Monday, September 29, 2008

How Did This Financial Mess Happen?

I know better than anyone that we're not all economic wizards and we don't all understand how things happen - just that they happen.

If you have about ten minutes, this is one of the simplest, clearest explanations of what happened to lead us into this mess. It's important that everyone take some time for a little Economics 101 and watch this clip.

As Fat Albert used to say, "We might even learn something before it's done. Hey hey hey!"...

UPDATE 9/30: Despite several attempts by "interested parties" in getting this clip pulled from YouTube, it lives! Let's see how long it lasts this time...

Sunday, September 28, 2008

AGAIN? REALLY?

Oh...my...GOD!

THEY DID IT AGAIN. The Mets were eliminated from the post-season on the LAST DAY OF THE SEASON - and on the day they closed Shea Stadium, no less! Seems like a fitting send-off.

Two years in a row...really? This is unbelievable. I would once again like to thank the New York Mets, their front office and their fans for making it suck a little bit less to be a Yankees fan tonight.

The Yankees may not be going to the post-season either, but at least they didn't get ousted in spectacular fashion. Two years in a row (did I mention that?). I knew the Yankees had no shot a month ago. Despite that, I shall have blissful sleep tonight.

Once again, the gang over at Enough Lupica sum it all up rather succinctly:

Friday, September 19, 2008

Farewell, Old Home

I saw my last game at OLD Yankee Stadium last night - the Yanks won 9-2, but that was secondary. It was a chance for me to say goodbye to a place I spent a large chunk of my life in. I have not done the math but I'd be willing to bet that I've spent about as much time in Yankee Stadium as I have anywhere else.

I was torn...one one hand, I am extremely excited about the new Coliseum-like Stadium being built across the street. If you know me, you know that I have been looking forward to this new Stadium for quite some time. The current Yankee Stadium, while certainly a classic, is a tainted one. The renovation of the early-70s robbed The Stadium of much of it's character; the facade/frieze was taken down, the big scoreboard removed and the open-air "feel" replaced almuminum roofing and clinical, blue-painted concrete. As my Dad was wont to say, "they took all the life out of it". For all intents and purposes, "Old Yankee Stadium" officially closed for good in 1973.

Adding insult to injury, the 70s "renovation" was a slap-dash affair; new structures were built on the 100-plus year old skeleton (a huge chunk of which gave way during the early months of the magical 1998 season), like cement poured on Chernobyl. As a result, the renovation did not stand up to the test of time. Cracks appeared in the new cement within a few years that kept re-forming and getting patched year in and year out. It was only a matter of time before a new Stadium would need to be built.

I took one more walk around the old place before taking my seat. I stopped to get a hot dog and soda from one of the attitude-laden concession stands folks for old time's sake (I won't miss them). As I took my seat in the upper deck - and as the game went on - I scanned for the various places I'd sat in over the years. I rememberd the great games I'd seen here - ALCS-ending HRs from Chambliss in '76 and Boone in 2003...Dave Righetti's no-hitter in '83...Mattingly's last regular-season at-bat in '95 (a double)...a World Series clincher in 1999...all the games I saw from the bleachers (oh, how many second-hand contact highs did I get as a pre-pubescent kid out there...?)...and I got a little choked up looking around at all the places I sat with my Dad over the years.

After the last pitch I walked the same ramps out of the old place just like I had hundreds of times before. This time, I walked slowly, looking around was all the nooks, crannies and signs one last time. "No running". "Slippery when wet". As I walked down to the D train to head to Brooklyn, I turned and took one last look at the old girl, the lights illuminating the now-empty upper deck.

Next year will be full of excitement and pageantry as a sparkling new ballpark, one that corrects the sins laid bare by a quickie renovation some 35 years ago, is unvelied. I will be excited, too - and I am sure my first trip to the NEW Stadium will be full of eagerly-awaited awesomeness - but last night, it was all about remembering the days gone by that will soon be no longer - and saying a fond farewell.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Boycotting 'Us'? We Did!

Published reports say that Jann Wenner-published puff rag 'Us Weekly' has lost anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 subsribers since putting out a shameful smear job on VP candidate Sarah Palin last week. Good for them. This exercise in yellow journalism came less than a month after 'Us' published a hugs-and-kisses softball-tossing love-fest about Barack Messiah Hussein.

Wenner made one tactical error when he decided to reprint bullshit posts from Daily Kos as "sources": the housewives that waste money on his glossy shitrag are NOT the same tired, living-in-the-past hippes and wannabe West Side eletists that read his useless music tabloid Rolling Stone (a magazine that hasn't been relevant since...well, ever).

Mon and I won't be spending a red cent (appropriate term, isn't it?) on any future issues of 'Us', and if you think as I do that bullshit needs to be called out as bullshit, or are not aware of the whole 'Us' controversy, you can read all about it HERE.

As I once told a subscription salesperson from the NY Daily News, if all toilet paper had been abolished and the only thing that kept me from being clean or living with a lifetime of itchy, nasty personal rashes, I wouldn't even wipe my ass with an issue of "Us Weekly'.

Behind The Wall of Sheep

I love the Smithereens and I always have, since the first time I heard the "Especially for You"LP back in the summer of 1986. WHOT...