Meowy Christmas!

I know, I haven't been saying a whole lot latey (I suck!), but I did want to take a moment to wish everyone a wonderully Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Why? Because It's Fun!

Since my posts of late September I have gotten some e-mails from people wanting to know what my beef is with the NY Mets and why I took such glee in watching them collapse (hee hee hee...sorry, I still can't stop chuckling about it).

Believe it or not, there was a time when I really didn't care either way about the Mets. In fact (gasp!), back in the mid-80s I even followed the Mets because they were such an intriguing team to watch. I never really "hated" the Mets back then and they were fun to watch. At the end of the day, my heart still belonged in the Bronx. I was just indifferent at the time.

Of course, it didn't take the Mets long to get back to doing what they do best - sucking. I could not believe that after winning the World Series in 1986, GM Frank Cashen began IMMEDIATELY dismantling what would have been a potential dynasty team. He couldn't leave well enough alone. One by one he picked them off - Ray Knight, Kevin Mitchell, Len Dykstra - while placing emphasis on spoiled crybaby types like Greg Jefferies. Watching all that go down reminded me why I was a Yankee fan, and after the '88 NLCS loss to the Dodgers enough was enough. I couldn't figure out why I gave two shits about the Mets anyway since I was a Yankee fan. The clandestine fling was officially over.

Still, I didn't "hate" the Mets. They were the NL team in town, good for them, they were bad, whatever. One day my buddy AJ said to me "there's no way you can be a Yankee fan and be ambivalent about the Mets". I argued this point but he said (in his prophetic way), "you'll see".

The answer to the question actually explains itself. What finally made me loathe the Metros was (drumroll)...Met fans. I worked with some pretty obnoxious ones at the time (a few were particularly obnoxious about it) and while I never disrespected or poked fun at them when the Mets invariably did what they do best (sucking), they never missed an opportunity to bust balls when the Yankees were going through lean times. It wasn't that they enjoyed watching the Yankees stink - they enjoyed busting balls of Yankee fans about it, which is pretty pathetic.

It's like Red Sox syndrome. When the Sox were finding new and exciting ways to lose every year, with their fans it was NEVER the Red Sox management's fault, never the players' fault. No, it somehow was always the Yankees' fault. The penis envy was always pathetic. Beer's too warm? The Yankees must have all the cold beer! Player made an error? The Yankees must have willed it to happen with voodoo! Turns out Met fans are just as bad, if not worse. No bad event is ever the Mets organization's fault, it's always those damn Yankees. Get a grip.

When the Yankees lose, Yankee fans don't walk around going "it's those damn Wilpons and the Mets - they get everything" (after all, the Mets have the highest payroll in the NL, so it's worth being envious of them, right...?). No, we know when they suck it's because they suck - not because some other team made it happen simply by existing (side note: somehow after finally winning a World Series, Red Sox fans have actually gotten worse about this...it's sad, actually).

The final straw was the day after Mickey Mantle died. It was a pretty somber day at my job, and the Yankee fans were having a group talk around my desk about The Mick and his unfortunate passing. On cue, the resident King Asshole Met fan came by and unleashed some of the most classless, scummy, childish insults about Mantle - and he did it just to dig at us personally so we'd feel even worse on a sad day. He almost got thrown out the 32nd story window, but cooler heads prevailed.

It was at that very moment that I awoke from my baseball amnesia. I realized that AJ was right - there was simply no way a Yankee fan could exhibit compassion to a Met fan because he would never get it back in kind. I had this proved in one trashy exchange that Monday in 1995 by a prototypical, "Letsgo Mets"-ing, Mr. Met bobblehead-ing Met fan in all his blue-and-orange glory. At a time when if the shoe had been on the other foot, I would have gone to this person and expressed condolences from one fan to another, I was not afforded the same luxury. At that moment I opened my eyes from the coma.

It was also the moment I went back to doing as I did in the 70s and wished for the Mets to somehow implode spectacularly. It took 12 years, but my prayers were finally answered, on the last day of the 2007 season. Even now, the thoughts of it take the sting off the way the Yankees' season ended. It was a fair trade.

So now you know. Never question the power of prayer.

Well Look Who's Back...

Stop the presses...Alex Rodriguez has retuned to the Yankees. Arod essecntially has crawled back to New York, and in the process has wrested control of his future from his Svengali-like "super agent" and full-time asshat, Scott Boras.

I am not prepared to take back all the bad things I said about Alex a few days ago. This is a good thing for Alex. Boras was single-handedly ruining his client's reputation and making him look like a fool. By dostancing himself from Weasel Man, Alex has shown himself to be smarter than I gave him credit for.

Alex will be a part of the Yankees for the next 10 years now and if he can stop himself from tripping over his own feet and ego - something he has had issues with in recent years since leaving Seattle - this should be a good marriage for both sides.

Welcome back, Arod. Don't piss me off again.

It’s Official: TV Writers Walk

Yep, the WGA went on strike last night at midnight, which means that most TV series’ should be in re-runs a few weeks from now, and most (if not all) late-night talk shows should be in re-runs tonight.

How lame and pathetic are the late-night talk show hosts that a writer's strike is enough to send them into immediate re-runs? I wish I had a job where all I had to do was read unfunny crap that other people wrote for me. I can't believe that for what these guys get paid, they can't function without their precious cue cards.

I bet Carson would have stayed on just to spite ‘em. Wimps.

A Reminder

Happy Novembuh! Remember to set that clock back this weekend!

Halloween Sure Can Be Scary

Happy Halloween, one and all – hope everyone doesn’t suffer from sugar shock after eating all those chocolate bars and candy corns!

Wanna hear a scary Halloween story?

Back when I was a college puddin head, I was out having a few brews with friends and I innocently asked if they had anything planned for Halloween – any parties, hay rides, what have you.

Much to my surprise, a peripheral aquaintence - whom up to that point I'd assumed was completely normal - chimed in with “We don’t do Halloween in our house”. Say what? I was dumbfounded. “What do you mean, you don’t “do” Halloween”? “It’s a nasty, evil holiday”, he tells me. I queried on. “Do you give candy to trick or treaters?” “No, because that just further legitimizes this evil day”. Evil day? What planet had I just fallen on to?

I attempted to point out that the paganism of the day had long ago been co-opted by seven-year-olds dressed up like Superman looking for Bite-Size Snickers, and teenagers looking for a more creative use for toilet paper, eggs and shaving cream. None of this seemed to matter. No, on a scale of one to ten - with one being puppies and ten being Hitler - apparently, Halloween was an 11.

This would have been scary enough, except that further prodding revealed that growing up, his family never did any of the innocent, childhood things most of us grew up with: no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny…I was dumbstruck. I looked at the other people we were with and asked “Did any of you guys have a NORMAL childhood”? Thankfully, I was not alone in my self-percieved sanity.

Thankfully, my parents didn't think my childhood should be all about them. There is only one time in your life when your suspension of disbelief is such that you can find yourself believing in something as wonderful and innocent as jolly old St. Nick and other bearers of joy (I'll even through the Tooth Fairy into the math - why not). There’s plenty of time when you are an adult, with mortgages, utility bills, illness and threats of terrorism to be a cynical mess. To not know that innocence ever in your life is a shame.

Ever year when I am enjoying my marshmallow Jack-o-Lanterns and nasty candy corn, I still think of him, all these many years later.

Who said Halloween wasn’t scary anymore?

Breaking News (of the Insane Variety)

This just in via e-mail from Jim Nazium:

From: Jim Nazium
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 6:26 PM
To: Pete Sayek
Subject: It's over!

I can say without feeling guilty to anyone including my friends that if you voted for Eliot Spitzer you're an asshole!

NY Senators mum on Spitzer's ID plan for immigrants

Eliot Spitzer's Halloween Trick: Driver's Licenses for Illegal Aliens

Thankfully, Jim knows I do not qualify under the ‘asshole proviso’ as I left New York for greener pastures many a moon ago, and even IF I still lived there, there’s no way in Hell I would have been THAT stupid.

I guess the events of 9/11 weren’t tragic enough for shit-for-brains megalomaniacs like Elliot “the bulldozer” Spitzer to have learned anything of value. I guess the guy is always too busy to trying to ruin people that oppose him to pay attention to what goes on in the real world.

Equal shame on “Homeland Security Secretary” and withering corpse Michael Chertoff (a.k.a. Skeletor) for capitulating to this effing insanity. What a disappointment this administration has truly become.

I am guessing this will NOT be the final word on this matter. Stay tuned.

Goodbye, Alex…Hello, Joe

Early this afternoon, the Yankees announced that Joe Girardi had been chosen to succeed Joe Torre as manager. This is good news. Girardi is that anti-Torre. He’s a smart baseball man who won’t play favorites and allow funk to spread uncontrolled. The rumor is a formal announcement could come as early as Wednesday.

The real BIG news took place overnight and into the early morning hours. The fires hadn’t even been set and the windows barely broken in Boston last night when Alex Rodriguez announced via his mouthpiece and pimp, Scott Boras that he had chosen to opt out of his final contact year, effectively severing his ties with the New York Yankees, ending a tumultuous – occasionally caustic – three-year affair between Arod and the Yanks.

There’s no denying that Arod is a phenomenal player. That is one thing that can’t be argued. However, when he played with Texas – and before that, Seattle – you would always hear rumors about what a head case the guy was, how for all the good he brought to the table, there was always the bad; there was “the baggage”.

Who knew that no only were those rumors true – they were 100x worse than you could ever have imagined.

When Arod came to the Yankees, it was right after a deal to send him to Boston fell through. Remember that? Oh yeah, New York really pulled a fast one on Boston, didn’t they? They pulled Arod right out from under them! Nothing left to do now but sit back and count the rings. Well, since “stealing” Arod away from Boston, the Red Sox have two World Series titles while the Yankees have made three hasty first-round exits from the playoffs.

In lieu of championships, we were treated to the Alex Rodriguez Traveling Road Show and Flying Circus. Stupefying heights. Mystifying slumps. The Contract. The sports psychologist. The bad blood with Jeter. The carefully-rehearsed interviews. Photos from Toronto with a mystery blonde. The ‘HA!’ incident. The ‘don’t boo me’ pity party. The 500 HRs. The magnificent regular seasons…and most glaring of all, the mind-numbing, Winfield-like post-season failures that piled up like leaves in Autumn.

Arod’s stay in New York will be littered with the debris of “the baggage”. People will remember three things about Alex now that he’s gone: the fact that he could never live up to the money he was paid no matter how many heroics he put up (he never allowed himself to); his astonishing October disappearing acts; and the fact that when push came to shove, he just couldn’t hack it in New York.

Alex is represented by Scott Boras, as big a dirty pimp as there is in organized sports. He schools his clients in the fine art of selfishness and disloyalty; his only concern is big contracts to maintain his big percentage cuts and large lifestyle. The onus however is all on Arod. Boras also represented Bernie Williams. Bernie had no problem telling Boras to shut the fuck up when he wanted to stay with the Yankees. Arod is different – he is Mr. Sensitive, Boras’ Golden Goose. As such, he is kept on an obedient, short leash.

Arod’s departure allows the Yankees to take the 30-million per it would have cost them to keep him in Pinstripes and disburse it in a wiser, saner way – namely on bringing in some sorely-needed bullpen help and keeping their new, youthful core intact well into the 2010’s.

So long Alex. Thanks for that meaningless home run in Game 4 against the Indians.

Take your “baggage” and your pimp with you.

The End of an Era

The Joe Torre era came to an end for the New York Yankees yesterday. Torre’s tenure ends with a whimper – a poor post-season showing and first-round elimination for the third straight year. Despite that, the Yankees made a more-than-fair offer to Joe: 5 million for next year with added incentives for each milestone that the Yankees reach: a mil for the Division, another mil for the Division Series, another for the Championship Series, and a payoff for a World Series title – with an option for a second year.

In light of how things have gone since 2001, I can’t say as I blame the Yankees for making that offer. Torre parlayed the good will of four championships in the late-90s into becoming the highest-paid manager in baseball by a WIDE margin. What did the Yankees get for their buck? Not much bang. Six straight years of post-season disappointment following the bloop-and-error-aided 2001 WS loss. Joe didn’t think so, and so he moves on.

I appreciate what Joe did while he was here. Four World Championships are nothing to sneeze at. However, many knowledgeable Yankee fans – who watch this team day in and day out – will tell you that the four championships could have (and should have) easily been seven or eight.

So what happened? There is a theory that managers are only successful for a certain amount of years because once the familiarity sets in, managers become partial to “their guys”. They play favorites over doing the right thing (something Joe Torre was guilty of the last few years), and the complacency starts to set in.

Joe’s dugout naps and lack of a pulse were OK when the Yankees were winning. When they are getting screwed repeatedly by bad calls and being blinded by bugs, suddenly it’s not so cute. It’s an old saying, but it is true – sometimes you DO need to make changes just for the sake of making changes. Casey Stengel, Joe McCarthy, Miller Huggins – all eventually parted ways with the Yankees because that’s the way it goes. Nothing lasts forever.

So long Joe…it was fun while it lasted and what you did while you were here is definitely appreciated…but it’s time for a change.

NY Libs Wild About Rudy

Courtesy Tammy Bruce comes this little gem: a piece in The Observer outlining the various ways the mere CONCEPT of Rudy Giuliani running for president is driving New York Libs crazy:

Rudy’s Doin’ It! Shocked Cacophony Among New York Democrats That The Rudy They Know May Actually Become Republican Candidate

“It’s totally unbelievable,” said Charles Rangel, the dean of the New York Congressional delegation and a longtime adversary of Mr. Giuliani. “I refuse to believe that this could possibly happen to our country. I have too much confidence in our country to believe that this could really happen.”

The article is chock full of classic New York Liberal narcissism in action from the likes of Rangel, Norman Siegel and Ed "You actually didn't do so good" Koch.

The reason why Rudy drove (and drives, apparently) charlatans like Siegel, Rangel and Koch bananas was because he came in after two administrations (Koch and the uber-charlatan Dinkins) that made it their day-to-day business to bend over backwards for every “special interest” and “activist” like pathetic puppets.

Giuliani came in and fumigated the stench from City Hall by not doing the popular things, but doing the correct things. He took people and situations on a case-by-case basis and (correctly, IMHO) wouldn’t give clowns like Sharpton and his ilk the time of day, letting them know in no uncertain terms that they would no longer be allowed to run slipshod over City Hall like they did the previous four years. Little things like actually enforcing laws started to make a difference immediately. This drove a whole sub-class of rabble-rousers insane because they were effectively de-fanged and made irrelevant. Meanwhile, the city turned around and it became a decent place to live in again. Autocrat Bloomberg is doing his best to reverse all that, unfortunately.

Yet, I have a lot of misgivings about Rudy as President. However - if he can take out the Clinton Machine, I might be able to live with them.

Give Paws a Chance

Hey fellow Cat Peeps – in case you didn’t know, today is National Feral Cat Day. The whole purpose of this day is to clear up some of the misunderstandings about feral cats.

The most common misconception is that feral cats are “wild”. Feral cats are NOT “wild cats”. They are the same domestic species as the house cats that simultaneously sleep on - and destroy – your sofas at home. The only difference is that “feral” cats were never socialized, so they fear human contact.

Many communities have begun the humane population control of feral cats though the effective method of Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). The ineffective method of destroying unadoptable ferals is an unacceptable control method – especially when TNR is a viable alternative that better manages and reduces feral cat populations.

Take a couple of minutes and read all about the good work that the people at Alley Cat Allies do every day to spread the word about TNR. The little feral fuzzbutts in your area will be glad you did.

The Stupid Get Stupider

Well, those screwball idiots at the Nobel Foundation (or whatever the hell they are) did it - they went and awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to Algore for permeating his junk science on the masses. No matter that tons of meteorologists and scientists have problems with his reporting of hackneyed theorum as fact. These Nobel folks are becoming as arbitrary in their choices as Time's Man of the Year: throw some crap at a wall, see what sticks.

What I want to know, is why the schmucks at Nobel never award their little trinkets to honor things that have actually made life worth living? Where are the Nobel prizes for...

Those foam caddies that keep your beers cold.
Air conditioning (thank you, God).
Electronic guitar tuners (we, the tone deaf, appreciate it).
Stereo hi-fi equipment (and all that has come since then).
Cable de-scramblers.
Ice cold Coca-Cola on a hot day.
The "Brazilian cut".
Chicken marsala.
Bit torrents.
Blizzards on a school day (I remember that).
Martini shakers.
White Castle Hamburgers.

I could go on and on...the list is endless, really...but instead, we honor the cream of the assclown crop. It's almost a metaphor for the futility of life, I tells ya.

All I'll say is this: if you are going to give Al Gore a Nobel Prize, you have to also consider giving one to Doctor Science and Professor Irwin Corey.

Better yet, let’s give them to every weatherman everywhere. I’m down with awarding trinkets to Lloyd Lindsay Young and Al Roker. I think Tex Antoine deserves a posthumous Nobel…don’t you?

Yes, Fans...it WAS the WORST

Simply because I can't get enough schadenfreude these days, I present to you ANOTHER article - this one from Zac Wassinick over at Yahoo Sports - that points out YET AGAIN how the Mets collapse of 2007 was the worst in baseball history:

The Mets Are the Biggest Chokers of Them All

Many Mets fans are pointing to the Yankees of 2004 as the biggest choke-job in Major League Baseball history. That team, as is well known, took a 3-0 lead in the ALCS against the Boston Red Sox before losing four straight, the first team to ever lose a series after taking the first three games in the history of the Major Leagues. Nice try, Mets fans. It's time for fans to realize that the collapse of the 2007 is even worse than what the Yankees "accomplished" in 2004. Here are the reasons why that is true.

Read and learn. Look on the bright side - someone has to be worst.

Another Early Exit

I’m gonna keep this one short and sweet: the Yankees made another hasty exit from the Playoffs last night. Wish I could say I wasn’t getting used to this, but unfortunately, I wasn’t shocked. I am only now beginning to understand how it must have felt to be an Atlanta Braves fan in the 1990s – good enough to get to the dance, but not good enough to leave with a trophy.

I know these guys killed themselves down the stretch (they needed to play .700 ball after the All-Star Break just to make the post-season), and I’m sure that factored into the ‘fold and mutilate’ they just executed, but this team was definitely better than the Indians and the excuses…well, they’re just not floating with me right now.

Joe Torre looked like a guy in a coma throughout the series and it will be interesting to see if Boss George makes good on his threat to go in a different direction next season. Regardless, it should be an interesting off-season.

Go Tribe.

Happy Birthday, JWL.

I Know Baseball Fans Like Stats, So...

...a little lesson in basic math from the guys over at Enough Lupica for our favorite Midget Met over at the Daily Snooze:

Enough Bullshit About Payroll

For years we've had to endure the same payroll bullshit from Mike The Douche Lupica.

The Yankee payroll is $200 million - every week, every month, every year, every article we have to hear about it. We get it. We did a little research about the Mets payroll - and guess what? Time to shove it up your ass, Mike.

In addition Mike, your politics suck, you're ugly and you dress like a dwarf.

Oh My GOD!!!

Well hey everyone - freshly back from Baltimore where we saw the Yankees win one and lose one en route to the 2007 post-season. We were supposed to go to all three games, but after a busy weekend full of activities down in Charm City, we decided to blow off today's final game and drive back early. Heck, I have work tomorrow, so it just made sense.

On the way home up I-95 we kept flipping between the Yankees game (which had all the flow of Maine molasses in January) and the Mets game. You know the story - the Mets had to win to guarantee at least a tie with the Phillies (after beating the Marlins Saturday night). A Met loss and a Phillies win would mean the Mets would have completed the biggest collapse in baseball history. Watching the Mets drop five out of their previous six games and whittle away a 6-game lead down to nothing has been nothing short of hysterical. All weekend I've been thinking of how delicious it would be if the Mets didn't even make the post-season.

So imagine the heights of euphoria I reached when we tuned in to hear the Mets losing 7-1 IN THE BOTTOM OF THE FIRST! Mon and I cackled like delighted school children. We started flipping back and forth between the Phillies game and the Mets game. From then on it was a matter of counting down the innings while the Mets folded like a house of cards in a hurricane and the Phillies tacked on runs against the Nats in Philly.

The Mets lost 8-1; about five minutes later the Phillies won 6-1. Cars on I-95 (south of Philly) honked wildly. It was a beautiful moment, a moment made all the more sweet by the dribbling bullshit I have had to endure from slack-jawed Met fans ever since the Yankees' ALCS loss in 2004 (which, unlike this majestic masterpiece, was simply a three-game losing streak at a bad time). In that one instant, as the crowd cheered at Citizen's Bank ballpark, I thought of how ironic, poetic and fitting it was that the 2007 Mets had just let Gene Mauk and the 1964 Phillies off the hook, bettering their famous collapse by a couple of extra notches in futility.

From now on, when people ask "what team had the biggest collapse in baseball history", the 2007 Mets will roll of the tongue. To quote my friend AJ (who sent me an e-mail about this earlier this afternoon), "it was like watching the best porn ever".

It couldn't have happened to a better group of fans. I'm sure Mike Lupica (and the other Midget Mets out there) will be crying himself to sleep tonight.

Karma: it's not just for breakfast anymore.

Same Crap, Different Era

For those of you that may live under a rock and are not aware of such things - and really, good for you if you don't - this week is the annual U.N. General Assembly. New York City, while safer than it's ever been, will be crawling with the most odious assemblage of crooks, thieves and murders we've seen around here since the Abe Beame administration - all of them flouting Diplomatic Immunity.

Nothing is more outrageous than the open arms extended to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad NOT ONLY by the increasingly-irrelevant UN, but by the faculty of one of New York's echelon's of higher learning, Columbia University. Of course, Ahmadinejad will fit right in at Columbia...hell, they might even offer the little murderous bastard tenure.

I know what you are thinking: how could a place like COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY offer an invitation to a psychopathic dictator? Surely, this sort of thing has never happened before!

Guess again. The folks at Little Green Footballs will set you straight.

Nice.

Fly The Flag on 9/11

As we mark the 6th Anniversary of one of the worst attack on the United States, I invite you to participate in the Fly The Flag Campaign. Let's make sure our nation is awash in our colors on 9/11, a reminder to all who would try to hurt us, including the enemy within, that these colors do not run:

Please join us in this FLY THE FLAG campaign.

We have just a few days to get the word out all across this great land and into every community in the United States of America. If you are able please tell at least 11 people and if each of those people do the same, well you get the idea.

THE PROGRAM IS THIS:

On Monday, September 11th, 2006, an American flag should be displayed outside every home, apartment, office, and store in the United States. Every individual should make it their duty to display an American flag on this fifth anniversary of our country's worst tragedy. We do this in honor of those who lost their lives on 9/11, their families, friends and loved ones who continue to endure the pain, and those who today are fighting at home and abroad to preserve our cherished freedoms.In the days, weeks and months following 9/11, our country was bathed in American flags as citizens mourned the incredible losses and stood shoulder-to-shoulder against terrorism.
Sadly, many of those flags have all but disappeared.

Our patriotism pulled us through some tough times and it shouldn't take another attack to galvanize us in solidarity. Our American flag is the fabric of our country and together we can prevail over terrorism of all kinds.

Action Plan: Here is what we need you to do...
(1) Forward this message to everyone you know (at least 11 people). Please don't be the one to break this chain. Take a moment to think back to how you felt on 9/11 and let those sentiments guide you.

(2) Fly an American flag of any size on 9/11. Honestly, Americans should fly the flag year-round, but if you don't, then at least make it a priority on this day. Thank you for your participation.

God Bless You and God Bless America

Thanks, as always, to Tammy Bruce for the info. I’m proud to spread the word.

Global Warming Update

You know I like to keep you updated on this scary Global Warming thing. Here’s another scary tidbit for ya:

Arctic August: NYC Sets Record For Coldest Day

Yeah, that and I just saw a thing on Eyewitness News This Morning about how Norwegian fishermen are battling the worst impacted ice they’ve seen in fifty years.

Guess I’d better go turn that thermostat down a notch.

Sleep With the Dogs, Wake Up With Fleas

OK, so let’s review: the Chinese are trying to kill us with tainted vegetables, kill our pets with botulism, and kill our children with small-part-and-lead-filled toys.

Why are we buying ANYTHING from a country that bulldozes Democracy protesters? Why are these assholes back on the “favored nation” status?

Grunt.

Phil Rizzuto – 1917-2007

Longtime Yankees announcer and shortstop Phill Rizzuto passed away earlier today at the age of 89 after a long illness.

It’s funny…I had just been thinking about Phil on Old Timer's Day...I knew he was in bad shape and I was wondering how much time he had left.If you grew up in New York City in the 70s, you probably think fondly of the days when you could walk around the neighborhood streets and from everyone's front porch or backyard you could hear the sounds of Phil, Bill White and Frank Messer. The Yankees were returning to prominence, on the precipice of a Dynasty, and the Yankees ruled NYC. Rizzuto, White and Messer were the soundtrack of your summers.

Hopefully Frank is waiting for Phil with a microphone in hand.

Rest in peace, Scooter - you were one of a kind...

Who Ordered the Tornadoes?

WELL. The huge storms that tore through parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island yesterday morning proved to be – as suspected – the rarest of all weather phenomena: New York City tornadoes!

For those of you in other parts of the country that don’t know, we really don’t get a whole lot of tornadoes ‘round there parts. There are a lot of scientific reasons for that – from the lack of flat grounds to the geographical makeup of the five boroughs…although I personally believe it has more to do with the scarcity of trailer parks than anything else.

Sure, we’ve had a couple of brief twisters her and there, but they usually touch down and pop right back up. There were the real deal – destructive, F2 tornaders. Luckily, they missed the Hank & Jim studios by a couple of miles.

The old adage is true: if you hang around long enough, you will see everything.

Radio Free New York Site Update: RNI!

This week marks the 20th Anniversary of Radio New York International!

That's right - it was twenty years ago that a group of underground broadcasters got together and attempted to sign on an offshore pirate radio station (broadcasting on an old fishing trawler called The Radioship Sarah) from international territory, four-and-a-half miles off the coast of New York City - outside the three-mile limit.

Well, as we learned, territories can be in the mind of the beholder - and after just five days of broadcasting, RNI was shut down and dismantled by the FCC. Despite RNI's short existence, it left a lasting mark on the radio scene and those of us who were a part of it will never forget the experience!

Radio Free New York is proud to mark RNI's 20th Anniversary with a group of site updates that add new audio, video and text commemorating this historic event. Among the updates are:

More detailed notes on the RNI saga.

Embedded video from our personal collections, including news coverage from that crazy week and the days that followed!

Airchecks of the last broadcasts from The Sarah before the FCC brought the hammer down on July 28, 1987.

The new updated pages (with audio and video) can be found directly HERE.

I'm sure these new RNI pieces will bring back memories for you as they did for me while I was putting them all together!

As always, thanks for surfing our way!

The Bronx Is Burning…Again

ESPN is running an excellent miniseries commemorating the 30th anniversary of the 1977 World Champion Yankees. It’s not JUST about the Yankees – it’s about the whole astounding mess the city was going through back in 1977, from Son of Sam to the big Northeast Blackout, to one of the more contentious mayoral elections in city history.

The miniseries is based on Jonathan Mahler’s excellent book of the same name, although the TV version relies heavily on other sources since it mainly focuses on the ’77 Yankees and their role in the turbulence of the times. So far the acting has been top-notch (John Turturro’s turn as Billy Martin is downright scary) and the vintage news and game clips are sure to rattle a few memory cells that you haven’t referred to in a while.

If you’re around my age and lived through the insane craziness of the time, you’ll definitely want to check it out. ESPN has set up an excellent sub-site with episode updates and the like HERE.

Fourth of July Memories

Happy Independence Day, everyone! Earlier this week at work, I was waxing nostalgic about July Fourths of my youth, taking a stroll down memory lane...

Growing up in Brooklyn NY, Independence Day always meant the sounds of firecrackers, whistling rockets and crackling fountains - starting somewhere around mid-June and increasing in intensity until July 4th, with a rousing, citizen-provided, city-wide fireworks display the likes of which you probably wouldn't see anywhere else.

In addition to the sights and sounds of sparkling lights and popping crackers, the smell of sulphur would permeate your nostrils. It was hard to escape the full-senses assault: pretty much every city block featured a high number of homeowners barbecuing and setting off their own Chinatown-purchased displays (it was always illegal to buy and sell fireworks, and to an extent, to set them off...but most law enforcement looked the other way in the spirit of the holiday and all that).

When Rudy became mayor, all that changed. He decided to crack down on John Gotti's annual ridiculous Grucci-like displays in Queens, and I guess he felt that it would only be fair to crack down on EVERYONE. Police began confiscating fireworks from the average citizen in great numbers; patrols were doubled and tripled on July 4th; people that protested were issued summonses.

I am a huge fan of what Rudy did for New York - reversing the cancer that had been allowed to spread under Koch's last term and the total ineptitude of the Dinkins years (shudder) - but I feel in this particular instance, he was simply going over the top. What Gotti was doing and what John Q. Homeowner were doing in their front yards was like comparing one tiny apple to a truckload of oranges. Autocrat Bloomberg must share an equal disdain for fireworks, as he has kept the hard-line ban up under his rule.

I have been back to Brooklyn for Fourth of July in the years since the crackdown, and you'd never know it was the noisy, joyous place it used to be when I was a kid. You occasionally hear a fire cracker pop from a brave soul, or a whistle from a wayward bottle rocket - but it's nowhere near the full-blown rattle and bang that it used to be 'back in the day'.

I miss those sounds, and I miss those smells. As a young boy, I couldn't wait for the Fourth because I knew it would be a borough-and-city-wide block party of epic proportions. But it's still a good time for a fun barbecue!

The iPhone is Here (or, Invasion of the Brain Snatchers)

Apple released the much-ballyhooed iPhone to the masses today, and while this is being treated as a grand day for technophiles, I see it as yet another strike against humanity.

Oh, the humanity.

It’s bad enough that we already live in a society that wherever you look, you are surrounded increasingly more and more by oblivious idiots that walk through life staring down at their blackberries, blueberries or whatever the Hell mobile umbilical cord they happen to have attached themselves to. I’ve seen people walk into traffic, into poles, into each other – all because they simply tear themselves away from their e-mail long enough to walk from the Subway to the office (where, it should be pointed out, the e-mail gleefully awaits them).

The iPhone is sure to kick up the social retardation a few more unbearable notches. It’s got e-mail! Videos! MP3s! Internet access! Voice mail! YouTube! Holy mother of GOD, it’s got EVERYTHING! So – how long before someone gets hit by a commuter train because they were too busy opening up 1GB .AVI files attached to their webmail to se see the train coming?

Some mornings I see commuters hop on the bus, one after another, all yapping away on their bluetooths and unbelievably annoying chirping walkie-talkie 2-way phones…or the inevitable e-mail-reading downward-staring obliviot. It blows my mind.

It’s not that I’m old-fashioned…I like gadgets as much as the next guy (look – I even BLOG). I just worry about a society that continues to implode exponentially inward from a glaring misconception that it needs to be in touch every minute of every hour of every day – so much so that the concept of having to do WITHOUT their redundant lifelines can throw them into frenzied panic attacks.

Maybe I am turning into a crotchety old man, but to me, the need for constant contact has eclipsed the natural desire for ACTUAL contact – be it with other people or the world around us. You can’t enjoy watching life go by of you’re too busy staring down at a 3” by 3” LCD screen.

In other words - it’s hard to stop and smell the roses when your phone keeps buzzing. Me? I’m still trying to find a good turntable stylus.

Radio Free New York Site Updates!

Just wanted to let y'all know that I've added embeds from Hank's YouTube videos to several pages on the Radio Free New York Site! Check out the WFAT, WHOT, RNI on WNYG, WHOT Returns, Current and Archives pages for some video fun. I'm hoping to get even MORE video up soon, so check out the new adds!

Also - this July, Radio Free New York will mark the 20th Anniversary of Radio New York International! While it's tenure on the radio airwaves may have been brief, it was an experience that none of us will ever forget. We have received some airchecks of some of the long-lost test broadcasts from listeners and hope to have the final test show - hosted by Hank and Jim on the day before the FCC "bust" - up soon. Has it REALLY been 20 years???

Thanks again for your continued support, aircheck tapes and for spreading the word about RFNY - it is greatly appreciated. Don't forget - your submissions, questions and comments are always welcome!

Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a great (albeit cold) Easter Sunday. We had a great weekend here – Hank and Tina Hayes came out for the wheekend and there was much joy and merriment. The four of us went to the Sellersville Theater in PA on Saturday to see The Smithereens, and they were phenomenal! It was the first time Mon and I had seen them live, and they really blew the roof off the place. It was awesome!

Of course, the drive from NJ out to PA yesterday was not without a degree of difficulty – heavy snow squalls provided some challenges, and getting back from there provided us with a scenic driving tour of greater Tinicum township – but we were none the worse for the wear today, enjoying a wonderful Easter dinner with the parental units at a nice, fancy-schmancy restaurant.

Hope everyone’s weekend was just as good!

Hope Springs Eternal

It's been a bit of a while since my last trip to the blog-o-matic, but what better a day than Opening Day?

Mere hours from now, the Yankees will take the field against the Devil Rays. Yankee Stadium will no doubt look as splendid as it always does on this special day, with the smell of freshly-mowed grass and hot dogs in the air, the sounds of various high school marching bands, the sight of red, white and blue bunting waving in the air and the sound of baseballs popping into leather gloves. Opening Day is always a grand day no matter which team you root for. The slate has been wiped clean, and as the Tigers demonstrated last year - anything is possible.

For those that have never experienced Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, it is truly something to behold - with all the pomp and pageantry of a military ceremony combined with the tradition and memories of great days gone by (and to come). On TV, it impressive; in person, it is stirring.

More than anything else, it is tradition-laden spectacles like Opening Day's splendiferous grandeur that make Baseball the king of all games - and form where it draws its' strength to survive. Baseball survives - and thrives - in 2007, despite a long amalgamation of events that over history were supposed to be harbingers of the game’s “demise”, yet it has managed to outlive them all.

Baseball has survived the Black Sox scandal, Dead Ball era, the lowering of the pitcher’s mound, Astroturf, the designated hitter, Pete Rose, several work stoppages, the absolute worst TV coverage (FOX), the idiocy of Interleague play and it will survive no-necked idiots shooting bovine growth hormone in between their toes.

Why? Because what Baseball is – a myriad of imperfections wrapped up in a blanket of total perfection – is a lot like us, both as individuals and as a Nation. There are a lot of things about this country that may not be perfect – but when you look at the alternatives, it looks pretty darn good by comparison.

Play Ball – and GO YANKS!

Calvert DeForest, 1921-2007

Just heard on the news that Calvert DeForest, the guy that played Larry "Bud" Melman on David Letterman's late night shows (you know - back when Dave was actually FUNNY) passed away today after a long illness.

DeForest's old appearances on Late Night used to crack me up. It was obvious that he had no idea what the hell he was talking about half the time, yet could milk laughs out of even the silliest concepts. Who can forget the fake commercials for "Larry 'Bud' Melman's Toast-On-a-Stick", or the nonsensical ones for "Melman Bus Lines".

There was one old Late Night where Dave put "Larry" in the basement of the Port Authority Bus Terminal to greet "travelers" as they arrived in New York City. Of course, only COMMUTERS come in the bottom floor...well, the results are intentionally and unintenrionally hilarious. Watching "Larry" hand out hot towels to weary travelers in Port Authority. Classic.

Another gem was putting "Larry" in a huge bear suit and sending him out in the street to hug people. The results were about what you could expect on the streets of NYC. Every second that ticked by was a potential train wreck waiting to happen.

DeForest's last appearance on Late Show was in 2002 on his 81st birthday.

Little known fact: Calvert's paternal great uncle, Lee DeForest, was a radio pioneer who in 1906 invented the Audion tube, also known as the triode, which made large-scale broadcasting commercially feasible - and for that I will always be eternally grateful.

Rest in peace, funny man. You'll be missed.

Back From The Fest!

Another Beatlefest in in the books, and as is my way - here is the full report!

The basic rundown:

The snow and ice caused many accidents on the roads to Secaucus, so the normal post-work 15-minute bus ride in from Port Authority took almost two hours. From the hotel window, we could spot accident after accident taking place out on the Turnpike. Looks like it was a great night for all those tow-truck drivers making overtime.

The weather made a HUGE dent in the Friday night attendance. It was probably the first time that I've ever seen an open seat in the bar on a Friday night (there was about seven people in there when I poked my head in around 10PM)! Still, the sparse attendance made for a nicer-than-usual commiseration experience with the old friends that did make it.

Attendance was more up to its' usual numbers on Saturday. Bruce Spizer's first slideshow (mainly containing material in his new book) was hindered because some of his audio / video material never made it via FedEx due to the weather! So we missed out on hearing an actual song by The Titans and WWDC playing "I Want To Hold Your Hand" for the first time in the US. Bruce covered up nicely (certainly better than Ashely Simpson would have).

Ran into Billy J. Kramer in the afternoon (he was just hanging around - not an actual guest!), talked baseball with him (of all things), got a picture. I also discovered that while the inclement weather may have cut down on the number of participants in the yearly Beatle-freak show, the intensity of the ones that DID show up were definitely kicked up a notch (bam!). Definitely an interesting side show element this year.

The Smithereens were great in the afternoon (when are they not?) and The Bootlegs had a great crowd (as usual) on the second floor. Saturday night festivitites ran WAY late (Martin Lewis didn't begin his goofy panel discussion until after 1 AM in the morning - when, by the by, Liverpool was STILL playing!!!). The Blue Meanies / Mr. Neutron finally got going around 2AM and good fun was had by all.

Didn't stay around very long on Sunday (I'm STILL suffering from some flu-like symptoms, so I spent more time sleeping than partying this year, and felt a little burned out by early afternoon on Sunday). Lo and behold, here I am back at the ole homestead a few hours later.

Other things of note that were obverved this year - for the first time, probably EVER - the hotel security was extremely Nazi-riffic. There was an increased "beefy rent-a-cop" presence throughout the Crown Plaza, and they were very quick to flash their hotel-supplied rent-a-cop badges and talk tough about people making too much noise (excuse me?) and open bottles (wha?), etc. For the most part, Fest crowds are very diligent about policing themselves, so seeing a lot of heavy-handed, ham-fisted cro-magnons making threats to people that really weren't doing anything out of the "Fest norm" (singing, drinking, etc.), and stomping around like jackasses was a tad disturbing.

Other notes - heavy amounts of ice and snow caused the cover on the lovely outdoor Crown Plaza pool to cave in. A somewhat incoherent Mark ("Cap'n Crayola") Hudson grabbed the mike on the second floor Saturday afternoon while The Bootlegs were on break and made a rambling spectacle of himself. Last but not least, someone made a VERY "intereting", um...shall I say, "phallic" snowman out back some time on Friday night that was easily visible to Saturday morning breakfast diners seated near the lake-facing glass in the hotel restaurant. Looked like someone had slipped Frosty a few Viagra!

See y'all again in 2008!

Beatlefest 2007 Is This Weekend!

Or, you know - The Fest For Beatles Fans, or whatever it is being called this week!

I'm planning to arrive Friday after work, probably around 6PM. Hope to see some of you there!

FLU UPDATE: Believe it or not, still feeling somewhat sick - TWELVE DAYS after feeling the initial signs of illness coming on. Hopefully more of that will clear out by the weekend!

Pete's Influenza Diary

It was exactly one week ago today that I first started to feel the effects of The Flu. Little did I know then that it WAS "The Flu". Boy, would I be sad to learn that this year's Flu is the Nuclear Flu.

It's the Flu on Steroids.

For those of you who may think you are coming down with The Flu, here's what you have to look forward to...

Friday, March 2: This is the first inkling I have that something is wrong. I drag all day and collapse in a heap before 8PM.

Saturday, March 3: I wake up feeling OK, assuming that I was merely tired the night before. Mon and I go to breakfast, hit the Stop & Shop, pick up something for lunch and head home. Between the hours of 3PM and 9PM, it becomes apparent that something is very, VERY wrong. My temperature shoots up. My nose closes up. My head starts to feel like it's in a vise.

Sunday, March 4: I wake up feeling like something cats play with after they've killed it. I can barely get out of bed without feeling like I've run the NYC Marathon. The concept of eating anything is nauseating to me.

Monday, March 5: Called in sick. No energy. Fluctuating between feeling like I am on fire and chattering with the chills. I manage to get some soup down, but that's about it. Nighttime brings massive chills. No matter what I do, I can't get warm. Hobbes throws himself on top of me and I manage to get a few hours of restless sleep.

Tuesday, March 6: Still at home. Chills still an issue, can't breath, throat is killing me, can't stop coughing. No appetite. Headache is debilitating. Can't move because head is pounding. This is how the entire day goes.

Wednesday, March 7: Feeling only slightly better. Some of my appetite is back, choke down some soup. Blow through an 80-pack of cough drops in about four hours. Knocked off my THIRD bottle of Robitussin.

Thursday, March 8: STILL out of work. Finally able to handle some solid food. Temperature is normal for the first time since Saturday morning. Despite all this, my throat is still like razor blades and energy level is zilch.

Today, March 9: Went back to work...big mistake. By midday I feel like I've been hit by a bus. Get some backed-up work done and hit the road as soon as possible.

And here I am, seven days later. Still feel like Hell. Temperature has normalized, but the cough is killing me. Chest aches. Tired. Going to bed.

I wonder how long it will be until I feel normal again...?

Sick...and Getting Sicker

Hey Gang,

Sorry to report that I seem to have been bitten by the flu bug, and have been feeling worse by the minute all day (although it really seems to be intesifying this evening...I feel like I've been hit by a steel truck).

Therefore, I probably won't have the Podcast up tomorrow that I wanted to post, but hope to get it done some time next week.

Well - back under the blanket wit a hot tea and a cat or two.

Life Is Funny

There are people who will say that "life is funny" without really knowing what it means.

I don't mean "funny, ha-ha" - I mean, "funny, like a kick in the balls" funny. When you are young, you have this idea in your head of how you want your life to turn out. Then, one day you wake up and realize you are still going around and around in the same cul-de-sac of frustration you were in ten, fifteen years ago.

The funny part is that life will throw you a bone every once in a while, and you think "Ah, finally - things are starting to turn around the way I always expected they would". But - those feelings are often short-lived; plans get squashed; things get ruined; and you find yourself back in the same spiral, watching sands pass through the hourglass and days get ripped off the calendar one by one, month by month...and your dreams and blueprints that you drew out for yourself the aforementioned ten, fifteen years ago - are not even CLOSE to coming to fruition. If anything, they are even further away than ever.

Like it or not, things WILL conspire against the blueprints you draw out for yourself, knowingly or accidentally. But in the end, the biggest enemy is yourself - because you know you could have done things differently, but you chose the path of least resistance at every turn rather than fighting the good fight because you just didn't have the stomach to fight.

You can look around one day, and in the blink of an eye you can feel the walls closing in on you - or, feel the foundations you built around you being dismantled with the cruel, clinical precision of an undertaker - brick by painful brick. Before you know it, the foundation is gone, and the ever-closing walls - will snuff out the dreams like a tsunami on a single candle.

It's at that point when you reach your nadir. How to get back to where you expect - no, demand to be - seems like a distant, darkened light at the end of an endless tunnel (that you have no clue how to navigate).

Thank goodness that at the end of the day, there is AT LEAST an iced tea and a cat on your lap to look forward to.

The Eagles Are Gathering

Last time the anti-war crowd decended on Washington, they spent a lot of their time desecrating monuments, causing disruptions and spitting on war vets. Horrors of horrors, they will be back on March 17th.

Thanks to a heads-up from Michelle Malkin in her column today, maybe we can do something about it this time:

A 'GATHERING OF EAGLES' TO MARCH FOR AMERICA

February 28, 2007 -- HOW many times have you sat in front of the TV over the last four years, watching anti-war activists march on Washington, chase the ROTC off your local college campus, vandalize war memorials, insult the troops and wreak havoc under the surrender banner?

How many times have you thought to yourself: What can I do?

Here is the answer: Get off the sofa and join the Gathering of Eagles on March 17 in Washington, D.C.

Perhaps I shall free my schedule for this.

Please go to the GATHERING OF EAGLES WEB SITE for more info.

Some Cool Jazz After The Snow

Hope everyone is successfully dug out from last night's latest round of snow and ice (remember back in November when it was in the upper-60s?). Got "iced in" again here today and used the opprotunity to get some stuff done around the house.

Thought I'd share something that is entertaining on two levels: it's a cute cartoon, and the music is top notch (Ella and Louis - does it get any better???).

Enjoy!

Busy Week

Hey all...had a pretty busy week so not a whole lot of time to blog, which is just as well - there wasn't a whole lot going on anyway. Work, as usual these days, gave me a headache - but I did take some time out to visit Hank and Jim and do some show, which was nice (I love doin' shows, man).

As a bonus, I recorded a George Harrison tribute for his birthday tomorrow (Sunday). George would have been 64, and while he may not be around anymore, he left behind a ton of great music for all of us - so I'll be playing much GH tomorrow at 4PM ET on the one-hour WBCQ show normally hosted by H&J (thanks, guys) at 7415 on your short wave - or you can get it on the net at WBCQ's Web Site and click where it says "Click here to listen live". Check it out, we had some good fun.

By the way, in case you missed it - Punxatawney Phil called for six more weeks of Global Warming! Good thing I bought that scarf!

A Little Ice for St. Valentine's Day

Unbelievable day in progress here…after a night of freezing rain and ice, we’re now being pelted by huge chunks of frozen…stuff.

Still have power (as you can tell), but the lights HAVE flickered on and off a few times. The fireplace is in full effect and the cats are bemused by all the racket the racket the ice is making.

Check out this picture I just took of the back yard. The white stuff LOOKS like snow, but it’s actually SOLID ICE. I haven’t heard a car on I-78 (what is on top of that hill and noticeably empty) in hours (just the occasional truck that is probably salting).



Still cannot believe how bad the roads are. Made one feeble attempt to get to the train this morning – the car went sideways and we turned around and came back. Saw a few cars up on the shoulder on the way down and back.

Good to see my tax dollars at work!

PS - Yankees pitchers and catchers reported for Day 1 of Spring Training - yesterday. Go figure.

The Wild Week That Was

It's amazing what can happen in just a few short days, isn't it?

Super Bowl XXVVXXWWIIXXVVIIXX came and went in a blur, as sports and news organizations alike tripped over themselves pointing out that both coaches were African-American - something the coaches themselves kept trying to downplay without much success. Both Dungy and Smith are fine coaches (religious fellows, too), who led less-than-perfect teams to the Super Bowl on skill and guile. The fact that the 'skill and guile' parts of that equation are not being mentioned very much shows you that we still have a long way to go in this country if we're ever going to have a TRULY "color blind" society.

Astronauts gone wild: Space Shuttle astronaut Lisa Nowak popped a cotter pin and strapped on an adult diaper to drive from Texas to Florida in an effort to "confront" the lover of a fellow astronaut she'd fallen smitten with. "Confront" could mean a variety of things...Nowak had a card full of items that could have been used for a kidnapping, attack of some kind, or worse. There was a time when our Astronauts were the best and brightest we had to offer. This could be the first one that becomes eligible for NASA's experimental "shock therapy" program.

By now, unless you've been living under a rock you know who Anna Nicole Smith is and you know that she's dead. You also know that there's now a couple hundred million dollars just floating in the wind out there like Forrest Gump's feather. As a result, there has been a mad rush on potential daddies for Smith's baby, the likes of which we haven't seen since the California gold rush of the 1800s. Who knew there'd be such a huge queue of men willing to admit to repeated unprotected sex with a notorious skank (not named Britney)? Stay tuned.

Also in the news, the amazing snows in upstate New York. The poor folks in Oswego are digging out from over ten feet of the white stuff, while several other towns around the Great Lakes region break all-time records for massive snowfalls and low temperatures. At the same time, here in our neck of the woods we are waiting for a storm that's supposed to blow through on Tomorrow night, dumping snow and ice all over the Middle-Atlantic region, up to New England - with more record cold to follow.

Global Warming Fever: Catch it!

Last but not least...I don't know if you've ever seen it, but there's this repuslively horrible reality show on MTV called "My Super Sweet 16", where cameras follow the exploits of these conniving, disrespectful, annoying, spoiled, bratty, rich 16-year-old girls around while they whine and stomp and bitch and scream like the spoiled little bitches they are for half an hour while their poor, long-suffering parents arrange a multi-thousand dollar birthday party for the little twats. That's right - no punishment for being horrible human beings - just more rewards. It will actually make you physically ill watching it all unfold before your very eyes.

I can only assume that's pretty much what watching the Grammy Awards was like last night when the Ditsy Twits got all their "statement Grammys" for a bunch of songs that about eight people outside of Hollywood and New York have heard. I understand there was also a Police reunion, and Lionel Ritchie performed.

And people want to know why I NEVER watch awards shows.

All The News That Causes Fits

As many of you know, I have begun to commuting to NYC via train instead of bus. The bus was just too damn expensive and at least I know WHEN the train will get in at night

Much to my chagrin, I have learned that one problem has followed me from the bus to the train: the dreaded curse of the large tabloid.

There was ONE kind of person I hated to sit next to me on the bus: anyone with a copy of the New York Times or the Newark Star-Ledger. Let's take annoying editorial policies aside (that's enough reason right there). The freaking papers are BIG. Too big, if you want my opinion. They are big and think, and have 100 sections in each because both papers seem to think people still have about three hours to read the newspaper in the morning.

It seems that any time a guy with The Times or The Star-Ledger sits next to me, they always do the same thing. First, they start disassembling the paper like some kind of sophisticated spy puzzle: this section comes out, goes back in the bag. This section stays on top. This section is not going to be read at all, so it gets folded and crammed under their seat.

Then, they whack and smack the paper into several readable folds. Of COURSE, they ALWAYS sit with their elbows at thier sides, flush to the seat - so that you get dug in the ribs with their freaking elbows for the rest of the trip. Then, the turning of the pages...grrrr. Perhaps the number one, most-annoying trait of the large tabloid reader. Since the dopey papers are so big and unruly, the pages can't just be TURNED...oh no, the have to be snapped, slapped, pounded, twisted and crinkled...in a cacaphony of noise specifically designed to disrupt and bring to an end the extra hour of sleep that I like to squeeze in en route to a day at the salt mill.

Naturally, it's logical to assume that the lack of respect for personal space and creation of all sorts of unnecissary noise just go hand in hand with that "I'm a Times reader" or "I'm a Star Ledger" reader attitude. "I'm better than you because I read a paper the size of a 1950's-era Mobil roadmap", the Time reader being the more arrogant and oblivious of the two.

At least the Star-Ledger has a couple of comics pages.

New York Deep Freeze

This just in from the Radio Free New York weather center: the Central Park temperature at 3PM ET was 16 degrees. That's right - sixteen.

The rest of the week isn't supposed to get any warmer, either. In fact, the highest temperature for the next five days is supposed to only be in the upper-20s.

Remember back in November and early-December when it was in the 50s and 60s, and every time you turned on the news all you heard was "Global Warming this" and "Global Warming that"? Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?

Humorously, a group of U.N.-picked scientists decided last Friday was a good day to release a report claiming that the ever-dreaded Global Warming WAS happening and it'll be all over for us in a few thousand years! Never mind that the foundation of this report was all based on "predicitons" and "estimations", but very few "facts" (unlike this article HERE).

No matter how much proof there is that shows climate change is cyclical and as natural as dandelions in a sea of crab grass, there are always going to be those who insist that we'll be sorry when the Polar Ice Caps melt and pengiuns are forced to wear wife beaters. Why? Because the U.N. says so!

They also probably believe THIS.

PS - Now that Super Bowl XXVVIXXVVVIIIXXXVVV is over, the good news is that Pitchers and Catchers report in 10 days. Whee! Were those the WORST Super Bowl commercials EVER, or what???

New Classic WHOT Podcast Now Up

I know, it's been a while since the last Podcast posting...so I forced myself at mousepoint to post a new classic WHOT show from 20 years ago!

This time around, we hear the ever-frantic ramblings of Terrence Alexander Walker III, as he graces the microphone with one of his earliest WHOT shows.

WHOT-FM - February 12, 1987 Part One

WHOT-FM - February 12, 1987 Part Two

As always, don't forget to tune in to the Hank and Jim Show tonight, coming to a set of PC speakers near you! Just click Click HERE to listen!

Enjoy!

Stupid Hillary Tricks, Vol. 1

What did I say? Didn't I say it was just gonna be a matter of time before Hillary started double-speaking in only that way a Clinton can?

There's ole Hilly in Iowa on Sunday, dipping her toe in the Presidential waters and ending up with a foot in her mouth. During a Q&A session with the local media, she was asked what on the surface seemed like a legitimate question: what was it about her background that made her quailfied to deal with evil men?

In perfect Clintonesque subterfuge, Hillary avoided having to give a serious answer to the question by first repeating it, then smirking and raising an eyebrow. A crowd full of Hill-lovers seemed to "get" the joke and roared with laughter for half a minute.

The question, of course became "Well, who was the "evil man" she referring to when she pulled her Jack Benny impression?". The general consensus seems to be that she was referring to her hubby Bill. Others suggested it was a general comment about all the "evil men" in her life, like Ken Starr, George Bush, et al. Regardless, the chuckle worked: she avoided having to answer until later (when she could get a more suitable reply from her handlers).

It's intersting to note that while this vaudevillian moment was being reported all over the news, the Dem-controlled Congress was quietly working on a way to undermine the law and force a cut-and-run resolution on Iraq. Gee, this wartime campaign is shaping up to be a real laugh riot!

First, Hill denied she was trying to be funny and blamed the moment on the crowd in attendance. Then, she did a 180 and said she WAS trying to be funny, and blamed it on the media for telling her to "loosen up" in the past.

Where have I seen this strategy before? It all seems SO familiar...

You know, Bush has been on my shit list for a while now, for a variety of reasons. My biggest fear is that this non-qualified shrew will actually get elected because of W's repeated second term bumbling (remember, it was this sort of thinking that led to Jimmy Carter being in the White House, whose foreign policy ineptitude led in many ways to the explosion of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East we see today). Thankfully, there are some folks out there that will try and prevent this from happening (these folks, for one).

It's would be really nice if the GOP would put up a candidiate of substance, too. But I'm not holding my breath.

Toilet Humor: It's My Potty

Apparently, Murphy's Law also applies to the powder room.

I'm in there trying to "take care of business" earlier tonight and lo and behold, the freaking toilet won't flush. I remove the tank lid and discover that the plastic arm that pulls the chain that lifts the stopper has snapped in two.

Why do I mention this? Because this is the second time the same exact thing has happened here at Casa del Sayek since we moved in. BOTH times it happened after 8PM on a Sunday night - when either everything is closed or you have NO desire to hit the Home Depot (especially since it's snowing outside). Plastic breaks...metal rusts. You can't win.

I guess until tomorrow I'm on manual flushing duty. No pun intended.

There IS good news - the condo folks finally decided to give us a new roof, so we shouldn't have any more 'waterfall on Thanksgiving' incidents. We hope.

The office let it slip that our roof is NOW 'up to code'. Which I guess means that BEFORE the leak, it wasn't.

Make of that what you will.

Worst Kept Secret Dept.: Hillary's In

Unless you live under a rock, you know by now that Hillary officially threw her hat in the ring for the 2008 Presidential Election over the weekend. Good God, just THINKING about the concept of HILLARY possibly being the next President makes me a little queasy, so I've been deliberately avoiding making any comments about it.

Well...I just threw up in my mouth a little, so I guess it's OK to unburden myself now.

I figured out what the Clintons are a long time ago. They are the guests that came to your party (even though YOU didn't invite them - someone else thought it would be a "cool idea" to bring them along) and refuse to leave. You know the ones I'm talking about: the house is a mess, there's empty bottles and crushed tortilla chips all over the rug. All you want to do is kick them out and go to bed. You're tired, you're weary, and quite frankly - you're sick of looking at them - and once they DO leave, you hope you never see them again. But they refuse to go. They keep spilling shit on your rug, touching your books and records with greasy fingers and scaring your cats. You're in HELL.

That's the Clintons - the uninvited party guests that keep channel surfing your digital cable and eating the salsa off the sides of the bowl with thier index fingers at a quarter to five in the morning while you're struggling to stay awake on the barca lounger.

You see them FINALLY going for their coats, but you know something else is up. The wife has been saying she has a big announcement all night but hasn't made it yet. So you know it's coming. Sure, you hope she might forget, but she never forgets. You're still gonna have to sit through the announcement. Without warning, she drops the bomb on you - and it's so potentially disasterous that it keeps you awake...night after night.

Hillary dropped her bomb on Saturday - rushed mainly to counteract Barak Obama's Presidential bid announcement that came earlier in the week (Obama being the perennial empty-suit candidate..I have this visual image of the two of them whipping out light sabres at the Democratic Convention and saying, "There can be only one". Hillary's is of course, bigger). Talk about rotted pickins - the air fills with the stench of moldy, soft pumpkins. Oy and vey.

Hillary feels that she has what it takes to be the first female commander-in-chief. She's about as qualified for that job as Geena Davis. We're talking about the woman that looked the other way while her husband slipped the high hard one to any piece of ass that walked in his general direction. Under normal circumstances, women would ostracize Hillary for being a friggin' idiot. But I'm sure she will be canonized for being smart enough to stay on Bill's coattales while he drained the noodle.

The Clintons are the emodiment of self-absorbed political arrogance. Why not? They have (either seperately or together) gotten free rides from the media and magistrate alike on such unseemly matters at Travelgate, Whitewatergate, Cattlegate, Gennifergate, Filegate, Paulagate, LincolnBedroomgate, Hubbellgate, Chinagate, Auditgate, Pardongate...oh, I could go on and on. Former associates would rather rot to death in prison than turn on them. So why SHOULD they feel anything other than Teflon-coated arrogance?

Of course, Bill and Hill's greatest legacies will be Lewinsky, having their heads in the sand while the 9/11 plot was being hatched (and having enough pull to get a movie about it edited beyond recognition) and extremely skillfull carpetbaggery. With everything the two of them have been able to get away with, I would put nothing past them - even this.

Today officially began campaign Week One for Hilly. I'm sure she already hit the department stores to stock up on new pantsuits. While she talks about having a "discussion" on her web site, let's see how long it takes before she starts talking out of both sides of her mouth.

The clock...starts...NOW.

Another Weekend

Well, another week is in the can, and what a week it was. It finally snowed for more that ten seconds here - in fact, we got about two inches of snow in the wee early hours on Friday, which made the drive down to the train station quite the adventure. It's all gone now, but the cold decided to hang around. Another day by the fireplace watching TV and being surrounded by cats. I love days like this.

So - I'm now into my third week of commuting to Manhattan via train instead of bus. I thought that I would tire of the Newark / PATH transfer thing, but it's actually started to grow on me. The bus commute had gotten SO bad and SO expensive, I don't miss it at all. Plus, it's nice to know you are going to get home at the same time every day, not at the time the bus decides to get you home. Not bad at all.

I have not posted the WHOT 2nd Anniversary show YET because I am still trying to put the show back in proper order. Apparently, in 1982 Hank and Jim decided to have TWO "second anniversary shows" - one on October 8 and ANOTHER on October 15. Then Jim recorded BOTH shows over the same four reel to reel tapes - on different sides. So figuring out which tape is part of which show is becoming quite the challenge. On top of that, I am pretty sure one of the tapes is MISSING. So some more rummaging through the tapes will be required before I can post the show properly. In the meantime, I'll try to get something else up in the next day or two.

In case any of you missed Comet McNaught's appearance a week ago, you really missed something. McNaught was actually visible IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY here in the Northern Hemisphere (I saw it in the parking lot of Shop Rite and thought I was hallucinating)...but the BIG story is what it is currently doing in the SOUTHERN Hemisphere. We may not be able to see this unreal display first hand, but the photos will knock your socks off. Trust me, you've never seen anything quite like this from a comet. Check out the photo gallery HERE.

Last but not least, somebody sent me THIS mildly amusing blog link that points out some of the more, um, annoying aspects of MySpace. The guy can't spell too good, plus he's a smarmy jerk (the layout of that blog ain't so swift, either), and MySpace has made a lot of improvements since he wrote all that stuff - but he DOES have some valid points, especially the ones about rabid Bulletin posters and ridiculous page layouts. Thankfully, some of us still use MySpace for the purposes it was intended for. At least we TRY to.

If I ever get annoying like that guy or the goofballs he's writing about, just tell me.

UPDATE: It tuns out that Kris, they guy that wrote the schpiel about the MySpace insanity e-mailed me and he's a pretty cool guy, so I take back my snarky little pissant comments...!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Maybe y'all didn't notice but Old Man Winter finally arrived. After dumping a couple of buckets of ice on the midwest, it's now bitch-ass cold here in the western reaches of New Jersey. As I write this, it's 15 degrees (gasp!) going down to 11 overnight (double gasp!).

Thankfully, as you can see above, the old fireplace is doing it's thang and keeping our tootsies and kitties warm and toasty. Where would I be without the fireplace...probably in debt to JCP&L up to my frozen nipples.

Looks like we might even have a couple of inches of snow tomorrow. Will wonders ever cease? It's amazing what a little shift in the jet stream will do: a couple of weeks ago at this time it was in the 60s and all the doom-n-gloom Al Gore chicken littles were running around like the sky was falling - and now, half the citrus crop has been frozen solid (good for frozen concentrate - not so good for fresh squeezed). Which just goes to show you that the weather - believe it or not - CHANGES from time to time. I know...hard to believe!

In other matters - the aircheck archive project has yielded some really delightful (unfrozen) fruit lately. Several unlabeled reel-to-rell tapes ended up having the WHOT 2nd Anniversary Show from 10/15/82 on them! As soon as I can get out of the clutches of the flu bug and assemble the show into a cohesive order, I'll put it up on the Podcast for all to enjoy!

The sleep weasels AND the ice weasels are calling me, so off to bed I go. Keep warm kids!

Just Sitting Around...

Hey hey,

I was sitting here tonight working on the Archive and I figured I'd get some stuff off my mind as I am feeling a tad stressed out tonight.

So far, 2007 has been pretty stressful. I switched from taking the bus to taking the train in to work to try and save a few bucks - and let's just say it will take some getting used to. I certainly will be getting my walking in from now on! I'm also slightly concerned about my job as the particular office I work in has become the dumping ground for all the crap that no one else wants to do since the merger and layoffs.

It's basically been the busiest it's ever been since I started working there, and they're still giving us MORE work to do that we don't have time for. Add into the mix that we are about to spring a new product on the unsuspecting masses that (I am sad to report) is so FRIGHTENINGLY user-unfriendly that I am positive it's going to be like mailing out a train wreck in a box. The debris from which is sure to fall squarely on us.

Because of all of this, as well as OTHER stressful things going on right now, I just feel tired, anxious and completely stresed out. The good feelings I had while on vacation are completely gone, and I just don't know if I am coming or going.

I'm hoping that 2007 does not continue to be the fickle bitch she has been (at least for me) so far.

Back to the tapes...