead-off walk in the third inning. Pedro Feliciano and his second straight day of giving up a home run to a big time Philly lefty, and of course Sean "Bad For The Irish" Green walking in the winning run. Which I guess is a fitting end to a game that already saw Met pitching walk in one run.

It still comes down to Ollie though. It's hard enough to win a game against a good team like the Phillies, it becomes damn near impossible to do it when your starting pitcher can't get out of the third inning. The last ditch effort of trying to get him to work last year's magic against the Phillies failed miserably, so here we are. No one has any answers at this point, leaving the scariest answer out there: there is no answer. Everyone follow that? Good. Buffalo seems to be the next place he's going to pitch, but at this point, I don't know that you can call what Oliver Perez is doing pitching.

Oliver, I know this game is killing you
Oh, Oliver, your career is through

In Case of Emergency, Beat Phillies

2009-05-02T01:20:00.002-05:00

All around New York, people are panicking about the Mets. Well, Yankee fans are probably laughing, but I would do the same to them, so I hold no grudge. Despite my previous thoughts on the matter, I'm still not actually that nervous. Sure the bullpen just blew two games in a row before tonight, but the bullpen was going to blow games this year, it just happens. It isn't the failpen until it becomes made of fail, and we'll all know when that time comes.

Still, with things getting tense and talk radio morons advocating idiotic solutions that somehow get discussed on MetsBlog (perhaps more later), this weekend series in Philadelphia looms large, and tonight's game especially seemed ripe for disaster. I don't know how or why it happened, but the Phillies immediately became the new Braves once the Mets dispatched with the old Braves, who are the Braves. I mean, I know the history, I just don't know what terrible baseball curse arose that decreed the Mets need a new rival to not overcome. And when all know what would happen to the Mets when they were hanging on by their fingers and had to face the Braves.

When I turned the game on, I looked up and said, "Oh great, it's 5-0 Mets." Then I looked again and said, "Shit, the bases are loaded for Philly" and preceded to watch Mike Pelfrey do his damndest to cough up the lead. That stupid little parachute, the perfectly executed hit and run, set up because Pelfrey couldn't throw a goddamn strike. I wondered if I'd be able to go back to work after my lunch break.

Of course, Pelfrey got out of the jam, despite falling behind everyone and looking like shit, but in the end, he didn't give it all back. And hell, when I thought the Mets had run themselves out of inning after David Wright's caught stealing, Big Pelf singled off Chad Durbin to make it all better. The best part about that sequence was the SNY cameras cutting to the Philly dugout and catching Chan Ho Park with a look on his face that said "Well I could have done that."

I look in the bix score and see some things I like (Tatis hitting well, Feliciano going an inning and a third, Rollins hitting under .200), some things I don't (Big Pelf walked four and struck out zero, Reyes be slumping) and some things that frankly mystify me (the 2009 Phillies have Chan Ho Park and Miguel Cairo?) So every Met fan can rest easy tonight and dream horrible dreams about what terrible things Oliver Perez will do tomorrow afternoon. Hold your baby tight, because you won't want to be alone for those dreams.

Return to Taxpayer Field: The Revengeancing

2009-04-28T01:45:00.004-05:00

If you please, allow me to open with a joke.

Who's got a rarely updated sports blog and saw the first grand slam in Taxpayer Field history?

This guy!

Oh, you didn't know I've already been to Taxpayer? Well maybe someone should share more in his blog. After getting to go to the first pro exhibition game at the Mets' new digs and sit in my uncle's incredible seats in the goofily named "Excelsior" level with its Caesar's Club and restricted entrance I went and set with the jes' folks in the magically named but still totally upper deck "Promenade" level, with it's cut-off view of right field. Though honestly, short of that obstructed view, the game looks much better than at Shea's upper deck. Still, beware of your seat choices, because some people definitley have it worse than others. Luckily, nothing happened in right field tonight, so we beat the Wilpons at their own game.

It was my brother Jake's first experience at the park so I took him around and showed him the "Taste of Citi", which on a second tour is still pretty freaking awesome. Part of it, I admit, is eating on the old man's dollar, because I don't know how I'll feel if I ever decide to pay seven bucks for two tacos that I could get for four at my local taco truck, but that may even be part of the beauty of it. Sure I paid ballpark prices, but the taco truck in my neighborhood is fucking incredible and I never dreamed of a world where I could get food like that at a baseball game.

Of course, this would all be a downer if the Mets suffered their second straight loss, but they didn't. My father, his friend Mike, my brother Jake and I all screamed various curses following Gary Sheffield's inexpelicable drop of a lazy liner hit right at him, but after that first inning it was pretty smooth sailing. Not for Sheffield though. Despite an RBI single in the bottom of the first, he was still cheered jubilantly for holding on to two flyballs in the seventh inning. Not that I was a part of it or anything.

Oh right, that grand slam. Freaking awesome. I was just in the process of grousing about Ramon Castro disappearing again when Omir Santos shut me the fuck up and rode into Met fan folklore. It's cool a guy who's done so little in the big leagues that he couldn't fathom getting a curtain call was would be the one to hit Taxpayer Field's first grand slam. It makes for an incredibly obscure trivia answer only I will know. Frankly, we should be thanking our lucky stars it wasn't Jody Gerut.

Great weather, ~~good~~ competent pitching and beating the Marlins. You could ask for less on April 28.

What's A Hockey Fan To Do?

2009-04-22T13:31:00.003-05:00

With the Rangers locked in the mortal combat of the NHL playoffs, I'm showing my solidarity by growing a playoff beard. It's nice to take a break from shaving, and it allows me to feel like I'm doing more than just simple rooting. I'm obviously not the only one who feels this way, the playoff beard even has its own page at The World's Most Accurate Encyclopedia. Of course, so does, um, Keith Fink, so take from that what you will. But now a problem has arisen.

On Friday, I'm supposed to go out with a girl (seriously, stop laughing), but I'm still going to have the beard. This wouldn't be a problem if I could grow a luscious, manly beard, but sadly, that is not the case. Aside from growing a goatee (yech), my facial hair could be charitably described as "patchwork", cruelly described as "fucking hideous" and verbosely described as "not aesthetically pleasing."

I like this girl, so I don't want to scare her off by seeming weird or looking like a deranged homeless man. My friend Dan suggested joking about it off the bat, but even calling attention to it makes me nervous, since then I'll think she's always staring at it and wondering if that's food caught in it. Which is a ridiculous idea because I can't even grow a beard thick enough to catch food in it.

Some people trim their playoff beards to appease the opposite sex. It's not a bad thought, but I lack any kind of beard trimming equipment since I usually go clean shaven due to the aforementioned horribleness of my facial hair, so it's an all or nothing proposition for me.

There has to be something in my DNA that's causing this, because I'm far from the first person in my family to sacrifice social grace for Rangers playoff action. In 1994, my dad was attending a family friend's anniversary party. It just happened to fall on the same night as Rangers/Devils Game 7. So my dad, doing what any fan would do, turned the game on during the party. Whoops, bad move. Everyone stopped dancing and even the band stopped playing to revel in the drama up intil Stephane Matteau's big moment. The family friend still doesn't speak to my dad. Still, my mom married him, so there are obviously women out there who understand the problems associated with playoff hockey. I guess, maybe? I don't know.

Make no mistake though, I can't get rid of the beard, especially with the Rangers up 3-1 and heading to Washington on Friday to try to put their first round series away. The Rangers need me. They need me and my terrible beard. Don't think the beard works? Shows what you know. Henrik Lundqvist's inhuman performance? Chris Drury's odd angle goal last night? Alexander Ovechkin's thus far quiet series? It's all thanks to the beard, friends, this I know.

God, I'm just glad she isn't a Caps fan. Then I'd really be in trouble.

Ah What The Hell, Let's Panic

2009-04-14T00:12:00.003-05:00

The Mets are 3-4 now and have at times looked totally clueless out on the field. Still, 7 games in is no time to start pulling your hair out or ripping the pages out of phone books or destroying boxes inexplicably left in your hallway even though you moved in months ago. Still, I'm bored, and the only other thing I could possibly do right now is write eight hundred words about how Steve Phillips is a total asshole for gravely intoning about how when he was the Mets' GM he heard Bernie Madoff's name every week. Admittedly most of those words would involve calling him an asshole and a sex fiend. So let's look rational thought in the eye, spit in its face and panic instead.

Maybe if I was remaining calm I would excuse a couple of crappy early starts by Mike Pelfrey. It's only two starts in a season where he'll probably have 30-34.

No no no no. Mike Pelfrey looked like shit, he looked absolutely horrible. The one time I get an internet feed working correctly to watch a game, I have to watch the apparent number two starter leave the ball up in the low-90s and barely throw any breaking pitches. Plus I have to keep listening to Orel Hersheiser remind me of this every inning. Shut up Orel, you're making me nervous.

If I wasn't panicking I would point out that the Mets are going to need some time to adjust to how Taxpayer Field plays.

Fuck that, the field plays like it's fucking Sonic Spinball. And seriously, that outfield, who designed that outfield, a man with an Usain Bolt cloning machine? See, you need to be fast to cover all that ground and with the slick grass and Usain Bolt is...ok I'll stop.

I might comfort myself with the thought that the Mets offense is better than the first 7 games have indicated. David Wright hit a clutch two out home run to tie the game.

Or this is what this team is going to do all damn year, blow opportunities, not hit with two outs and not get hits, much less runs, late in the game.

The Mets sure do seem to have this goofy history lately of not being able to hit unheralded rookie pitchers. If it keeps happening a couple years from now it can just be another quirky part of our identity.

Are you fucking fucking with me it took a miracle to score five runs against ~~Carlos~~ Walter Silva. Why doesn't this team beat pitchers I've never heard of? Is it some kind of terrible curse? What pitching prospect is buried beneath the old Shea field for this to be happening all the time?

It's only seven games in to the season. Fuck, the Red Sox suck right now and the Blue Jays and Mariners are in first place.

Holy fucking hell the Mets are the only team in the NL East with a losing record aside from the Washington Nationals. Why oh why are they 3-4? And what's David Eckstein doing having epic at bats against J.J. Putz and hopping around to point out a balk (a balk!) by Pedro Feliciano? Will someone just catch him in a Havahart trap already and get him out of my life?

Anything else?

Gary Sheffield is starting on Wendesday.

Super duper...

P.S. Steve Phillips is a sex offender.

Lie Detector Test

2009-04-12T03:01:00.003-05:00

All of you who thought Livan Hernandez was going to be the first Met starting pitcher to pitch into the seventh inning, raise your hands.

Put down those hands! That is a lie and you are a liar for saying it.

Regardless of your terrible, sinful lies, game ball tonight goes to Ush's favorite pitcher, who maybe got a couple Met fans off the ledge regarding starting pitching questions by slamming the brakes on the Marlins' winning streak. Also a little piece of it for Luis Castillo, who some idiot said should be booed out of town.

It's tough winning a game like this (no, stay with me here) because you have to temper your expectations of Livan Hernandez pitching like this every night with the question of whether he can pitch like that to a team to that isn't as young and fastball-crazy like the Marlins. The post-game comments from Jerry Manuel and John Baker and the recap in the Times all focused on the Marlins inability to deal with a pitcher getting by on guile, and while that's all well and good, what does that mean for a team with experienced mashers like the Phillies or Cubs? It would be nice to see Hernandez not just keep the Mets in the game when he starts, but actually control it like he did tonight, but really, that's just a dream right now.

Still, I'll take it. Duh. It sets the Mets up to take two out of three in each road series and it's tough not to like Johan Santana's odds given the way he's been pitching since, oh, forever. Of course I'll be stuck at work, AGAIN and won't get to watch more than maybe an hour of tomorrow's game, but I gotta pay the rent, cause blogging sure as shit don't do it. And with the pageantry and ridiculousness of the Taxpayer Field Opening Day ceremony coming up Monday, I can wait another day to watch a game.

Why Is This Night Different From The Same As All Other Nights?

2009-04-11T01:05:00.003-05:00

A. Because the Mets left the entire world on base?

B. Because the bullpen refused to keep the team in the game?

A Passover joke? Really? Hell yeah, because that was the frame of my game viewing experience. In between courses my cousin and I would head downstairs and watch the Mets fight back only to blow it in spectacular fashion. I'll be honest, I gave up when the Marlins went up 4-3, only to be dragged back in when my cousin ran upstairs and told me the Mets tied the game up in dramatic fashion. Kewl. Except then I was stuck watching as the depressing regularity that Jason Fry pointed out set in. I won't panic though. Sure EVERY GAME COUNTS but I'm willing to bet that the Mets won't continue to go 1 for 200 with men on base. I won't bet on the bullpen because I'm not made of fake money that people talk about when they say "I'll bet on X" here.

I had the unfortunate task of arguing Carlos Beltran's pros and cons with my cousin tonight though, including a ridiculous idea that the Mets overpaid for him. This was, mind you, after Beltran had already hit a home run to pull the Mets closer. I mean, sure he's overpaid I guess, if you think that Carlos Beltran had ANY REASON to come to New York in 2005 other than the Wilpons sending a dump truck full of hundred dollar bills to his front yard. I mean, everyone wanted to play defense behind Jae Weong Seo and bat behind Jason Phillips, right?

Fun Fact: Jason Phillips suckkkkksssssss

So yeah, how about Mets fans lay off Beltran, because all he does is go for 20/100 every year along with Gold Glove defense. Direct that vitriol somewhere it belongs, like Luis Castillo.

Just The Good Parts, Thank You Very Much

2009-04-09T02:35:00.002-05:00

I wish I had more to say about tonight's game, but when you work stocking shelves for a living you don't have a schedule totally conducive to watching baseball. I went to the bar during my break and saw it was the bottom of the third and the Reds were up 4-2. This made me sad, because I want good things for Mike Pelfrey this year.

Still, once I sat down and got my first beer, things turned around a bit. Pelfrey got out of a man on third and one out jam, then the Mets proceeded to give Edison Volquez hell in the 4th. Even without though they didn't score, my new friend who was also watching the game agreed with me that making him throw a lot of pitches in crappy weather would be good.

Oh yeah, I didn't mention my new friend. Some other guy who probably goes to the bar as often as I do, based on his conversations with the bartender, was sitting next to me, and at first I thought he may have been a Yankee fan because he was agitated and they were getting killed. Then though, the Met game came on a closer TV and we started talking about Pelf and how if he could go five it would be a miracle. I got the unhappy recap of the first inning from him and we settled in for the fifth, when the Mets mounted their furious comeback.

My new friend was hilarious, in that he was sure every player on the team looked skinny. It was like he was a Jewish mother or something. "Doesn't David Wright look skinny to you? Like he's lost a lot of weaight? Look, Delgado too, he looks skinny, what's the deal here?" I don't know, maybe I just haven't been paying attention, but I couldn't say anything one way or another, I just shrugged and said something about all of them being generally small guys and hollered when Beltran's bouncer found a hole in between second and short.

Even though I didn't get to see the whole game, I got to see the most fun parts and got to avoid nasty flashbacks to last year. Often times when watching baseball, I'll groan and cover my eyes and generally get agita after every pitch. It's not because I'm some Chicken Little lunatic, I just really love to get into the game. It doesn't mean that I need to be there for every bullpen near-collapse or every important starter barely getting out of the first inning alive. I just walked away, mostly because I had to, but still, and let myself focus on ~~stocking shelves~~ getting out of work and back in the bar, confident for some reason that the Mets would pull it out. Tonight I got to be right.

Fate and All That

2009-04-07T01:06:00.004-05:00

“This was fate. All everybody talked about in the off-season was our bullpen, and today we’ve got Greeny, J. J. and K-Rod finishing it off. We had to win this way today. We just did.”

- Brian Schneider in today's Times

Brian Schneider wasn't a Met in 2005, when they rolled into Cincinnati with a gazillion dollar makeover in two key areas and mild expectations. Things looked good for awhile that day, but then, uh, something happened.

He was though today, four years later, when the Mets came back to Cincinnati with a gazillion dollar makeover in one key area and enormous expectations. The whole game, it felt like, uh, something might happen. Runners ominously left on base one after the other as the Mets just couldn't break the game open, followed finally by an intense Reds rally that took the ace out of the game. The stage was set for a total fucking calamity and we hadn't even gotten 6 whole innings into Game 1 of 162.

I was listening to the game at my friend Dave's apartment when Sean Green made his Met debut. "Some Met fan out there is going to kill himself today if Sean Green gives up a run here," I told him as he fiddled with his guitar. He looked at me. "Not me though, don't worry." Not because I had unyielding faith that Green was going to get out of the inning and clip the rally before it got out of hand, but because there's plenty of time to commit a more measured and dramatic bullpen assisted suicide when you wait a couple days to plan it out.

Then I heard the crack of the bat and an excited Howie Rose yelp that Edwin Encarnacion sent a line drive into the left-center gap and Daniel Murphy was closing in. I had visions of a diving Murphy missing and sliding across the wet grass all the way to the right field foul line as Carlos Beltran chased the ball to the warning track. 2-2, a man on second, maybe even third and a poor schmuck in Queens kicking the chair out from under his feet.

As it turned out, eating peyote before the game turned out to be wonderful for florid hallucinations but terrible for predicting the future, because the next thing I knew Murphy had made the catch easily and disaster had been averted. The bullpen makeover worked wonderfully and the Mets pulled out a close one to start this big year on the right path. Fate? It could be I guess. Hell, if good things keep happening to this team followed by Brian Schneider proclaiming it to be the work of some unknowable machinations only he can divine, you can damn well bet I'll be signing up for the Al-Schneider Martyr Brigades. I understand it involves something like fighting against high car prices.

That and destroying his evil, comedic twin.

Women be lying about their weight.

Gizmodo Writers Never Get Laid

2009-01-21T19:25:00.006-05:00

Well maybe they do, but there are certainly some bloggers out there who never get laid, and so by extension, the writers at Gizmodo probably aren't exactly doing it "doggy fashion" either.

What, you have a problem that logic? Perhaps you should note that it is the exact same approach taken in one of Gizmodo's recent posts, "English Football Squad Arsenal to Broadcast Live Replays to Hooligans' PSPs in the Stadium." Now admittedly, its a funny headline, but the problem is that most of the article is spent mocking football fans instead of discussing the (pretty freaking cool) technology...

Soon, loutish Englishmen with a penchant for portable gaming will watch replays on their PSP during Arsenal home games. Mainly to prove that Irishman down the aisle deserved to lose his teeth.
The software, being developed by Sony especially for Arsenal's super-fancy Emirates stadium in North London, could also potentially link up fans in the stadium and allow them to chat in real time. Yes, because the torrent of spittle and obscenities bursting forth from every maw just isn't enough "interaction" for our modern age. The system could be live by the end of next season. (emphasis added)

I understand that most people think this way about soccer fans, but ignoring the fact that Arsenal simply doesn't have much of a hooligan base, its just bad taste to base an article on such a view. Gizmodo is a tech blog, and rather than taking the opportunity to note that football fans take advantage of the web far more than fans of other sports, the site chose to take cheap shots at them. Basically, the writer seems to take the attitude that since one football fan is a hooligan, the only people who could possibly follow the sport are thugs well. If the editors knew that this guy felt this way, they probably should have had someone else write the article so we could get more out of it than negativity.

Ultimately, I know that Gizmodo is a great site and most of its writers probably groaned once they saw this, just like I know that most of them probably get laid on a regular basis. But hey, I also know (just like this writer) that sensationalism and generalizations get readers, so I'll give the technique a spin. Who knows, maybe we can draw a fourth (or even fifth!) visitor to the blog.

Astros Sign Beached Whale To Minor League Deal

2009-01-14T23:33:00.002-05:00

HOUSTON -- The Astros added another candidate to their starting-rotation pool when they signed a beached sperm whale to a Minor League contract and invited him to Major League Spring Training on Tuesday.

The whale, 34, is a sperm whale, otherwise known as the physter macrocephalus. It shares many features common to its kind such as a large head and a taste for squid and fish. When the whale originally washed up on the shores of Galveston over a year ago, wildlife experts predicted it would die within days. However, the whale, given the name "Russ" by bewildered locals, defied all predictions and has survived to this day.

Despite its lack of major league experience, Astros General manager Ed Wade was confident that Russ would be a viable competitor for the Astros' vacant fifth starter position. Wade sent pro scout Jack Lind to Arizona last September to watch Russ work out, and he received favorable reports about the 34-year-old righty.

"[Lind] watched him throw and thought he threw free and easy, with no apparent physical issues at all," Wade said. "It's something [assistant GM] David [Gottfried] has been working on for a couple of months. At different points in time I'm sure [Russ] was looking for a big league deal, but we believe he'll have every opportunity to win a job during Spring Training."

"What the hell am I supposed to do?" an embittered Wade then added. "Our goddamn cheapskate owner won't pony up for any free agents and Derek motherfucking Lowe just went for $15 mil a year. You want this job buddy?"

Houston residents were surprisingly supportive of the move.

"You know, all those experts were saying Russ was gonna die, but then he didn't, so the whale has heart, I'll tell you that much," said Chris Ray, a bartender who resides in Meyerland. Still, Ray had some misgivings about the contract. "Couldn't they have found a whale that was a lefty?"

Four rotation spots are seemingly already secured by Roy Oswalt, Mike Hampton, Wandy Rodriguez and Brian Moehler. That leaves the fifth starter spot up for grabs. Russ, Brandon Backe and Clay Hensley are expected to compete for the job, and it's possible the Astros could add more names to the mix before Spring Training begins.

Election Apocalypse

2008-11-11T16:23:00.003-05:00

Election Day has come and gone and gone and gone, considering we're a week on, and America has finally fulfilled its promise, electing its first black secret Muslim radical socialist Messianic figure President. It's been a long time coming, but I feel confident in saying that George Bush is still President and Bob Barr is a massive fraud. On to some scattered observations from that night I spent at a friend's apartment, which are a week old and younger.

I watched the returns on a number of channels (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS, NBC, PBS and even ten seconds of Fox Business News). CNN was hands down the winner when it came to graphics and analysis, though that was mostly thanks to John King and his incredible touchscreen. Instead of turning it into a useless gimmick (like that awful hologram thing), King used it to show John McCain running way behind Bush's margins in cracker county Indiana, Virginia and Florida. This made the election much easier to take, as it became apparent pretty early that Obama was going to take Indiana despite McCain's early lead.
All you needed to know about the mood at the McCain headquarters all night? No one was watching the news, but they were watching Hank Williams, Jr. So you know, at least they had fun, I guess, if uhhh...Hank Williams, Jr. is your idea of fun. Yeah...
MSNBC sucked hard, which was a major disappointment. Not only were they the ugliest channel in terms of presentation, but their famed "everyone at each other's throats" sideshow never seemed to materialize. They also repeatedly harped on how the electoral map looked identical to 2004, at least until Obama took Indiana. I guess it was in an effort to cut off a "liberal MSNBC gloats" criticism from any tut-tutters, but it made for dreadfully boring programming. I was looking for Keith Olbermann blowing lines off the news desk and Rachel Maddow heel kicking Pat Buchanan, but I don't recall ever seeing Uncle Pat on the air.
Fox Business News gave me agita, but anyone who can take more than 30 seconds of Neil Cavuto and some made-up business expert talking about Barack Obama will crash the economy has my eternal respect. Fox News proper was funny but not nearly as funny as I was hoping. Much like MSNBC, I was expecting fireworks, though in Fox's case I was thinking something like an Irish funeral presided over by Brit Hume's ever-drooping face. Oh sure, I got Bill Kristol seemingly on the verge of tears every time he spoke, but I also had to sit through Hume gush about how it's impossible to hate Barack Obama, according to one of Hume's friends and Chris Wallace wax philosophical about the wonderful historic day. If the next election day panel doesn't include Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, Fox News should just fold up the tent and go home.
Oddly enough, it was when we flipped to PBS that we realized Obama had it in bag. Jim Lehrer called Ohio for Obama at about 9:45, and after his gravitas filled announcement, I realized Obama was sitting on 220 EVs with the West Coast still uncounted. So I called the election before anyone else really.
On ABC, whoever was hosting their coverage vowed not to call anything before any polls closed, announced West Coast polls were closing in ten seconds and then sat and stared at us in a dramatic fashion for ten seconds before announcing that yes indeedy Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. was the new secret Muslim President-elect.
What was awesome about seeing the election called on ABC was that someone in the studio clapped during the announcement before quickly stopping themselves. If that moment isn't in the next book lambasting the liberal Jew media establishment, the author should give back his or her advance. It could be the dramatic opening anecdote before two hundred pages of warmed over figures about how reporters are registered Democrats in large numbers.
I'll give props to McCain for a gracious concession speech, though the fact that his crowd still booed Obama was petty, especially for a group of people who kept telling us they put country first. My friend Mike also pointed out that in comparing Obama's rally set-up to McCain's, it was like McCain was planning on a loss, considering his stage was tiny and appeared to be situated next to the hotel pool, while Obama took over Grant Park.
Speaking of petty, I was curious what the reaction to an Obama presidency would be in wignut land. These were the people, after all, who villified the angry Left as America-haters for disagreeing with the President. So with all that "You've gotta respect the President" rhetoric piled up in their past, did they follow through? Duh, of course not. Not that I checked every crazy right wing blog ever, but if there's anything better than Atlas Shrugged, I don't want to know about it. Pam Geller, previously making a name for herself with her, um, brilliant theory that Malcolm X is really Barack Obama's father. I'm going to have to try to keep up with Atlas Shrugged in the future, because it appears you can pick a random day in the future, commit to checking the page and finding something batshit crazy. Like this:
Everyone I speak to says they voted for McCain - the gym (young twenty somethings), the coffeehouse, Duane Reade. They stole the damn thing. Working Americans (as opposed to the haters, the moochers, the looters, the users, the commies, the socialists, the trust fundies) ain't happy I tell ya.
I guess working at Trader Joe's for ten bucks an hour doesn't make me a "working American." Of course, if you think Atlas Shrugged is merely charges that the landslide election was stolen or repeated calls for Barack Obama's birth certificate, you'd be missing out on the heelarious and misguided Jewish pride and Holocaust hysteria:
In the 1930's, thousands of Americans were supportive of Hitler, even having a Nazi Bund rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939, just as today thousands of Americans are supportive of Obama.
Actually Pam, 66,056,046 people supported Barack Obama this past election. And to be even more nitpicky, 20,000 people showed up to the Bund rally at the Garden. Unless Pam really truly believes that only up to 9,999 people voted for Barack Obama (a distinct possibility) thousands do not support Obama, but millions do. Tens of millions even. And the correct term for the Bund rally audience would be "tens of thousands." A word like "thousands" should be reserved for something like the amount of people who still care about the Seattle Mariners. Boosh!

Okay, I'm bored now, Part II later.

Because That's Just The Kind of Guy I Am

2008-11-06T15:59:00.004-05:00

I guess in the wake of Barack Obama's victory, I should be gracious in victory and not a complete smirking dickhead. But well...I mean Jesus, just look at this fantastic comment pulled from the typically entertaining PUMA PAC blog:

Never mind the fact that a real Democrat wouldn't call the party the "Democrat Party", a known, if stupid slur used by Republicans (or would that be Republics? No, guess not). Never mind that fact that the credit crisis was built on a mountain of absurd debt speculation and free money given to fucking idiots, never mind that "the U.N." does not go to war with people, it merely gives blessings to wars, no, I think what's important to see in this comment is the Bible prophecy.

Now, any asshole can say something happening now is in the Bible, and any asshole can claim Barack Obama is the Antichrist (or start a Facebook group devoted to the question that your author may or may not belong to). It takes a special kind of moron to posit that Obama's name has 18 letters and that 6+6+6=666 (as opposed to, you know, 18). Still a little elementary name math should explain why this is dumber than originally thought possible:

Barack Hussein Obama
6 + 7 + 5

Yep, only one part of his name contains the magic six letters, as opposed to oh, I don't know, RONALD WILSON REAGAN. Ah, but Karen was also making a big deal out of Barack's full name, which anyone who still believes Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. is his father and not Malcolm X, would notice makes Obama's full name:

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.
6 + 7 + 5 + 2

Twenty letter names take you totally out of the running for Antichrist, if I know my Bible prophecy. And I'm on top of that shit, rest assured. Anyway Karen, thanks for playing The Internet, and play again soon. Who am I kidding, you're probably playing as we speak you little scamp.

More election reaction when I goddamn well feel like it.

Just In Case You Were Wondering What Emilio Estevez Was Up To

2008-10-26T13:54:00.002-05:00

The Onion fills us in,

Sure, I could wait for the studio to contact me. I could wait for the script for D4: Running Afowl to magically appear in my mailbox with a neat little bow on it. Or, I could brush these Sun Chips crumbs off my stomach, put on some pants, and do this thing! How hard can it be? All you need is some pluck, determination, a buddy with a camera, one of those long microphones they hold above you when you talk, a videotape, and a head full of good ideas. Ideas like that the Ducks are pro hockey players now and I'm the coach.

Bingo bango bongo. Something the whole family can enjoy.

...

But like I said, that's just one idea. I'm coming up with things all the time. Like the other day, I was doing some doodles of cartoon hockey players, like a pig who's a goaltender because he's fat. It got me thinking that D4 could be half animated, half live action. Like the movie Space Jam was. This could be like Space Jam, but it can be called Hockey Jam. I could be the Michael Jordan guy.

In The Future, Lies Hope

2008-10-25T01:39:00.002-05:00

Greasebot...

(From Newsweek, via TPM)

If John McCain is not elected president, which one of the following three possible candidates would you be most likely to support for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012?
Mitt Romney 35%
Mike Huckabee 26%
Sarah Palin 20%

The Gil Meche Experience Presents: Found Art, Part I

2008-10-18T13:10:00.002-05:00

The Agony of Everything

2008-09-24T22:24:00.002-05:00

I dont know what has inspired me to write this. Perhaps its the pile of work staring me in the face which simply wont get done tonight. Perhaps its the knowledge that I will be facing a phalanx of Phillies fans tomorrow morning eager to rub salt in my wounds. Hell, perhaps its simply the god awful performance which I just witnessed on national tv (the second time this week on of my favorite teams have been embarassed on the world wide leader this week at that). But simply put, there is a crushing feeling of agony in the depths of my soul right now, and unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about it.

Being a sports fan is a funny thing. Most of us who follow sports have individual achievements, no matter how minor, which we should be more than happy to hang our hats on. But when it comes right down to it, you ultimately live or die by the success of your favorite team. I could hit the lottery tomorrow and I think I would still be upset about what happened tonight, what happened last year, what has been happening for the last month, and most of all, what almost certainly seems likely to happen again this season.

What is happening, of course, is another landslide of a finish by the New York Metropolitains. The sting of last year isn't there in many ways; what is happening cannot be called too much of shock in the end. But, at least for me, this season hurts more. As they say (correctly), fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. For the second season in a row the Mets have led me on for months on end, and are ultimately going to leave me feeling empty yet again. But as I sit here today, I know that I dont have anyone else to blame but myself.

I can only blame myself because ultimately, its a choice to follow a sports team. I have no doubt that David Wright is dying inside because of what happened tonight, but he could at least control the outcome. I, on the other hand, chose to put my hopes and dreams into a squad which really seems capable of doing absolutely nothing but dashing them. This isnt to say, of course, that I could suddenly chose to be a fan of another team; quite the contrary, I'd rather lose a testicle than root for anyone but the Mets. But ultimately, thats just it; You buy the ticket, you take the ride, and I bought into the Mets, and there is nothing I can do now but sit back and take in a second straight downward spiral.

If this post seems rambling and incoherent, its because it is. There is no logical train of thought involved here. In actual fact, its impossible to put my feelings into words right now, but I have to say something to the empty void of the internet before the rest of this week runs its course. The motto of the Mets fan has always been "Ya Gotta Believe," but you have to have something to believe in, and this team is a Golden Calf when you get right down to it. It isnt a bad team, just a heartless team that doesnt believe in itself. I dont think that the Mets are content to go down like this, but I just dont think they know another way. Ever since Yadier Molina sent the mets packign just 2 years ago, the team has been in a fog, and they do not appear likely to walk out of it.

The agony of being a Mets fan is frighteningly real; the knowledge that they just wont get it done is just as apparent. As far as choices go, I know I cant choose to sit this one out, but I can choose to see the writing on the wall before its too late.

I Don't Know Why I Do It

2008-09-12T04:45:00.004-05:00

I got the bright idea of going over to Michelle Malkin's blog just a little while ago, presumably because I was in the grip of a brain eating parasite. All kidding aside, I now wish I had said parasite so that I would lack the comprehension to read what is adorning the front page. A whole post dedicated to attacking Barack Obama's tribute etiquette at Ground Zero. Seriously.

Even worse than that however, is her highlighting a comment from a reader who must be able to read minds, because he informs us all that Obama obviously doesn't want to be there. You know, because he hates America I guess. The comment goes on to say that Obama blows off shaking hands with a uniformed fireman and a construction worker wearing an American flag hardhat. This is that video:

Shocking, no? But there goes our man, blowing off the grieving family members of 9/11 victims. Certainly this is an indictment of his character and proof he looks down on the average American. What's that? Yet another video showing Obama's moral cowardice?

Fast forward to about 3:30 if you want to skip the pageantry and you'll notice that Obama shakes hands with everyone on the line. In fact, he seems to care so much that he goes back to the beginning to talk to one of the women a second time.

In this post, Malkin claims she was watching the broadcast live, so unless she got up to make a sandwich while Obama was going down the handshake line, she knows that he took the time to speak with everybody. Even better, almost none of the commenters bother to follow the link to the video above that someone else posted and noted that he shook everyone's hand. They just act like it never happened and go on talking about how much Obama hates America. These are the same lovely people, you'll remember, who wanted to start killing liberals because we exist.

Michelle Malkin is a cunt.

Here, allow me to say that a few more times so that maybe I get into the Google results and draw some trolls out.

Michelle Malkin is a cunt. Michelle Malkin is a cunt. Michelle Malkin is a cunt. Michelle Malkin is a cunt. Michelle Malkin is a cunt. Michelle Malkin is a cunt. Michelle Malkin is a cunt. Michelle Malkin is a cunt.

Michelle Malkin is a stain on America, a blight on humanity. Someone justify this kind of rhetoric to me, this willful blindness of basic facts in order to libel someone who's only crime is not agreeing 100% with her worldview. I'm disgusted to share the same species with someone like this, someone so small and petty and full of hate that she would take the time during a national day of mourning to try to invent a controversy out of thin air.

What's worse, someone like her probably thinks a reaction like mine is proof that what she's doing "works." She's just getting under the skin of another libtard. How vile. How trite. How small. This goes beyond cheap shot politics, something on which which I have no moral high ground, and goes to a place so disgusting that no shower can ever wash it off. But, I guess if it sells books, it's OK. The last couple times we visited with Malkin were funny, but this is beyond the pale.

Go fuck yourself, Michelle Malkin.

You Can Put Clown Makeup On An Asshole, But It Still Stinks

2008-09-10T21:35:00.003-05:00

Well there you have it, the stupid season of electoral politics has forced me to make up a disgusting and frankly, ill-conceived metaphor. Just to clarify though, I'm not calling Governor Jane Swift an asshole, at least with the metaphor, because I think an indirect insult like that would be cowardly. That being said, Jane Swift is an asshole. Lifted from Jake Tapper:

"[T]he formation of the Palin Truth Squad couldn't have happened too soon, as we saw when Sen. Obama in Lebanon, Va., this evening uttered what I can only deem to be disgraceful comments comparing our vice presidential nominee Gov. Palin to a pig," Swift said.

"Sen. Obama owes Gov. Palin an apology," she said.

Asked why she was so confident Obama was "comparing" Palin to a pig, she said Palin was the only one of the four candidates on both parties' tickets who wears lipstick.

"She is the only one of the four candidates for president, or the only vice presidential candidate who wears lipstick," Swift said. "I mean, it seemed to me a very gendered comment."

But, Swift added, if "as part of his apology Sen. Obama wants to say, no, he was calling Sen. McCain -- who is a true hero in our country -- a pig, then I suppose we could wait en masse for an apology to that, as well."

It was pointed out to Swift that, after the line about the pig, Obama had said, "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change,' it's still gonna stink after eight years."

Swift then suggested that Obama was calling McCain a fish.

"I have a fourth-grader and two second-graders at home," she said. "I would not teach them that this is sort of a high-minded debate on policy issues when they are calling people rotten old fish or a pig. In fact, it sounds a lot like some of the least intelligent debates on the playground sound like at our elementary school."

A reporter then reminded Swift that in December, McCain was asked about criticisms coming his way from then-opponent Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., and McCain replied, "Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."

Was McCain calling Romney a pig? a reporter asked Swift.

Of course not, Swift said.

What can one possibly do about something like this? I wish I could just say that Jane Swift was dumb and leave it at that, but we all know that's not the case. This whole lipstick episode is pure evil, a calculated outrage so unbelievable that the only way to push it if you're someone like Jane Swift is to inoculate yourself completely to any common sense or decency. Blaming her for this completely brain dead reaction would be like blaming a pneumonia victim for having a coughing fit or, more aptly, blaming an epileptic for having a seizure. The slime is deeply encoded in her DNA now and the only thing we could have possibly hoped for is that it wouldn't spread.

But it did, and we're left again scratching our heads and wondering how America is going to elect yet another cabal of warmongers and Jesus freaks. But don't worry fellow dissenters, I hear the slug they put in your brain that makes you see the world like Jane Swift eats away at your brain pretty quickly, thus minimizing the pain.

Shape of an Unearned Smirk! Form of a Dweeb!

2008-09-09T19:41:00.003-05:00

I finally understand why the Times has William Kristol and David Brooks write columns on back to back days: they're the Wonder Twins of idiotic political discourse. Much like Zan and Jayna were added merely to appease the nebulous Exxor lobby (look it up), Kristol and Brooks exist on the editorial pages to appease conservatives, who still routinely call for the death of each and every individual even remotely connected to the paper.

Need anymore proof than me just saying so? Fine, spoil sport, I give you first Bill Kristol's "A Heartbeat Away," which aside from being a ridiculous argument also sounds like the worst Boyz II Men song ever.

Will that coverage continue to be as belittling of Palin as much of it has been so far? Probably. It’s not just that many in the media don’t like her politics and don’t identify with her socially or culturally. They’re offended that McCain picked Palin without, so to speak, consulting them. The establishment media take pride in their role as gatekeeper to our political process and social discourse.

Bill Kristol writes for the Weekly Standard and , I say again, the New York Times. He won't admit it, but he is one of the gatekeepers. Then again, this is a specialty of rich, deluded jerkoffs, their being in love with the idea that they are in touch with the common man.

So the gatekeeper media’s reaction has been: Who is Sarah Palin to suddenly show up on the national stage?

Funny thing about that: that was my reaction too. Actually, because I'm truly in touch with the common man my reaction was a little more blue. As in: who the fuck is Sarah Palin to suddenly show up on the national stage? And considering that maybe .0001 percent of the population knew who the governor of Alaska was before Palin was made the veep nominee, I don't think the media's reaction was out of line.

Thus Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of the venerable New Republic for the last 34 years, wrote a blog post Thursday while he was “still reeling from last night’s malign hysteria at the Republican convention. This is a rotten crowd, even the pious Christian Huckabee and certainly Mayor Giuliani and the aspiring vice president, Sarah Palin.”

The New Republic is stupid, but Peretz is spot on here and Kristol makes no attempt at correcting Peretz. Want to know why? He can't, because those speeches were calls for blood, angry howls at a government that those people fucked up royally.

Despite reeling from the speeches, Peretz was able to “give [Palin] her due: she is pretty like a cosmetics saleswoman at Macy’s.” He continued that it was “good to see that the Palin family didn’t torture poor Bristol, at least in the open.” And he concluded: “Yes, please God, do bless America and rescue us from these swilly people.”

That Macy's line is gold, and is much better than the alternative narrative of "OMFG PALIN'S A BABE FAP FAP FAP FAP!" Though I like going a bit farther, so I subscribe more to the Exiled's Eileen Jones's takedown of the "Palin's a hottie" meme.

The Obama campaign, which would like to get votes from some of these very Americans, isn’t going to follow Peretz down that rabbit hole. To the degree they have to address the Palin question, they’ll stick to the argument they made in their first reaction to the Palin announcement: “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.”

Well duh. If one of the media approved talking points about Barack Obama is that he lacks experience, one can't possibly expect them to get a dig in after a selection of a person with even less experience.

According to Safire’s Political Dictionary,

Truly the go-to guide of a man of the people

the “heartbeat away from the presidency” locution may date from 1952, when the Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson, attacked the Republican V.P. candidate, the 39-year old Richard Nixon, “who asks you to place him a heartbeat from the presidency.”

What a curious comparison to make here. If I were a politician, the last president I would want to be compared to is Richard Milhous(e) Nixon. The man who turned the Oval Office into a gin soaked nightmare, the man who recorded himself saying that you can't trust the Jews, the man who resigned instead of being impeached. Yes, what a wonderful comparison for Sarah Palin. Hell, not only that, Nixon had served in the House and Senate, so at least the paranoid fruitcake had some experience.

A half-century before, William McKinley’s campaign manager, Mark Hanna, alarmed by the prospect of the 41-year-old Teddy Roosevelt as the V.P. nominee in 1900, is reported to have warned “that there is only one life between the Vice President and the Chief Magistracy of the nation.”

Replace "curious" in the first sentence a paragraph earlier with "fucking retarded" and that's what I think about this thought. Teddy Roosevelt was more accomplished at age 41 than any of us will ever be in our entire lives. For starters, he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He led the Rough Riders (and oddly enough, the Ruff Ryders. Seriously) and was then the governor of a small, insignificant state called "New York," wherever that is. As DMX said when he heard this argument, "I knew Theodore Roosevelt, motherfucker, and that bitch ain't no fucking Theodore Roosevelt."

Should voters be alarmed by a relatively young or inexperienced vice-presidential candidate? No. Since 1900, five vice presidents have succeeded to the presidency during their term in office: Teddy Roosevelt in 1901, Calvin Coolidge in 1923, Harry Truman in 1945, Lyndon Johnson in 1963, and Gerald Ford in 1974. Teddy Roosevelt took over at age 42, becoming our youngest president, and he’s generally thought to have proved up to the job. Truman was V.P. for less than three months and had been kept in the dark by Franklin Roosevelt about such matters as the atom bomb — and he’s generally thought to have risen to the occasion. Character, judgment and the ability to learn seem to matter more to success as president than the number of years one’s been in Washington.

Coolidge was lieutenant governor and governor of Massachusetts back when it mattered, Truman was a Senator for ten years, Lydon Johnson was the master of the Senate and Gerald Ford was a fucking dullard and was also in the House of Representatives. Of all the people listed, only Calvin Coolidge didn't spend much time in Washington before he became veep.

But — shocking to say! — both Obama and McCain also took political considerations into account in making their selections.

How is this shocking? Is this a joke I'm not getting?

McCain didn’t just pick a politician who could appeal to Wal-Mart Moms. He picked a Wal-Mart Mom. Indeed, he picked someone who, in 1999, as Wasilla mayor, presided over a wedding of two Wal-Mart associates at the local Wal-Mart. “It was so sweet,” said Palin, according to The Anchorage Daily News. “It was so Wasilla.”

I just started working at a Trader Joe's. One of the people who's been there longer than me told my orientation group that he met his girlfriend at Trader Joe's. Hands up if you think a Mayor Obama presiding over the wedding of two Trader Joe's employees would draw sneers of liberal elitism from Bill Kristol.

A Wasilla Wal-Mart Mom a heartbeat away? I suspect most voters will say, No problem. And some — perhaps a decisive number — will say, It’s about time.

Yes, because the experiment with the president we can drink a beer with worked so goddamn well. Fuck it, what's the other Wonder Twin have to say?

None of us have ever lived through an election at a time when 80 percent of voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction. But now that we’re in the thick of it, a few things are clear. From voters, the demand is: Surprise Me Most.

Jesus tapdancing Christ. Really, David? Not Fix the Economy, End the War, Give Us Healthcare or Save Us? Surprise Me is something you say when you're drunk and you're presented with toppings for a hot dog.

Last winter, Barack Obama succeeded by running a weird campaign. He wasn’t just a normal politician aiming for office, he was going to cleanse the country of the baby-boom culture war mentality. In his soaring speeches, he denounced the mores of both the Clinton and Bush eras and made an argument for unity and hope over endless partisan warfare.

Only in the world of David Brooks, a man who I imagine can't hold his liquor, could Barack Obama's campaign be characterized as "weird." It hasn't been conventional, but it's not as if his supporters raised money to launch a blimp equipped with a mind control device.

But over the course of the spring, Obama’s campaign got less weird. The crucial pivot came when he failed to seize on McCain’s offer to do a series of joint town-hall meetings across the country. Those meetings would have elevated the race and shown that Obama is willing to take risks in order to truly change the way things are done.

Or he realized that plays directly into John McCain's strengths, that town halls are bullshit with carefully selected participants and that it would most likely get bogged down in petty details about which pre-screened participants to let in.

Instead, Obama’s speeches became more conventional, more policy-specific and more orthodox. His Denver acceptance speech was different from his Iowa speeches. It was more traditionally anti-Republican and pro-Democratic. In the speech’s crucial contrast Obama declared: “It’s time for them to own their failure. It’s time for us to change America. You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.”

Obama, a man who was mocked for not providing substance to his soaring rhetoric, is now being taken to task for having too much substance in possibly the most important speech of his political career. While it's true it would have been weird if Obama had declined to add policy proposals into his convention speech, can you imagine how savaged he would be by pretty much everybody? Not to mention, it's not as if Obama is running as some kind of independent. He's a Democrat, so of course he's going to say that Democrats have better ideas.

But by campaigning in this traditional way, Obama ceded the weirdness edge to McCain.

And man is that guy weird. You ever seen his wife? It's like the Botox has spread to her brain.

The old warrior jumped right in. Think about how weird last week was. The Republican convention was one long protest against the way the Republicans themselves have run Washington. McCain’s convention speech barely mentioned his own party. His vice-presidential nominee came out of the blue and seems totally unlike the regular crowd of former eighth-grade class presidents who normally dominate public life. McCain’s campaign ideology, exemplified in a new ad released on Monday, is not familiar conservatism. It’s maverickism — against the entrenched powers and party orthodoxies.

This is not weird. This is evil and cynical and a complete inability to own up to the failures of your party and your ideology. And yet he's campaigning based on the tax cutting no matter what, keeping the war going, overturning Roe v. Wade, drilling ideology. The maverick McCain is as dead as Cindy McCain's ability to wipe that creepy smile off her face. And as for Palin, Tex nailed it on the phone a couple days ago when he called her an "organically grown party hack," right down to her roots in the P.T.A. The only thing David Brooks got remotely right in this paragraph was in calling McCain old.

And it all worked. McCain got a huge postconvention bounce in the polls.

"There's a sucker born every minute," etc. etc.

Now the campaign has become a battle between two different definitions of change. The Obama camp has become the champion of policy change — after eight years of failed Bush-McCain policies, it is time for different, Democratic ones.

What crazy idea, especially in light of the Apocalypse staring us in the eyes.

The McCain campaign is the champion of systemic change — after two decades of bickering and self-dealing, its time to shake up the whole system in order to get things done.

By implying things like Barack Obama wants to "lose" in Iraq, whatever the hell that means, so he can win the election. By hiring students of Karl Rove to run your campaign. By picking a veep choice who's in bed with the Religious Right. Yep, sounds like the Change Train is being conducted by John S. McCain.

The Obama change is more responsible and specific, but it has all the weirdness of a Brookings Institution report. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) The McCain promise of change is comprehensive and vehement, though it’s hard to know how it would actually work in office.

If David Brooks writes "weird" one more time... And let's not forget the idiocy of his idea here, that somehow John McCain's idea for change is comprehensive, despite sticking to Republican orthodoxy when he even bothers to talk about issues.

It will still be hard for McCain to win in this environment, but his emphasis on broad systemic change may appeal to swing voters.

See above Phineas Taylor Barnum quote.

Independent voters do not believe the country’s problems can be solved merely by replacing Republicans with Democrats. They cast a pox on both houses. That’s why they’re independents.

David Brooks obviously doesn't get out much. People are independents because they thing it's cool to talk about how all politicians are just power hungry and corrupt. It doesn't matter if they can't make a cogent argument to you about this theory, they just like to say it. I just had this very conversation on Monday. Instead of researching a party which they think would fit their values, they just tick off nothing and expect to be congratulated for their boldness. No, bold is registering as a Green in 2001, when everyone is still fuming about Ralph Nader. Yeah, fuck yourselves independents.

Furthermore, the maverick theme allows McCain to talk directly about character. Obama can hint at his values when he describes his tax cuts and health care plans, but he is indirect. Most voters, especially ones who decide late, vote on character over policies.

Is that supposed to be a good thing? These "gut decisions" about who you vote for based on some hazy definition of "character"? We don't know these people. Not in a way where we can truly judge their character. Who would have known Nixon was an anti-Semitic paranoid from his stump speeches? Or that Bill Clinton would never keep it in his pants based on his town hall meetings. This is why an election needs to be about issues. If you're so indecisive you can't tell the difference between the guy with policy prescriptions and the guy who tells you he'll just wing it, but trust him and he'll throw the bums out, then you get what you deserve with that vote. Unfortunately for me, I end up getting it too, so hey, don't fuck it up.

If I were advising the candidates, I’d tell them to double down on weirdness.

I am going to kill you...

Obama needs to occasionally criticize his own side.

No thank you. There's a whole political party doing that right now. They're called the Republicans, perhaps you've heard of them?

If he can’t take on his own party hacks, he’ll never reclaim the mantle of systemic change. Specifically, he needs to attack the snobs who are savaging Sarah Palin’s faith and family. Many liberals claim to love working-class families, but the moment they glimpse a hunter with an uneven college record, they hop on chairs and call for disinfectant.

When I took a speech writing class in college with a brilliant professor who used to write speeches for Al Gore (yeah, I'm big time), he gave us a packet for the learnings. One thing the packet taught us was what not to do, such as, oh say, a straw man argument. This is a textbook, or should I say in this case, packet, straw man. This is also David Brooks once again lionizing the common man he's never met, as in the case of his trucker love.

Obama needs to attack Bill Maher for calling her a stewardess and the rest of the coastal condescenders.

That is so stupid my brain almost shut down after I read it. Bill Maher is a comedian, not an Obama staffer. And let's not forget the first thing Obama did when faced with Bristol Palin's pregnancy was to unequivocally say he would stay away from it and reminded everyone he was born to a teenage mother. The first thing Sarah Palin did at the RNC was to disparage Obama's experience as a community organizer. It's people like Sarah Palin who are always first to tell me I'm not living in the real America, so maybe she should quit condescending me.

If I were McCain, I’d make the divided government argument explicit. The Republicans are intellectually unfit to govern right now, but balancing with Democrats, they might be able to do some good. I’d have McCain tell the country that he looks forward to working with Congressional Democrats, that he is confident they can achieve great things together.

God this is so frustrating. How can McCain work with Congressional Democrats if he no longer agrees with them on anything? In 2000 I would believe this, but for the millionth fucking time, John McCain is not the man he once was.

The candidates probably won’t take this kind of advice. But remember: Weirdness wins. Surprise me most.

You want surprise? Go to the glory hole off I-15 you motherfucking closet case. You know what David Brooks? Fucking kill yourself. An hero. Just quit writing this inane, insipid garbage. Donate your salary to charity, because you aren't earning it.

Wonder Twin powers activate!

Republican Apocalypse

2008-09-05T01:01:00.003-05:00

I need to take a shower, and it isn't just because of my sweltering apartment with no air conditioning. I feel gross after the last two days of the RNC, and I thank whatever beneficial force in the universe it is that caused the first day to get called off and made me miss the second day, because four days of that shit would have coated me in a thick slime that nothing but depleted uranium soap would have been able to cut through. So forgive me for ignoring President Dummy and the independent backstabber from the great state of Connecticut, but these past two days were where all the news happened anyway.

Thursday must have been penciled in as "Hate Day," though that doesn't explain the inclusion of Mike Huckabee, who for all his religious loonyism doesn't normally spit a blinding venom in the eyes of his enemies. Thankfully, we had Mitt Romney to kick around for an hour, and Ol'Greasebot did not disappoint. In a preview of things to come, Greasebot assailed liberal (?) Washington, trying his damndest to hypnotize anyone watching into forgetting who's been in control of the damn place for the last eight years.

Greasebot didn't stop there though. Proving for once and for all that cyborgs don't need logic processors to work, Mitt attacked government spending going through the roof, but praised the path Ronald Reagan took, somehow ignoring the fact that our debt was over 9000 times higher when he left office than when Jimmy Carter left office. Mitt assailed our trade deficit with China but said the Democrats would cut off trade with other countries. This is a man, excuse me, a highly advanced cyborg who can call Democrats the party of Big Brother one minute and call for us to eliminate pornography and promiscuity the next. I make no joke when I say I wish this man was running for President. I would believe in Greasebot's precious God if He came down from Heaven and told me that His plan for Mitt was to be the walking punchline that he appears to be.

Then there was Rudy Giuliani, who I guess is different from the guy that ran New York City for eight years. This is the only way I can understand how he mocked Barack Obama for being too cosmopolitan. Certainly it can't be the same guy who went to law school at NYU, because how else could he call someone an elitist for going to Harvard? I have little else to say about the speech because the blind rage inspired by that prick made me miss segments while I was busy having fits and shouting over him.

And of course, Sarah Palin. What's great about the party of personal responsibility is that it seems whenever they get themselves into a clusterfuck, they magically have a scapegoat. In Iraq, for instance, we weren't losing because the war was ill-conceived, poorly planned and executed even worse, we were losing because protesters didn't support the troops. So imagine my surprise when Sarah Palin excoriated the media for wondering what the fuck she'd ever done and for bringing up the fact that a staunch proponent of abstinence-only education has an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter. Then again, you would never know who her family was if that dastardly media didn't keep putting the camera on them on the many occasions Palin took to laud them for existing.

Someone on Slate described Palin's speech as Coulter-esque, with I think is nailing it on the head. I had no idea that community organizing was a do-nothing job. Here I was thinking it meant listening to people, talking them through their concerns and working to improve their lives, but here's Sarah Palin telling us that it's a job that involves no actual responsibilities. I guess Barack just spent that time eating fried chicken and smoking crack, as opposed to organizing laid off factory workers into a cogent group who could fight for their futures.

Palin's speech was only beaten on the chutzpah meter by John McCain's pathetic and bizarre declarations that the Republicans were the ones who would clean up Washington if only given the chance. His speech jibes incredibly well with an analysis that Slammer did way back in May when the Republican Party rolled out "Change You Deserve."

In essence, the change you deserve is the change you expected when you, the presumptive Republican voter, pulled the level four years ago, and four years before that. This time, there's a promise from the House that they will really, really, follow that platform you voted them in on. For eight years, Republican voters have become engaged in this domestic violence situation, voting for a party that continues to slap them around but, when the whiskey stops talking for it, convinces you that it really does have your best interests at heart. It's because the party loves you so much that it hits you, how stupid can you be? Maybe voters should stop with the sass-talk against their insane spending and you wouldn't "fall down the stairs" so often...
This new "Change You Deserve" mantra spits in the face of every voter who expected these values when they made a vote. It's a cheap attempt to disassociate Republicans with a leader they've rallied behind through wars, irresponsible economic policies, political bribes masked as economic stimulus checks, Wall Street bailouts, and a myriad of polarizing social initiatives that have cleft the party base. The real question lies in whether or not voters will recognize this as yet another ploy concocted by political cockroaches with an eye toward self-preservation or if it will cause a sea change in Congress.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Who in their right mind believes the only thing wrong with this country is too many Democrats? Are swing voter so stupid that they're going to go to bed thinking that this time the Republican party is going to hold fast to their promise of taming Washington spending?

What's infuriating about this election is that the Republicans are dusting off the same fucking playbook they always use. Blame coastal elites, the media, obstructionist Democrats and other America haters for ruining a country that they've been in charge of. John McCain copped to Americans living in dark days but then asks us to let him, a member of the party in charge, change things, with the same tired ideas that his party has trotted out for eight years. You'd think we'd learn not to run a war while cutting taxes, but I guess not. You'd think we learned we can't go it alone or bully the rest of the world at our whim, but apparently we need to keep picking a fight with Russia. You'd think drilling for more oil that multi-national corporations will buy and sell to other countries wouldn't do nearly as much as jumping headlong into alternative energies, but but this farce has to run to its completion I guess.

Frankly, I'd rather be more emotionally invested in the New York Mets right now and that's where I'm going to be. It's more depressing to think about the possibility of two months of fake outrage and charges that the poorest member of the Senate is an elitist than it is to think about the Mets losing two out of three this weekend. With any luck, I'll survive the home stretch of this awful election season, but I won't make any guarantees.

With Responses Like This, I Hope There's An Assassination Threat Everyday!

2008-08-26T12:58:00.011-05:00

We've got our first possible maybe assassination plan against Barack Obama, and it didn't disappoint. Is there any better publicity for the efficiency and capability of the white power movement than a bunch of cranked up metheads who can't even keep their shit together on the first day of the Democratic convention?

But since the threat isn't too credible, I think instead of worrying about Barack's safety, it would be more fun to lurk on right wing blogs and find and post their respectful prayers for The Candidate's safety. After all, we all know it's just those left wing blogs that are the new KKK and traffic in hate speech, right? Show us the way readers of Hot Air!

(Note: You might want to open these in a new window to read them clearly)

If you can give me one reason why saying Obama should be relocated to Africa isn't monstrously racist, I'll give you nude Miley Cyrus pictures.
Every politician dreams they can pick up the coveted "assassination plot bounce," especially coming in conjunction with the convention bounce. Why, Obama just might win the election off this!
That's a pretty nutty way to blame Obama for his own assassination attempt, but I'm looking for something more succinct.
Oh, there it is.
I don't know how a news item about people using guns to harm other people turned into a referendum on drugs, but OK. I just know I've never heard of anyone adding a sniper scope to a vial of crack.
Actually, I only take offense to this one because I'm a former drain on the public payroll.
Ah, a comment that combines my favorite aspects of this post: gun nerdery and conspiracy mongering.
Alden Pyle seems to know a little too much...
Jesse Jackson wishes he could hire ninjas. Then again, so do I. KEE-YAH, BITCH!
Alden Pyle is just a fount of inappropriate thoughts.
I think we on the left wing of the blogosphere can learn a bit from these civilized, respectful folks.

Dem Convention Day One

2008-08-25T22:27:00.002-05:00

Coming to you live from ~~Denver, Colorado~~ Bushwick, Brooklyn (get real folks), it's my catharsis from an agonizing day of immersing myself in the hell that is high gear electoral politics. First things first, how about the awesome new McCain ad?

Serious question: does John McCain have something against charisma? I'd love to spend my time pointing out the many ways this Debra Bartoshevich is a traitor to both her gender and her party, but I'm too mesmerized by the idea that those were the best takes whoever directed this ad got. Come on, the acting like she's thinking when talking about judgment? They may as well have just had her pose as the Thinking Man.

Which leads to me to what I was doing all day before the Met game started: perusing a few rabidly pro-Hillary sites committed to proving to us that Barack Obama stole the election from their candidate. Sure, I'm a proud member of the "Is Barack Obama the Antichrist?" Facebook group, but even I have trouble understanding the attitudes of the P.U.M.As.

Nevermind all that though, it's nothing but a ridiculous distraction from the main event, the opening of the GREATEST CONVENTION EVAR or something of that sort. It was kinda boring, but it was also the first day f four of this bullshit. I wish I could tell you more about the Kennedy speech, but it came at the same time as Mike Pelfrey was completing the first back-t0-back complete games by a Met pitcher in 13 years, and to be fair, Teddy was kind of before my time. Good for him though, making it up there.

I dug Michelle Obama's speech though. She sounded genuinely choked up for a lot of it, loudly and proudly said both, "I love America" and "God bless America," and did about all she could to prove to whitey that while she may not like mayo on everything, she won't be charging into their bedrooms screaming "Allahu Akbar" either. Bringing out the children to talk to Daddy over satellite was both incredibly hokey and awesomely effective, especially since the seven-year-old one kept screaming into the microphone like the precocious little scamp she is. If only Howard Cossell had been around to call her a cute little monkey, we'd have some real controversy to talk about tomorrow morning instead of more Camp Clinton v. Camp Obama sleepaway shenanigans.

The cable networks didn't exactly distinguish themselves with what I would call great coverage. After the sensory assault that's been the last year and a half, I honestly can't believe all the cable talking heads wanted more aggression

On CNN, their ticker ran the same 20 facts over and over again, cutting off a good eighth of the screen. Wolf Blitzer spoke over the beginning of Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s speech with his unnatural baritone and they didn't fullscreen the Kennedy tribute video for a few minutes of its broadcast. Blitzer also relentlessly hyped the idea that Kennedy might not even make an appearance, much less give a speech, but the bits I caught Kennedy looked as strong as a drunken, Irish bull. Maybe Wolf wanted to create his own Willis Reed moment, I don't know.

Slammer doesn't believe me, but Fox actually showed Michelle Obama in black and white and played scary monster music after going over her "For the first time in my life..." blah blah blah comment. Also, during the Jesse Jackson, Jr. speech, Bill O'Reilly decided to air one of those interminable segments he does about someone being mean to him. Him, Bill O'Reilly! Who could do such a thing??? Sniggering jackass Bill Kristol pooh-poohed Michelle Obama's speech because she didn't point out she went to Harvard and some blond white lady suggested that the speech was too liberal because Mrs. Obama chose to laud those who march and do public service more than she mentioned the troops.

Tomorrow I'll be out doing things, like seeing Rushmore with all the hipsters at McCarren Park, so I'll probably miss Hillary Clinton's historical history making speech about being a historical, history steeped candidate making electoral history, not like the other guy, Whatshisname.