Journeys with George

Touchdown

2011-02-06T22:11:00.000-05:00

Packers 31, Steelers 25. How sweet it is...

Dateline Australia - Day One

2011-01-15T07:57:00.000-05:00

I had an elaborate plan to jot down every step of misfortune that I encountered during the past three days, but it came across as petty considering I'm complaining about how I arrived in the midst of a beautiful Australian summer while it's -1 degrees with torrential snow back home. So let's skip to the bottom of the page on that one, although I first have to quote myself considering we had nearly identical circumstances as a year ago:

my assignment with ESPN's Event Production department has brought me to Melbourne as part of the team covering the 2010 Australian Open tennis tournament. Now that we're here, everybody is taking a moment to relax and re-charge before the real work begins over the next 17 days. Good thing too, because if I were asked to sum up the experience so far in a single sentence, here goes: "Anybody who ever said 'getting there is half the fun' has obviously never flown to Australia."

Last year it was at LAX, this year it was at SFO, both years it was United Airlines and the extremely shady "aircraft servicing" delay. Despite the four-hour plus delay, it's hard to get too cranky when it's a crisp 80 degrees here in our work environment. If it's going to be a royal pain to get somewhere, it might as well be somewhere nice and warm.

A year ago I opened the journal of Australian Open travel with a blow-by-blow of said difficult trip, but with exception of departing thru San Francisco instead of Los Angeles, the song remained the same so I'll skip ahead to more pleasant topics. Like the upcoming Green Bay Packers playoff game, which begins in a little over 12 hours - the time difference is so striking that what is a primetime Saturday night game will for us Down Under be like a regular NFL Sunday back home in the Central Time Zone, kicking off promptly at 12 noon. Gonna be a good one and hopefully Aaron Rodgers can get the Pack over the hump after narrowly missing out in their first trip to Atlanta.

About the only thing I can say to top this all off is, time shifting aside, make a little room on that viewing calendar for the Australian Open if your a tennis fan. There's a lot about this event which is super cool and unique, and almost oddly liberating since it takes place what the other half of the world calls the dead of winter and most of the rest of the world calls the middle of the night. Tune in starting at 6:30 PM ET on Sunday night in the States. Until tomorrrow...

New Year, New Journey - Second Stanza

2011-01-11T22:51:00.000-05:00

OK, time to fire this thing back up. Not that the occasional rando-blog about Dan Gilbert's crazed caps-filled rants (in Comic Sans) isn't bloggable material, but I've got to do better than that. No better time to start than with another travelogue. Here's the teaser - check back in starting Thursday morning for the main course:

Sweetheart I'm bidding you fond farewell
Murmured the youth one day
I'm off to a new land my fortune to try
And I'm ready to sail away

Far away in Australia
Soon will fate be kind
And I will be ready to welcome the lass
The girl I left behind

Must we be parted this fair one cried
I cannot let you go
Still I must leave you, the young man replied
But for only a while you know

Whether it's success or failure
I will always be true
Proudly each day in a land far away
I'll be building a home for you

Daily she waits at the old cottage gate
Watching the whole day through
Till a sweet message comes over the waves
In a new world to join two

Far away in Australia
Soon will fate be kind
And I will be ready to welcome the lass
The girl I left behind

I'll explain later.

I'm Glad to See He's Not Taking This Personally...

2010-07-08T23:21:00.003-04:00

I need to get back into full-time blogging shape, but for now I just have one thought after the conclusion of the no-ring circus known as "The Decision: LeBron".

At least Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert took an opportunity to show a little dignity in all of this.

Right?

Somehow I have the sneaky feeling we're going to learn Cavaliers.com was hacked this evening. If not, well...judge for yourself:

A Letter From Cavaliers Majority Owner Dan Gilbert

Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;

As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.

This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his "decision" unlike anything ever "witnessed" in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.

Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.

The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.

There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.

You simply don't deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.

You have given so much and deserve so much more.

In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:

"I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE"

You can take it to the bank.

If you thought we were motivated before tonight to bring the hardware to Cleveland, I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our "motivation" to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels.

Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there.

Sorry, but that's simply not how it works.

This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown "chosen one" sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And "who" we would want them to grow-up to become.

But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called "curse" on Cleveland, Ohio.

The self-declared former "King" will be taking the "curse" with him down south. And until he does "right" by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.

Just watch.

Sleep well, Cleveland.

Tomorrow is a new and much brighter day....

I PROMISE you that our energy, focus, capital, knowledge and experience will be directed at one thing and one thing only:

DELIVERING YOU the championship you have long deserved and is long overdue....

Dan Gilbert
Majority Owner
Cleveland Cavaliers

Year Gone By

2010-05-03T14:05:00.003-04:00

Stunning for me to think about how it's been a year since I started this thing (minus 2-days) and I only missed my pledge of one blog entry per day by 273 entries (honestly, the over/under was 1 week).

The biggest thing was that holding me up was I would usually get to the point of "almost" finishing a post and then saying to myself, 'I'll wrap this up tomorrow', and naturally 18 days would go by before the thought would even occur to me to check back, by which time the post was hopelessly outdated. Witness this entry from what was intended to be the epic last entry from Australia (I styled it as a Bill Simmons-esque "running diary"):

11:27 AM: Got a note about tonight's broadcast, or should I say an assignment: please help compile some photos for quick features that will compare the long British tennis drought with other suffering sports institutions: the Chicago Cubs and the city of Cleveland. Anybody who knows me knows at least a couple of things:

1) It's not that I think the world would be better off if the Cubs organization didn't exist...I know it for a fact.
2) The same principle applies to the city of Cleveland.

So reading this, the first thing that comes to mind for me is not how I now "have" to help design a feature that puts these utter failures on display, it's that I get to. This was the last-minute jolt I needed to get my enthusiasm back to the proper level!

With the benefit of two month's hindsight though, this diary was too good to let it be consigned to internet scrap heap. I'll post the full thing later tonight (I can tell you all wait with baited breath...)

Down Under, Day 16: Another Lazy Day in St. Kilda

2010-01-30T04:15:00.001-05:00

It's amazing to think about everything that's gone on over the course of the last 16 days, and now my time in Australia is just about finished. Soon I'll have to trade 24 degrees Celsius for 24 degrees Fahrenheit (far from a fair exchange if you ask me), but I can't get greedy at this stage. I've been incredibly fortunate to have the chance to come down here and be a small part of an amazing team. Plus, I still can rub it in for a little while longer. Check out the view from St. Kilda tonight:

I'm a Midwestern guy, so I don't have high beach standards (and trust me St. Kilda, you're a far improvement from St. Joe Beach just off campus back at Notre Dame), but I'm told by people who know such things that St. Kilda's pretty far down the list of Australia's best beaches...or maybe not even on it. Having seen some of the vistas on the Australia tourism film shoots, I can see where they are coming from, but I'm certainly in no mood to complain. The sun was shining and the water was a cool 70 degrees (maybe colder, but it felt good to just lean back and float in the ocean with nothing to do for a brief while).

Back at the hotel now and relaxing for a brief moment; currently Serena Williams and Justine Henin are locked in a close fight for the women's title. I'm heading back to the park to check out the gift shop, which I hope is in an "Everything Must Go/Cut Prices Like Crazy Eddie" mode. Even if not, I promise I'll bring back some cool stuff.

One day more, and then the great Australian journey is finished...

Down Under, Day 15: The Genius Really IS At Work

2010-01-29T09:55:00.001-05:00

“What moves those of genius, what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.”

I wish I could get better-quality versions of the "panorama" shots to appear in these posts themselves, but I guess they are just too big. Click on the photo above to get a better widescreen appreciation of the view inside Rod Laver Arena. The "stitch" program on my Mac actually does a real good job of linking together the iPhone photos in order to make a nice whole, even if certain people manage to appear in two places at once (look carefully at the ballkid in pink standing near the net).

Got a chance to see a match tonight for the first time at a slam, and it was a pretty good first trip - Roger Federer vs. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semifinals of the year's first major. The match itself promised a lot of sizzle, and as long as you were a Federer die-hard, it delivered. Those who enjoy competitive tennis were probably a little let down, as it looked like Federer was hardly trying and knocked out Tsonga cold in 90 minutes 6-2, 6-3, 6-2.

Up in the corner of the arena, as they are at every match he plays down here, there was a group that I can only surmise is the Roger Federer Stalkers Club of Melbourne. I have seen them on footage of every Federer match, every Federer practice, and I'm not talking about only here in 2010. It's like they hibernate for the rest of the year and emerge in Australia only for these two weeks. Anyway, they carry a big banner (cherry red like the Swiss flag) that proclaims "Shh!! Genius at work!" Having now seen him live and in person, I have to completely agree.

It's not that Federer can never be beaten (ask Rafael Nadal or Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina), it only seems that way. When he's on his game, and he's very rarely off it, the stunning thing isn't so much the quality of his tennis as much as the way he delivers it. I'm far from an expert on the game, but even I know great athleticism and a wonderful shot when I see one. Federer seems to have both in excess and hardly ever seems to be trying that hard to provide them. With a lot of other players that's not the case - you see the sweat, hear the grunts, can tell just how hard & far they're pushing themselves to be great. Federer might as well be lounging on the back porch with an iced tea for all the "effort" he appears to be giving.

This is his secret, of course. Probably because he routinely carves up high-quality opponents (Tsonga is a Top 10 player and made the final here in 2008), we take for granted how hard he must work, how deep his desire runs. It has to, otherwise he'd be bored out of his mind and retired by now. The guy simply loves to play tennis, watch tennis, and more than likely enjoys watching himself beat others while playing tennis. It was far from a scintillating match tonight - the most newsworthy event happened in the post-match interview when Federer fueled the fire of Andy Murray by joking, "He'll have to win the first title for British tennis in 150,000 years or something like that" - but it was amazing to see Federer play. And if we are going to proclaim the man a genius on the tennis court (there'd be few, if any, counter-arguments), we ought to remember what Thomas Edison said:

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Video of match point:

Down Under, Day 14: Stupid Tourist Questions

2010-01-28T06:03:00.000-05:00

I noticed on the first day that I was impressed by the good-humored and fun-loving nature of the Australians, particularly how they could tackle the cheeky questions from dumb tourists with considerable flair. Just outside of the operations office in the broadcast compound is the following list, which I think sufficiently demonstrates my point:

Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)
A: Upwards, out of the ground, like the person who asked this question, who themselves will need watering if their IQ drops any lower...

Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)
A: Depends on how much beer you've consumed ...

Q: Which direction should I drive - Perth to Darwin or Darwin to Perth - to avoid driving with the sun in my eyes? (Germany)
A: Excellent question, considering that the tournament is being held in Melbourne.

Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles, so you'll need to have started about a year ago to get there in time...

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Australia? (Sweden)
A: And accomplish what?

Q: It is imperative that I find the names and addresses of places to contact for a stuffed porpoise. (Italy)
A: I'm not touching this one...

Q: My client wants to take a steel pooper-scooper into Australia. Will you let her in? (South Africa)
A: Why? We do have toilet paper here...

Q: Are there any ATMs in Australia? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville and Hervey Bay? (UK)
A: No, I can't.

Q: Where can I learn underwater welding in Australia? (Portugal)
A: Under water?

Q: Do the camels in Australia have one hump or two? (UK)
A: What's the time frame?

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia? (UK)
A: Why bother? Use your fingers like the rest of us ...

Q: Do you have perfume in Australia? (France)
A: No. Everybody stinks.

Q: Do tents exist in Australia? (Germany)
A: Yes, but only in sporting supply stores, peoples' garages, and most national parks ...

Q: Can I wear high heels in Australia? (UK)
A: This HAS to have been asked by a blonde ...

Q: Can you tell me the regions in Tasmania where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)
A: Yes. Gay nightclubs.

Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in Australia? (France)
A: Yes. At Christmas.

Q: Can I drive to the Great Barrier Reef? (Germany)
A: Sure, if your vehicle is amphibious.

Q: Are there killer bees in Australia? (Germany)
A: Not yet, but we'll see what we can do when you get here.

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia? (USA)
A: What's this guy smoking, and where do I get some?

Q: Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round? (Germany)
A: Another blonde?

Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)
A: I love this one ... there are no rattlesnakes in Australia.

Q: Which direction is North in Australia? (USA)
A: Face North and you should be about right.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Americans have long had considerable trouble distinguishing between Austria and Australia.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Australia, but I forget its name. It's a kind of bear and lives in trees. (USA)
A: Would you believe the Panda?

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Australia? (USA)
A: From Liz Taylor, perhaps?

Q: Are there places in Australia where you can make love outdoors? (Italy)
A: Yes. Outdoors.

Q: I was in Australia in 1969 on R+R, and I want to contact the girl I dated while I was staying in Kings Cross. Can you help? (USA)
A: No. And even if I could ...

Q: Will I be able to speek English most places I go? (USA)
A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first.

Naturally, I was a little disappointed to find out that this wasn't quite the solid-gold article it appears to be. Rather than be an actual list of responses from the Australian Tourism Board, it is (like most things these days) a popular and widely circulated internet urban legend. It first spread during the run-up to the 2000 Sydney Olympics and has since been slightly reworked; versions exist for the upcoming World Cup in South Africa ("kangaroos in the street" became "elephants in the street") and Vancouver, for the Winter Games which start in February ("I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto..."). Full details on the "legend" here.

One of the interesting things to note is how many international fans are here at the tournament - as I chronicled, for many people Australia isn't exactly a short trip across town, it's 10,000 miles in any direction. But there's been a healthy contingent for just about every player here, which of course doesn't hurt when organizers are trying to sell the game as an international spectacle (they call this tournament, alternatively, "Your ticket to the world" or "Where the world comes to play"). British, Chinese, Greek, Serbian, Croatian, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss, Argentines, Chileans, and I'm pretty sure I saw an Australian or two (plus a couple of Yankees). It all gives the "happy slam" a true melting pot feel that I haven't noticed - at least not to the same degree - at Wimbledon and the US Open.

So while, no lie, I was a little let down to realize our list of stupid tourist questions wasn't an original Australian work of art, there's no question that they know how to have fun down here - and are more than eager to welcome everybody to the party.

Down Under, Day 13: Rockets Red Glare

2010-01-27T03:50:00.000-05:00

Moving on to the late stage of the tournament, so the chaos of the early days cedes to the intensity that descends now that only a few big names and big matches are left to go. Serena Williams was facing a steep up-hill climb today after dropping the first set and being down 4-0 in the second, but she surged all the way back to win in three against Victoria Azarenka.

Last night was the celebration of Australia Day, the rough down under equivalent to the Fourth of July, complete with a booming fireworks spectacular. Play was actually stopped for ten minutes at Rod Laver Arena (Andy Murray playing Rafael Nadal at the time) so the show could fill the air with loud - very loud - explosions before resuming the tennis. A quick little iPhone video I grabbed of it:

Down Under, Day 12: Hurt So Bad

2010-01-26T07:53:00.002-05:00

Although I'll always have a special place in my heart for swimming & water polo (and be more than ready to throw down with people who wonder "just how hard can it be to splash around in the pool") one of the things I'm noticing more and more about tennis is the deceptively grueling nature of the sport.

As a professional endeavor, tennis was never the laid-back country club affair most of the world associates it with. You always had to be fit, athletic, and agile if you were going to keep up. But in today's game, with stronger and faster players and rapidly evolving technology, the grind has become nearly too much to bear for even the most freakishly fit of athletes. We saw that in living color today as two of the most recognizable stars in the men's game bowed out of the tournament, both having their game severely undercut by injuries.

First, this afternoon (late last night for those of you back in the states), Andy Roddick struggled and gutted through five agonizing sets against Marin Cilic before losing 6-3 in the fifth. He called out the trainer on two separate occasions to look at a shoulder injury that first popped up during his match Sunday against Fernando Gonzalez, and said afterwards he was losing feeling in his fingers during the first two sets. A shot of painkillers and creative re-working of the game plan brought him from two sets down against Cilic, but he wasn't able to climb all the way back. Another hearty effort for naught in the past 12 months for Roddick, after a similar rally at the US Open ended with a fifth-set tiebreak loss to John Isner, which of course followed the memorable Wimbledon final last July against Roger Federer.

On to the evening session (which is really early in the morning back home): the defending champion of the event was dethroned with a retirement for the second straight year. Like Novak Djokovic in 2009 against Roddick, Rafael Nadal was being abused in the quarterfinals by an opponent named Andy (Murray, the #5 seed from Scotland), then ultimately threw in the towel. Stunning on a number of levels considering all the justified "freak of nature" praises the Spaniard gets, and it was a pretty swift turn of events watching it live down here. Nadal was his usual full-throttled self when the match began, popping off a couple impressive rallies and the super-charged reactions that go with them, but Murray capitalized on two early opportunities to break serve & take the first set. That's when the wear and tear began to set in, and Nadal appeared to pull up with a "tweaked" knee in the late stages of the match before retiring at 3-0 in the third. Even before the moment of injury though, he was beginning to show noticeable signs of battle fatigue from the Murray onslaught.

This is impressive on the Murray side of things because not many players - not even Federer - have the distinction of bullying Nadal to the point of tapping out. Yet that's precisely what the champion did after 3 dismal games to open the third set while already trailing 2 sets to none. Nadal admitted afterward the move had a little calculation behind it in terms of the "big picture" - he felt he had no chance to win the match and saw no reason to risk another major setback to knees that had spent the second half of 2009 in rehabilitation mode. He'll be out for a month, but who knows what condition he'll be in when he comes back.

Roddick and Nadal were merely the latest in a long line of walking wounded at this event, which you would think (given its status at the first major and only the third or fourth tournament overall in the calendar) could avoid seeing a lot of players worn down by injury. Yet that's precisely what has happened to many top players: Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina (wrist), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (wrist), Tommy Haas (back), Roddick (shoulder), Nadal (knee), Marcos Baghdatis (knees and shoulder), Lleyton Hewitt (hip), and Robin Soderling (elbow/exhaustion...proving again my "knowledge" of the sport, I was convinced this Swede could make a run deep to the tournament final. What a stupid I am). The women aren't faring much better: top seed Serena Williams keeps adding more gauze around her knees & thighs with every match she plays, as does Justine Henin (you'd think with two years off at least she would be fresh). The same night Roddick was soldiering on against Gonzalez, the women's #2 seed Dinara Safina hobbled off the court, retired with ankle & back pain.

So is it that this sport takes too much out of you, or even weirder, not enough? The fact that the Australian Open occurs so early in the calendar may be part of the problem - players not only were still playing regularly until November of 2009, denying them a true off-season, they then have to urge themselves into top form on the heels of a very short break for the holidays. The level of tennis just isn't there across the board at the start of a season which follows so quickly on the heels of the old one, and players scrambling to keep up find themselves in the infirmary more than the winner's circle.

Despite whatever calendar problems might be out there - plenty of top men & women are on the record with complaints that the season is too long - here's my theory on what might seem like an abnormal pile-up of injuries: the athleticism it takes to be a professional tennis player now is off the charts. Even big lumbering guys like Cilic & JMDP of Argentina have a stunning amount of power & agility; if they didn't, there would simply be no hope for them to compete. And when you have a group of athletes constantly pushing each other to the physical limit like that, injuries happen. The human body was only designed to take so much abuse, to be stopped & started & turned on a dime only so often before it snaps under pressure. You just hope players figure out ways to battle through it.

** Pretty long entry today, but I didn't get in the daily note on Australian culture. That's a little surprising considering today was Australia Day, the continent-nation's answer to the Fourth of July, complete with an absolutely stunning fireworks display that would rival anything we see back home on Independence Day. I grabbed a quick video; I'll post that tomorrow. Fair trade?

Down Under, Day 11: Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles...

2010-01-25T05:15:00.001-05:00

It's already late in the evening on Monday, but I wanted to put this out there so everybody who might not have already been linked to it can see it. This is straight-up inspirational stuff. The Late Night saga has been recapped and dissected by probably millions of bloggers by now, so I won't chew up many more megabytes with my own thoughts except to say this: it would have been so easy to view this moment as cheap and insincere, the tradeoff Conan had to give to NBC in an exchange for them to be embarrassed as little as possible considering how much they've monumentally f*&ked things up to this point.

It wasn't. It was 100% genuine from the gut - and this from a man who absolutely got screwed with his pants on in front of a worldwide television audience. If Conan O'Brien can stand up and say these things, at a moment when nobody would blame him for being bitter and stand-offish, than there might just be hope for the rest of us.

Ladies & Gentleman, Conan's Final Thoughts:

Down Under, Day 10: America vs. Chile

2010-01-24T08:55:00.002-05:00

Even though I'm very much a novice in the world of tennis, I have picked up a few trends after months of sifting through footage and learning some of the ins & outs of how the sport has unfolded. Here's a pattern I think I'm picking up on: if you have to pick one of the four majors that's most likely to be chock full of whiz-bang, don't-change-that-channel thrillers, pick the Australian Open.

Two years ago was The Longest Day, when Roger Federer played a five-set match that went two hours overdue, delaying the start of a Venus Williams match that still took over two hours to play even though it was a straight sets win, and finally there was the Hewitt-Baghdatis match that stretched on until 4:34 AM local time (the rematch last night that I hyped so "brilliantly" fizzled by the way, as Baghdatis was forced into retirement by a shoulder injury while in the middle of getting his lunch handed to him). Last year in the tournament's final 48 hours Rafael Nadal spent almost 10 of them on court, outlasting Fernando Verdasco in a five-hour, five-set semi and then returning Sunday night to beat Federer in a 4.5 hour, five-set final. These are just two recent examples, and 2010 has seen the trend continue unabated.

Day Three gave us a five-setter between Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina (again, the man's full and proper name) and James Blake that saw them play until 10-8 in the fifth set. On Day 4 Baghdatis & Tommy Haas each needed five sets to advance, and on Day 5 Roddick & Nadal both were in danger of being pushed to five before winning in the fourth set; Fernando Gonzalez of Chile mounted a comeback against Evgeny Korolev to win in five also. Day 6, more of the same as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Haas played four agonizing sets, and keep in mind I'm only concentrating on the men's half of the draw, where admittedly the potential for drama is higher as the match has the possibility of dragging on "as-long-as-it-freakin'-takes" with no final set tiebreaks and the inherent anxiety that builds in a decisive fifth set.

Which bring us to Day 7 here at the Open, and probably the best double-decker of men's matches a tennis fan could ask for. At this point I wouldn't be ready to declare myself a tennis fan, because despite being more conscious of it than I ever was before I began to cover it for a living, I can't truly claim to know and appreciate the game like many of my colleagues do. This is not to say I dislike it all - quite the opposite, as the more I'm around it the more I appreciate it, but I still am only at the stage where I really grasp who the good players are (perhaps more significantly, what makes them good. Like the other great country club sport of golf, tennis has a "I can't define good, but I know it when I see it" flavor). One of the things I definitely enjoy are the distinct personalities - because it's such an intensely personal sport, a player has to drive his/her self out there on the court at all times. No team dynamic, no "chemistry" to perfect, no "role players". It is always mano y mano in the asphalt jungles of tennis (clay & grass jungles during the summertime, naturally.)

As I was saying though, today's action brought two absolute barn-burners, curiously enough involving both of my favorite personalities from South America - Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, and "El Bombardero de la Reina", Fernando Gonzalez of Chile. Since it is now impossible for these two men to meet in the next round and elevate the Argentina-Chile rivalry to a whole new level, we must settle for the terrific and passionate show they put on in defeat. JMDP of Argentina was the first to bow out, losing a marathon to up-and-coming Croatian Marin Cilic, who's making a habit of pushing himself to the brink with two five-setters in his first four matches. Can't Croatians do anything the easy way? (You know I'm kidding, Mom)

Then in primetime for us in Australia, early Sunday morning back home, was the pride of America Andy Roddick up against the pride of Chile in Gonzalez. First Roddick was in control, then Gonzalez seized momentum, then Roddick was hurt, then he was motivated, then a super-close replay at the close of the fourth set completely swung the match and took all the wind out of the fiery Chilean. A shame, too, because there were plenty of his native fans inside Rod Laver Arena no doubt ready to set off a flare (or two dozen). The official breaking point came when El Bombardero gave away his first serve game in the final set with a double fault and promptly karate-chopped his racket. To say it was a "smashed" or "broken" racquet is to do the incident grave disservice - this thing shattered on impact, and the whole time you were left thinking "If only he were still smacking forehands like that in the match..." For good measure he tossed the poor, abused racket up into the crowd before retrieving a new one.

Gear aside though, The Man from La Reina fell in five dramatic sets to Roddick, who thankfully won't be facing a well-rested opponent as he and Cilic will both be forced to recover from a grueling day on the courts. The saving grace for everybody - us, the fans, and especially the players - has been the extraordinarily manageable Australian weather, never getting much about 80 or below 70 during the first week; the only blips on the radar at all were some rain clouds on the first two days. The Round of 16 continues tomorrow with headliners like Roger Federer vs. Lleyton Hewitt; click on the tube early to see if the marathon match fun continues.

Down Under, Day 9: Lazy Day Off

2010-01-23T02:25:00.001-05:00

They say Australia is the land of no worries, and having just gotten back from a wonderful afternoon of sitting on the beach in St. Kilda doing nothing, I can't disagree.

I did take time to shoot a couple of videos to let you all back home in the 20-degree weather get a sense of what you've been missing...

Just up the road from the beach was what has now taken Wally World's place as the most broke-ass amusement park in history...

Anyway, back at the Westin now and just relaxing - tonight's featured tennis match is the native son, Lleyton Hewitt, versus Captain Insano of Greece Marcos Baghdatis. Two years ago these same players met on a Saturday night in the third round and played until 4:30 AM. Since they're the first match of the night this time around, duplicating that feat would be quite impressive.

Down Under, Day 8: Artistic Court Shots

2010-01-22T07:05:00.000-05:00

Noticed that I hadn't posted any video updates in a couple of days so I headed out into the compound during twilight to get a little creative. Sure enough, not five seconds after I stopped rolling a very stern-faced security woman approached and cautioned me about wandering onto the playing surface...

I don't think I broke any laws or journalism ethics in the process, although there's probably something to be said about excess stupidity with my "feet shot" at the end. I'll try and do better next time :)

Down Under, Day 7: Argentina's Finest

2010-01-21T08:01:00.000-05:00

Brian and Thomas will attest that, although I have only passable tennis knowledge, I have become quite a fan of Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina (and throughout this post I will refer to him as JMDP of Argentina, not to be a hassle but because that is the man's full and proper name!)

JMDP of Argentina beat Roger Federer at last year's US Open to stop the streak of five consecutive US titles for the greatest of all grand slam men's winners, and he arrives at this year's opening slam one of the pre-tournament favorites and the #4 seed. In one of those quirky moments that defines a tennis draw, however, he found himself with a dangerous and super-confident opponent in the second round while other top seeds drew a mix of qualifiers and no-names.

James Blake, the power-hitting American who once ranked in the world's top five but slumped out of the ranks of seeded players last year, gave the defending US champion all he could handle over the course of five high-energy sets. The match had to go to the tennis equivalent of overtime, as there is no tiebreaker in the final set of this major - you must play on until somebody wins by two games (the US Open is the only major that has a fifth-set tiebreak, which while it has the benefit of getting things over quickly at the end does suck out some of the awesome drama that comes with knowing we'll stay here all night if that's what it takes.) JMDP of Argentina looked exhausted when it was over but still had enough in the tank for a high-octane "Incredible Hulk" pose in victory...

Scary looking, huh? Imagine if this guy meets the equally fiery and determined Chilean Fernando Gonzalez (fun trivia fact Thomas: you lived down the street from Fernando's home tennis club when you studied abroad in Chile...a fact you've reminded me of on countless occasions). The sheer passion - not to mention illegal flares the South American fans are notorious for smuggling into the stands here - will be enough to shake the roof off Rod Laver Arena.

Down Under, Day 6: Australian For "What?"

2010-01-19T05:21:00.000-05:00

You know the cliché blog post about Australian lingo was coming sooner or later, and here it is.

A Brief Selection from the Idiot's Guide to Speaking Australian
(NOTE: This is not brought to you by Foster's Beer)

Banana bender : a person from Queensland
Big Smoke: a big city, especially Sydney or Melbourne
He doesn't know Christmas from Bourke Street: he's a bit slow in the head. (Bourke Street is a brightly lit Melbourne street)
Brown-eyed mullet : a turd in the sea
Built like a brick shit house: a very strong bloke
Coldie : a beer (take a note, Foster's)
Fair dinkum : true, genuine
Figjam: Abbreviation for "F&*k I'm good, just ask me" - one who has a high opinion of themselves
G'Day : Hello
GAFA (pron. gaffa) : the big nothingness of the Australian Outback. Great Australian F**k All.
Kangaroos loose in the top paddock : Intellectually inadequate ("he's got kangaroos loose in the top paddock")
London to a brick : absolute certainty ("it's London to a brick that taxes won't go down")
Maccas (pron. "mackers") : McDonald's
Swagman : tramp, hobo
It's gone walkabout: it's lost, can't be found

Based on the small sample size, I'd say Aussie's favorite thing is to create creative local slang for calling somebody slow-witted. Not that there's anything wrong with that; we have many such local-isms back home ("The engine's running but nobody's behind the wheel", "you're not playing with a full deck of cards", "the lights are on but nobody's home"), but they have a curious flavor to the insult that is unmistakably Australian. Nobody else could work kangaroos into a scoff about somebody's brain power.

As a closing note, have I ever heard any of these sayings apart from the occasional "G'day?" The answer, as you might suspect, is no (apparently there's no colorful way to say "no" in Australia).

Down Under, Day 5: Everything, All at Once

2010-01-18T10:11:00.002-05:00

I took this photo back on Thursday afternoon Melbourne time - the view from just inside the "gantry" set for ESPN outside Rod Laver Arena (the Australian Open's Centre Court). Things were quiet then, only a few staffers moving here and there in Melbourne Park.

Things got a little louder and noisier today.

Like any event where there's a lot of to cram in over a short span of time, the first couple of days' action in a grand slam tennis tournament is an exercise in controlled chaos. Throwing a further wrench into the plans is the fact that it RAINED today. In the summer time, in Australia. First everybody stood around for 10 minutes saying "What the hell is this?", and then panic hit the streets. Well, kind of - they had to go to all the trouble of closing the roofs over Rod Laver & Hisense Arena. Terrell Owens, who just decided to fly over here on a whim, found the whole affair funny and was quite surprised that tennis players would be allowed to play under a closed roof in order for matches to continue in adverse weather. T.O. also found time to:

1) Tweet about a live interview with Tim Rinaldi
2) Decide he wouldn't be any good at Australian Rules football (the kind with no pads)
3) Back track on not giving Aussie football a go and figure that, along with hitting some tennis balls, he'll try anything once
4) Think of more reasons to complain about every quarterback who ever threw him the ball (with the obvious exception of Buffalo QBs, who have to learn how to throw first)

In any event, the rain threw off the plan to take in "everything at once" for tennis fans because action dropped from 21 courts down to 2, but the rain wasn't all-encompassing like it was at the US Open last September, when full days of competition got washed away; only a few matches are likely to be delayed until Wednesday and then we'll be all caught up.

Unless, of course, the rains come back.

Down Under, Day 4: Monopoly Money

2010-01-17T04:24:00.000-05:00

One of things which I have picked up on over the years is how wildly unique currency can be, and not just because of the Treasury Department's big marketing pushes to get us to the US the dollar coins or collect all '50 states' quarters. Every country has a wildly different idea about how to mark and identify its bills of sale - even the Euro design will alter depending on what part of the continent you happen to be in.

I know it's slightly odd to even be discussing such things, but Australia might just have my favorite style of foreign money. Everything is bright and stylized, printed on a heavy, almost starched brand of paper and embraces the full spectrum of colors. I was a little disappointed there wasn't a bill made in jet black to complete ensemble. To wit: $5 - Pink, $10 - Blue, $20 - Orange, $50 - Yellow, $100 - Green. Laying them out together makes a line of Australian bills look like the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat:

Not also how (and the more I travel the more I see that this happens every country except the United States), size does matter - a $100 is considerably bigger than a measly $5, not only in what it can by but in the number of times you need to fold it over in order to fit comfortably in your wallet.

The question I keep coming back to is "Why?" To be perfectly honest, I think the system we have in the US is just about as perfect as it gets when it comes to organizing and prioritizing our money. Every bill the same size, every bill the same color - and as long as we're on that topic, we should all agree that green = money. Must we feel the need to use orange and fuschia bills? We save those hues for when we want to buy Park Place precisely because they are so comical and out of place.

Despite preferring my home country's stlye, I have to admit I like seeing all the various shades and sizes that other countries put on their bills, because if the standardized "presidential green" system that we have in the United States were everywhere, traveling abroad wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun. Saving a couple of oddly sized and colored bills to put in the travel memory book is part of the proof that you went somewhere new and experienced something different. Speaking of which, although this transmission is coming back into the blogosphere early on Sunday morning, it's already late into Sunday night in Melbourne - and the real work begins at 11:00 AM sharp tomorrow as the tennis gets under way - and once that happens, things will be very different for me as far as the schedule is concerned.

To be continued...

Down Under, Day 3: Time Has Come to Today - Unless it's Already Tomorrow

2010-01-16T05:04:00.003-05:00

When I wanted to dump Rhona Davies - she knew about it, moved to Australia, I had to wait two whole years to tell her we were through. -- Johnny Drama

It could be the time or the geography, but it quickly does seem like things are happening at a completely different pace in Australia, to the point where it seems like coming here was the equivalent of telling the rest of the world to take a big "time out - let's pick this up when I return from Brisbane. Whenever that may be."

Down here we're 17 hours ahead of New York City, so it's way beyond the 5/6 hours that separate most of the US and Europe. It's full days - if anybody happens to stumble onto this webpage and reads it tonight, by the time you were going out to party on a Friday night (let's say 10 pm your time), my Saturday was more than half over. Coming back the other way is even weirder, as you actually manage to return to the States on the same day you left - but before you actually left; roughly speaking, a plane departing SYD at 1:00 pm Monday returns to Los Angeles at 10:00 am...on Monday. People thought it was cool when Doc Brown traveled through time in his DeLorean? The pilots who fly the Sydney to Los Angeles route do it every week.

The time warp is definitely one thing that's still blowing my mind a little bit, in case you couldn't tell. Between always trying to do the math in my head about the time back home (for whatever reason I'm constantly doing double takes even though nearly every room at the Australian Open broadcast compound has two clocks, one from Melbourne & one for Bristol) and grasping how a NFL playoff game is on TV 'live' a full day after it's been played (picking the Saints big in one game, and hoping a meteor destroys the Metrodome during the second quarter of the Cowboys-Vikings game), I see where all the puns and jokes come from about Australia being its only little world. The country is big enough for it, seeing as it's the only nation-continent.

I know I'll get the hang of this time shift in the next couple of days, which ought to be just enough for me to be totally used to it by the time we all leave in two weeks, and then there's no telling what might happen. I saw what went down during seasons 4 & 5 of Lost!

Flinders St. Station main building says it's 6:30pm Saturday in Melbourne, which would make it...um...late on Friday in the US?

Down Under, Day 2: The Little Differences

2010-01-15T05:06:00.008-05:00

If Quentin Tarantino ever feels the need to make a prequel and/or sequel to Pulp Fiction, he might set things up where the character of Vincent Vega (or the thinly veiled second coming of him) has just returned from Melbourne. Similar to Amsterdam, they got the same stuff over here that we have back in the states, but it's just a little different.

Examples?

Well, let's start with the answer to the fast food riddle "What would happen if Burger King married Jack in the Box and had a child?"

It looks like Burger King. It tastes like Jack in the Box. Do I recommend it? Not unless you happen to be stumbling home at 2:45 in the morning and are in desperate need of something greasy to scarf down. Despite the outward appearances of being some bizarro knockoff, Hungry Jack's is indeed Australia's Burger King, Whopper and all. No matter what you call it, however, Brian Kelly would advise that anybody who gets caught eating here at 3 AM is most definitely not an RKG.

Turning away from the greasy underbelly of fast food to the slightly more dignified world of the "Sandwich Artists" at Subway restaurants. Surely we can find the comforts of home there, right?

Wrong. You'd think the magic power of the $5 dollar footlong would be appreciated in any language, and certainly it would go over well in Australia considering they speak English here! Apparently not. Not only have they turned their back on the $5 footlong, their so-called "value meal" is a six-inch sub! The one positive we can take here is that this isn't some kind of drastic fleecing like it would be in the other country that puts Queen Elizabeth on its money. The US Dollar is actually slightly ahead of the Australian dollar, so $4.45 in Oz Bucks is basically $4.35 US (as opposed to Britain where the £5 footlong is really a $9.50 footlong before you include the chips and drink). Economic pluses aside, I'm not happy about leaving the footlong deal behind.

And speaking of being left behind:

Can't find it on shelves in the states. Readily available at every corner 7-Eleven in Melbourne. Which is ironic considering that it all began to unravel for Tiger when the alleged mistress was allegedly spotted allegedly checking into a Melbourne hotel...allegedly.

I may not be the world's most traveled individual, but I am definitely expanding my reach to the other side of the globe, where it certainly seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same. Just have to be aware and appreciative of all those little differences.

Down Under, Day 1

2010-01-14T02:30:00.006-05:00

Sitting in the lobby of the Melbourne Westin, an ornately decorated hotel that would look right at home in any city of the world, it's a little stunning to consider how it was by my recollection yesterday that I left Connecticut, but in reality it was close to 55 hours ago. Time flies when you cross the international date line.

Melbourne, The World's Most Liveable City

For those of you who might be reading this in search of a context (and who could blame you, as I have fallen way, way, way off the wagon from my original pledge to put up one blog post per day) my assignment with ESPN's Event Production department has brought me to Melbourne as part of the team covering the 2010 Australian Open tennis tournament. Now that we're here, everybody is taking a moment to relax and re-charge before the real work begins over the next 17 days. Good thing too, because if I were asked to sum up the experience so far in a single sentence, here goes: "Anybody who ever said 'getting there is half the fun' has obviously never flown to Australia."

That's where the rift in time I mentioned already comes in. I left my house in Bristol around 11:30 AM on Tuesday, cramped into the regional aircraft that services Hartford's Bradley Airport and spent two brief hours within striking distance of home during a stop at O'Hare in Chicago. By the time I touched down again a little after 7 PM Pacific time at LAX, the travel portion of this trip was actually ahead of schedule yet - wasn't even close to being halfway done. Then things got interesting.

Upon arriving in Los Angeles the entire ESPN crew was greeted with the news that the plane's departure for Sydney would be delayed due to the purposely vague and always encouraging reason of "aircraft servicing". Those of you familiar with George Carlin may immediately be defaulting in your head to the phrase "BROKEN PLANE!" With a couple of extra hours already in hand I met up with First Lt. Paul Jacobs of the USAF and visited one of about four things I actually miss now that I now longer live in Los Angeles. You can all have three guesses as to what it was but if you need to use more than one you clearly haven't been paying attention.

The flight finally boarded around 12:30 AM, more than two hours after the originally stated departure time. At which point we waited...and waited...and waited, again being told that there was just some minor "aircraft service" that needed to be completed before we could officially depart. Is it just me or do the airline personnel have an unsettling talent for making a situation sound as dire as humanly possible even as they speak in an upbeat tone?

So the 14-hour flight took off four hours late and there weren't a lot of ways to speed up crossing the entire Pacific Ocean. The saving grace was setting my watch to Melbourne time before I left L.A., so I was mentally just trying to stay alive until about 11:00 PM Wednesday (Melbourne time) while in flight - 4 AM Los Angeles time. Then it was lights out until we touched down in Australia - which to my mild surprise we did, so I guess I have to pay homage to all performers of the aircraft servicing. Mild fear was a small price exacted for being able to get there safe and sound without crashing onto a mystical, shape-and-time-shifting island. (That will hardly be the last Lost reference during these two weeks of journals, by the way). It didn't exactly come as surprise though when one of my co-passengers said the flight attendant told them that, in-flight, there had been real concern we would have to divert to Fiji due to a lack of fuel. Where was Flight 815 heading when it first changed course in the pilot episode?!? That's right - Fiji!

At this point we were finally landing in Sydney around the time we should've been at a baggage carousel in Melbourne, so what was another hour or so delay - for, you guessed it, additional "aircraft servicing". There's a wonderful new addition to the great Carlin rant about the jibberish airlines use to cover up what they really mean, but I've been traveling for too long and don't quite have the wit to make it. Feel free to take your own crack at it in the comments section.

To top it all off, when I finally arrived here I discovered that "universal power adapter" I bought several months ago had the plugs for all outlets except Australian ones. That wasn't a total loss though, because I got to go experience the "World Famous Arthur Daley's Clearance House" right across the street from the hotel. I have, however, completely exhausted the laptop battery writing this, so that's the cue to wrap things up.

Also, check out the VIDEO!!! portion of the blog at the other website. Why put these in two different places? Because if there's one thing ESPN has taught me it's that you've gotta branch yourself onto as many platforms as possible. And I want to see a lot of hits on two different websites, that's why.

New Year - New Journey

2010-01-12T01:00:00.002-05:00

Sweetheart I'm bidding you fond farewell
Murmured the youth one day
I'm off to a new land my fortune to try
And I'm ready to sail away

Far away in Australia
Soon will fate be kind
And I will be ready to welcome the lass
The girl I left behind

Must we be parted this fair one cried
I cannot let you go
Still I must leave you, the young man replied
But for only a while you know

Whether it's success or failure
I will always be true
Proudly each day in a land far away
I'll be building a home for you

Daily she waits at the old cottage gate
Watching the whole day through
Till a sweet message comes over the waves
In a new world to join two

Far away in Australia
Soon will fate be kind
And I will be ready to welcome the lass
The girl I left behind

I'll explain later.

Why I Don't Miss Working in L.A. - Part 8,792

2009-12-19T01:21:00.001-05:00

Parts 1 thru 8,791 are around here somewhere, but here's how the folks at 20th Century Fox Television chose to get everybody in the Christmas spirit:

The actors (or "characters") featured are the cast of ABC's new sitcom Modern Family. Thomas will no doubt recognize the second gentleman featured as Vice President and Former Governor of Pennsylvania Eric Baker, and Joe will easily spot Jack's ex-wife from Lost, but understandably the rest of you might be in the dark. The two knuckleheads who bring the music to a screeching halt (and really, is there anything more retreaded than using the "record scratch" to indicate a change in moods?) are Fox TV heads Gary Newman & Dana Walden, who no doubt think they're being hilarious with their little wink/wink, nudge-nudge routine. Problem is unless your an industry insider you not only don't have the pleasure of being "in" on the joke, but also may very well be one of the writers, actors, or crew members who can't find a job in what used to be a top time of the year for employment because fewer and fewer pilots are getting made.

It's not so much that I think this is patently offensive because it quite obviously was made with satirical, completely innocent intentions. It's just that this is such a lame & predictable exercise meant to cater to the "insider's crowd" to the point of not only failing to be funny, but being just plain stupid.

I've broached the subject before and I'll revisit it again in the future (bank on that), but it just makes me conjure up the quote from "What Just Happened", a surprisingly self-indulgent look at Hollywood that featured Bruce Willis as an actor named Bruce Willis. In the film, Bruce Willis (as portrayed by Bruce Willis) gives the following eulogy:

Hunter S Thompson once said to me, "The movie business is a cruel and shallow money trench, where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.' Then he added, 'There's also a negative side'.

Let's Get Dangerous

2009-11-09T23:48:00.001-05:00

Mental health break today.

If there is a superhero with a better theme song than Darkwing Duck, I would like to meet that superhero.

Armchair Quarterbacking

2009-11-02T21:22:00.002-05:00

ESPN columnist Gregg Easterbrook's edition of "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" from last week caught my eye with a couple of really salient points. Among the questions posed in his exegesis:

Is coaching overrated? (Don't know that I agree, but Easterbrook's larger point - that it's easy as hell to second-guess, and just because it's easy doesn't mean you know what the f____ you're talking about - is above dispute.)

Do the football gods have creative ways of punishing those who defy them? (Scroll near the end and see the curious fates of Nebraska & Texas Tech in recent weeks.)

Should we be concerned about the upcoming palindrome day on January 2nd, 2010? (Look at it - 01022010...reverse the numbers and it's still...01022010.)

Most convincing though was the solid debunking of the myth that the "Wildcat offense" currently sweeping the offices of football coaches at every level - heck, even Notre Dame is running it - is some sort of trick-play gimmick.

Why is the Wildcat being called a gimmick? Nobody says it's a gimmick when the Patriots run the shotgun spread. Nobody says it's a gimmick when the Steelers or Packers go with an empty backfield. There's a presumption that only a conventional set with a quarterback standing in the pocket counts as real offense. Offense is yards gained! On Sunday night against the Giants, the Cardinals put defensive back Antrel Rolle behind center in a Wildcat formation. Surely the Cardinals' coaches thought Jersey/A would assume run, and be surprised when Rolle threw. This worked so well that Larry Fitzgerald even seemed surprised when the pass hit him right on the hands, and he dropped the ball. (A penalty wiped Rolle's attempt off the stat sheet.) Had the play worked, that would have been yards gained, plus pretty entertaining. Probably various touts and former jocks in the sports media object to the Wildcat because they didn't think of it first.

And really, what exactly was there to think of? It's a running play! Just because you cut out the middle man and the process of handing off doesn't mystifyingly make it some sort of triple-reverse gadget play. Follow the link for the full series of notes and musings, they're all worth your time.

Great Moments in CNN History

2009-10-02T21:40:00.002-04:00

One day soon I'm going to rediscover my ability to blog and snark back at people (and things) who oh-so-richly deserve it. Pending that day, I have to let the inimitable Jon Stewart and Hulu clips do it for me:

I Can't Believe I Missed This...

2009-09-23T00:59:00.001-04:00

Blog's been on "radio silent" status for almost four weeks (a month at the most). Figured we kick-start back into gear with a little humor. This has to be one of Darrell Hammond's finest Post-2000 Clinton performances. How did I miss this back in January?

Two Lanterns

2009-08-26T17:58:00.001-04:00

My favorite personal "Only at ESPN" story so far. I was walking through the building as they shot this...and it's pretty funny to boot.

We Now Officially Live in the Matrix

2009-08-21T22:47:00.004-04:00

Reports are coming in from all quarters...Brett Favre really did jog onto the Metrodome turf in a purple & gold Vikings uniform.

As the countless games of suffering I've had to endure as a White Sox fan watching Sox-Twins games didn't make me hate the Metrodome enough already.

The news tip that really caught my eye as reporters dedicating approximately 18 paragraphs per Favre completion (hint: he completed as many passes as the Sox scored runs tonight) was the following:

Chiefs linebacker Corey Mays bursts through the middle of the Vikings' line untouched on a blitz, slamming into Favre just as he lets go of the ball. Favre's pass falls well short of Harvin down the left sideline.

Yeah C-Mays! Even His Favreness will bow to the power of the dreads!

Funnier Than a Speeding Bullet

2009-08-20T23:20:00.003-04:00

Usain Bolt, as you may be aware, is very fast. If there is one man who I would bet could kill a cheetah, it would be Bolt, as even a cheetah would not be able to keep up with his lightning-quick moves. And the man has a sense of history to go with his historic fleetness of foot:

For those who are not similarly acquainted with history, Bolt's shirt references one of John Kennedy's less than stellar rhetorical flourishes, the boast of Ich bin ein Berliner, meant to be a statement of Cold War solidarity during a speech in West Berlin during the summer of '63. German satirists (not to mention generations of American media, comedians, and even political historians) quickly started spreading the legend that JFK's statement was actually understood by the local audience not as "I am a Berliner", but rather (and I'm translating loosely), "I am a jelly doughnut". There is a delicious pastry known as berliner in Germany, but in Berlin is known more commonly Pfannkuchen. (It's the Deutschland equivalent of Ding-Dongs vs. Ho-Hos, apparently.) While not nearly as delicious sounding, Kennedy did deliver his intended message of "I am a citizen of Berlin" in proper German.

And who exactly is the cuddly Berlino depicted on Bolt's shirt? The mascot for the Track World Championships. Bolt humored the Teddy Ruxpin wanna-be with a mock race shortly after shattering the world record in the 200 meters today.

The Results Are In

2009-08-19T23:31:00.002-04:00

A little more than 24 hours after the news broke, a Google search for "Brett Favre Fredo" yielded 795 hits. Granted that includes more than few nameless blogs (like this one) and Twitter pages, but I think my point is still valid.

There's going to be a spoof on YouTube before long with Aaron Rodgers playing Michael Corleone, going in for the kiss - I know it was you, Brett. You broke my heart.

Of course, as you recall from the press conference yesterday, Brett will simply say to himself, "This is the business we've chosen!!"

Purple People Eater

2009-08-18T18:38:00.004-04:00

Over/under on the number of major columnists (ESPN.com counts too) who work a Fredo reference into their take on the Brett Favre saga? Eh, let's go conservative: 62.

There was a time when yes, I probably would've been raging upset about this. But if Brett's master scheme was to simply rope-a-dope his haters until they ceased having the requisite ire, count me as a success. The whole things has just dragged on too long. I really don't care. And in all honesty, I know Brett Favre doesn't care that I don't care. So good for him in that sense.

Still, this is one short step from Larry Bird joining the Lakers, Michael Jordan joining the Pistons, or Derek Jeter joining the Red Sox. Something about it seems fundamentally wrong. As such, this is the conversation many a Packer fan is having with the Favre poster on his wall tonight:

- We're your first team, Brett, and we were stepped over!
- That's the way Ted Thompson wanted it.
- It ain't the way we wanted it! We can handle things! We're smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... We're smart and we want respect...Brett, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do. I don't want to see you on the DirecTV package, I don't want you near my favorite sports bar. When you come to see the statue of Lombardi, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be there. You understand?

With apologies to T.O., November 1st (Minnesota @ Green Bay). Get your popcorn ready.

Standing Firm or Selling Out, Archie-Style

2009-08-17T19:28:00.006-04:00

Turmoil in the Middle East. Raging debate over the future of health care. The forces of good and evil currently at work inside the mind of Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffery Lurie. All of these are valuable topics for debate, inspiring much discussion and rancor.

However, shouldn't we all really be focusing our attention on whether Archie picks Betty or Veronica?

Meet Dave Luebke, who I'm sure is a great guy who loves his mother and provides for his children, walks old ladies across the street (or did, in his youth), and is all sorts of likeable. But once Luebke made headlines Friday with his decision to PROTEST!!! the upcoming comic book storyline where Archie will marry rich-gal Veronica rather than gal-next-door Betty, he opened the door to all sorts of ridicule.

Luebke, who has now forcefully stated his disdain for the storyline by auctioning off a rare first-edition of the very first Archie comic (for $38,000 and change) says that the state of the economy is only part of the reason he's selling - Luebke knows that you've gotta stand for something, so who are without our ability to stand on principle over fictional comic book characters who haven't left high school since 1939? For those who may lack the emotional attachment that Luebke has, the gag with this whole Archie-picks-Veronica arc is that it's a one-off diverting storyline...and after it, the gang returns to high school, presumably by way of a hydrogen bomb that will be detonated on an island that can't be found inside of a hatch that hasn't been built by people who won't be there 30 years later as a result (LOST reference! 10 points!) All those reassuring this is just pretend statements do not sway Mr. Luebke, who told USA Today: "Betty is it. Not Veronica...This is serious."

It seems to me that if Luebke were really into this, he'd be burning his priceless memorabilia rather than selling it. Does he really think that The Man will capitulate and let Archie be with the blonde because he, a vintage collector, is banking 40 grand? To me, that doesn't signify his outrage, it just signifies he knew how to maximize interest in the auction.

Unofficial Notre Dame Night @ Wrigley Field

2009-08-12T22:30:00.003-04:00

Jeff Samardzija, recent two-sport Irish star, got his first major league start tonight against the Phillies - and promptly got worked for 7 runs in 3.1 innnigs. I would commiserate Jeff, but misery never looks so good as it does when wearing Cubbie blue. Relieving 'The Shark' later on was Aaron Heilman, former New York Metropolitan and member of the class of 2001. And who could forget the back end of the Phillies bullpen, anchored by another Domer, Brad Lidge? This may well be the first time one school had 75% of its professional alumni in any sport on the field in the same game (though, barring a sudden competency attack for the Cubs, a 12-3 Philly lead assures Lidge will have no save opportunity tonight).

For those keeping up with Stats, Inc., Notre Dame has a total of four alums currently in Major League Baseball - the 4th is veteran infielder Craig Counsell.

Fast Food Gourmets

2009-08-11T22:42:00.005-04:00

Esquire released in this month's issue a "full-scale" rating of America's fast food joints and chains by some of the country's most respected chefs. Their culinary conclusions are the stuff us mere mortals have known forever (though I have to say they put an extraordinary spin on why the In'n'Out Burger is so damn good). They also provided the comforting knowledge that some things will never change now that food has evolved into yet another battleground of class warfare (so memorably shown in Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation), using the appropriate levels of snobbery mixed with a dash of Nietzsche to dissect what makes us all drive-thru junkies. I couldn't pick just one money quote, so here are the top two analyses:

"Fast food was intended to be a marvelous step in the evolution in how man eats, but it has turned out to be a symbol of the decline of the culture of the table, and therefore of civilization." — Paul Bartolotta, Bartolotta, Las Vegas

"They all represent the same thing to me. Do the differences between Chairman Mao and Stalin really matter? Fast food is a symbol of the decline of civilization. It solidifies the journey we have made to separate ourselves from a connection to food and family, history and culture. It symbolizes all that is bad with the way food is viewed, what keeps us alive and provides our bodies with fuel we should not take so flip. Convenience is not always the best way. Just as Wal-Mart and Home Depot have proved to be the death of family businesses in small neighborhoods and communities, fast food has done the same. I mean, if you want real convenience, what's next, Soylent Green? As for the low-cost argument, they do not sell anything cheaper than you could make at home that would be better for you — and don't forget the travel expense. These stores can provide jobs to a community, pay taxes, and train the next generation, but so can any non-chain operation." — Jimmy Bradley, The Harrison and The Red Cat, New York City

I think they have a point. I also think that if something tastes good, it's bad for you. It's just odd to hear a guy who serves up $16 appetizers at Steve Wynn's Las Vegas resort (looking in your direction, Barto) bemoan the death of civilization.

Even the Announcer Was Stunned

2009-08-10T21:18:00.002-04:00

Notre Dame's "football fantasy camp" offering of the summer, the Notre Dame Japan Bowl, is airing on CBS College Sports TV right now. Because of a rash of injuries (since we all know 42-year old quarterbacks keep themselves in top shape for the moment when Lou Holtz calls and says, "Wanna go play a scrimmage against the Japanese national team?") the ND Legends had to go with recent Irish cornerback Ambrose Wooden, a fine player who unfortunately will have to be linked to the one play he didn't make whenever people size up his Notre Dame career.

Anyway, injuries to Tony Rice had Ambrose at quarterback when the Old Guys took the field for the first time. Even announcer Tom Hart, calling the game on TV with former Irish All-American Aaron Taylor, went for the double-take. "Ambrose Wooden...yes, the Ambrose Wooden - is under center for Notre Dame."

It's no slight to Ambrose, but I really have to say that Mr. Hart should not have been so quick to place him in the same sentence as Bruce Dickenson...yes, the Bruce Dickenson.

If you want to read more about the ND Legends experience, Taylor's teammate Jeremy Akers chronicled the journey at One More Game.

Conan Goes to Disneyland! (by way of Universal)

2009-08-09T16:03:00.003-04:00

Friday's Tonight Show episode got in a few good cracks at Disney Parks & Resorts, with the added benefit of avoiding a 26% drop in profits themselves by filming the spoof at Universal Studios (where Conan tapes the show on the backlot and has already made several funny bits involving the hijacking of a studio tram.) Anyway:

Having been on the employee side of the fence at Disney P&R (Parks & Resorts) I can safely bet that there are a few people in the Team Disney Anaheim building who aren't laughing - and may in fact be downright insulted. I am not one of those people. Similar to Weird's Al good-natured poke at Jungle Cruise skippers, if you can't laugh at this than you're just not having enough fun in show business.

John Hughes

2009-08-06T23:05:00.004-04:00

Today we pause and remember Jonathon Hughes, the man who gave true credence to the idea of a Chicago filmmaker and memorably sent Jay and Silent Bob on their mythic quest to find Shermer, IL (note: clip again, like most things involving Kevin Smith, definitely not suitable for work. Fast forward to the 5:06 mark to hear the relevant John Hughes portion). The abandoned gym at the abandoned Maine North high school (where the massive "Library" set was built for The Breakfast Club) has a new ghost to roam the halls.

John Hughes, the man who brought us...

-- Well, Brian, this is a very nutritious lunch. All the food groups are represented. Did your mom marry Mr. Rogers?
-- Uh, no. Mr. Johnson.

-- I don't think I want to know a six-year-old who isn't a dreamer, or a sillyheart. And I sure don't want to know one who takes their student career seriously. I don't have a college degree. I don't even have a job. But I know a good kid when I see one. Because they're ALL good kids, until dried-out, brain-dead skags like you drag them down and convince them they're no good. You so much as scowl at my niece, or any other kid in this school, and I hear about it, and I'm coming looking for you! Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face! Good day to you, madam.

-- Hey, Bobby we should really get together sometime. I haven't been over at the new house since you moved. By the way, I want to apologize for last year at your old house... about those bushes. I had no idea they all would catch on fire like that. You were right. I should never have put the barbeque grill that close.

-- I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong, I'm going to defend it.

-- In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics.

-- Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

-- Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.

Eddie: You surprised to see us, Clark?
Clark: Oh, Eddie... If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am now.

Todd: Well, something had to come through the window! Something had to break the stereo!
Margo: And why is the carpet all wet, *Todd*?
Todd: I don't *know*, Margo!

-- Hey! I tell you what I'm gonna give you, Snakes. I'm gonna give you to the count of 10 to get your ugly, yellow, no-good keister off my property before I pump your guts full of lead! One, two, ten!

And of course, two personal Heidkamp favorites...

Buzz! Your girlfriend! Woof!

....and...

Bueller? Bueller?

Don't They Spell Check These Things?

2009-08-05T22:39:00.003-04:00

Missed a couple of days worth of posts. I'll put up a couple of double-shots in the next few days to compensate and get back on track. I think the delay was caused because I was thrown for a loop by my fortune (you know, the kind from the cookies):

Do not be concerned. Good things are coming you way. (Not a misprint, and not mis-typed on my part).

I was going to point something out to somebody at the Chinese buffet, but I thought better of it. After all, I'm guessing quality control spell check isn't an area where they'll target most of their resources.

First Rule of Golf: Always Know Whose Fault it is That You Suck

2009-07-30T20:52:00.007-04:00

Sometimes the only thing you can muster up for a blog post is passing along the brilliance of others. (I do this quite frequently when speaking also...people are away of this and avoid me at parties. Often, as a sign of their respect, they don't even invite me. At least I think that's how the quote is supposed to go.)

I was sitting in the lounge today watching coverage of the U.S. Senior Open, and it occurred to me with a scan of the leaderboard (Greg Norman in first position, followed closely by names like Loren Roberts, Tom Lehman, Scott Simpson, Fred Funk, Bernhard Langer, & Jeff Sluman) that the uninformed viewer could easily have confused this for a replay of 1989 "regular" U.S. Open. And as last week's British Senior Open showed, the more things change, the more they stay the same whenever Greg Norman is leading early in a major tournament.

Norman, who fired a 64 on Saturday to take the 54-hole lead at the elder British championship, not only completed another come-from-ahead tumble for a sixth place finish, he caught the flack from pundits when he fielded a question on if he might not have gagged away quite so many majors in his prime had his current wife, tennis star Chris Evert, been by his side. The Shark's response? "Chrissie would've have instilled a different thought process...the answer would probably be 'yes'."

For background, Norman and his wife of 25 years, Laura, did not exactly part on friendly terms and the divorce cost The Shark a nice chunk of change. It's only natural to think of a second spouse as perhaps a bit of needed fresh air on the heels of an acrimonious ending to the previous relationship. But to suggest his wife had some kind of a Vulcan mind-meld ability over him during his dozen infamous collapses? C'mon Greg. So from here I pass the keyboarding baton to Patrick Smith of The Australian:

Laura's thought processes must have been pretty good during his 88 international tournament victories and his two British Open wins but, apparently, she just got ornery at the Masters, the US Open and the US PGA.

Like the 1986 PGA when Bob Tway holed out from a bunker on the 18th. Bloody Laura. Or the US Open the same year when Norman shot a final-round 75 after leading. The bitch. Then a year later Larry Mize holes out from hell on the 11th, second hole of a play-off for the Masters. Quit playing with his mind, woman. Or in the 1989 British Open playoff when he whacked the ball dead into a fairway bunker. Damn you Laura.

No, the Shark is right. It is Laura's fault he lost the big ones. She played the shots, they were her hands that tightened until the knuckles turned white on the club, her choice to hit it wild right on the last in the 1986 Masters.

She was the one who shook so much that Norman could barely take the club back when the big ones were there for the taking. It was her mind that raced through the gears: from panic, to fear, to frozen. Had nothing to do with Faldo sitting on his shoulder. It was Laura who didn't think that bunker could possibly be in play at Troon.

And back at the British Open last year at Royal Birkdale it was Laura who stuffed up the fairytale story of the old champ coming back at 53 to win. He led by two shots with a round to go. Then he blew it. Sorry, Laura blew it. As always.

Reminded me of a quote I read - I think it was from the Golfer's Edition of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books: "Man blames fate for other accidents but feels personally responsible for a hole in one."

Brain Dropping Of the Day

2009-07-29T21:00:00.002-04:00

I was cleaning up the bill at dinner tonight when the waitress asked me if I wanted dessert. I pondered about it for a moment and then decided, "Screw it, let's not be concerned about how unhealthy it is. If something tastes good, it's bad for you. Otherwise, we'd all live forever."

So I got the Kit Kat Sundae. I don't even want to think about how many calories (and grams of fat) it must've piled on. The thing tasted good.

I'll have something worth contributing tomorrow...I think.

Buehrle's Perfect Day

2009-07-28T21:13:00.003-04:00

Finally unwound from an unexpectedly taxing journey home and back in the business of bringing championship tennis to the masses. One of the rarest sporting events happened to take place during the trip also - a perfect game in baseball, only the 18th in modern times (read: since 1893) and it just happened to be thrown by one of the last guys you'd ever pick to pitch a perfect game.

Now, there have been some perfect games that have a "bolt out of the blue" quality to them - Don Larsen, Mike Witt, Tom Browning, for example - but the list of pitchers who've thrown one is pretty exclusive company. Cy Young, Sandy Koufax, Jim Bunning, Catfish Hunter, & Randy Johnson are all on the list and are either in the Hall of Fame or going to be. Other names like Dennis Martinez, David Wells, Kenny Rogers, and David Cone were peak pitchers for a long time - the fewest wins among them is Cone with 194 for his career. Point being, more often than not, to throw a perfect game is to cement legendary status.

And this time it was done by a guy who has, quite deservedly, a reputation as one of the most "hittable" pitchers in baseball! Opponents hit .268 against him for his career - for comparison's sake, the other five pitchers who've thrown at least two no-hitters with one being a perfect game were Koufax, Bunning, Johnson, Young, and old-time Addie Joss. Only one of them (Young) allowed opponents to hit better than .250 against him for a career. Guys hit Buehrle at an almost .270 clip, he doesn't strike guys out, and doesn't possess the dominating sinker or overpowering fastball to lead to ground balls and pop-ups. Yet he wins (every year as a starter he's reached double-digit victories) and, more endearingly, he just works fast. To say he's a left-handed Greg Maddux would be a fair statement, even if Maddux was blessed with slightly better "stuff" that turned him into a 300-game winner.

How does he do it? Probably just by sitting back and not thinking it over too much. On the long list of things to admire about Buehrle, his work rhythm is the best. The perfect game took only 2 hours and 3 minutes, and that's including dead time for TV commercials. Buehrle once pitched a game that took just 1 hour and 39 minutes total (around 63 minutes of actual game time when you subtract TV delays). As Richard Roeper once said, "Fans love it. Beer vendors hate it. When Buehrle's on the mound, they know they'll have less than two hours to make their money."

As I type this, the crafty vet from St. Charles, Missouri just set down his 15th Twin in a row, setting a new major league record in the process with 43 consecutive batters retired. If this keeps up he'll probably get dragged on to the Late Show for an in-person appearance, but last night's Top 10 list was reward enough. For your viewing pleasure:

"We Don't Have Enough Fuel to Make It"

2009-07-27T19:15:00.005-04:00

Words you always love to hear coming out of the cockpit when flying into the teeth of a tornado advisory. The past five-day weekend attending Mike & Meg's wedding in South Bend was fantastic, but the last leg of the journey was a colossal nightmare. It's just not normal when the captain is forced to do laps in the air for 40 minutes (I was, quite literally, in a holding patten) and then divert to Albany because we don't have enough fuel to keep stalling while we wait for the weather to clear into LaGuardia.

Which I'm not sure it ever did. The last time I checked, my flight which was supposed to be landing at 5:00pm had still not landed as of 10:20. By that time I had hopped on the Amtrak from Albany to Penn Station and proceeded to catch the MTA North Shore home, finally reaching the finish line some 14 hours after the journey started. I could've just about driven from Chicago to Bristol in the time wasted trying to get there by plane and train. So the lesson of that 1987 John Hughes classic still rings true today: when forced to choose, always go with the automobile.

Anyway, apart from the odyssey of returning to central Connecticut, it was a great weekend and a special time for Mike and Meghan, who are sitting on a beach drinking daiquiris right now while I run from the rainstorms that seem to have taken up a permanent residence in the Northeast. Lucky them. Rest easy on the sands of Oahu this week kids - you earned it.

Bobby Jenks is Killing My Fantasy Team

2009-07-21T23:07:00.003-04:00

Seriously, Bobby. Seriously.

As an alternative theory: Bobby knows he's been mentioned in possible trades (though that was a far more distinct possibility back when the Sox were on the verge of tumbling out of the race, not when they're 1 FLIPPIN' GAME OUT OF FIRST). So either he really wants to boost his chances of being traded by insuring the Sox drop so many games they have no choice but to slash their assets like Crazy Eddie, or he loves this team so much he can't bear the thought of looking good to potential buyers on the market. It's one or the other, because nothing else explains this. Except maybe all the doughnuts that go missing from the clubhouse spread; I have a strong suspicion Alexei Ramirez is not the one wolfing them down.

When Job Worlds Collide

2009-07-20T20:49:00.002-04:00

I was scrolling through the billion and one (that's an approximate number) of channels we get at ESPN central feed last month when I noticed some video getting fed on the uplink from Anaheim: Kobe Bryant's Main Street victory parade. At the time I was like, "Apparently my old division, parks & resorts - specifically the Disneyland resort - is just going to hunt me down no matter where I go." Tonight, I was once again proven correct on this count.

It started innocently enough. I'm working for our tennis production department and during the seven weeks between the end of Wimbledon and the start of the US Open, we have a tournament per weekend which is part of the "US Open Series", sort of a round-robin at various sites throughout the country (this weekend for example, Indianapolis). But next weekend? Los Angeles, specifically the UCLA campus. My producer asks me to please compile a reel of "scenics" - these are the nice, high definition camera shots of famous landmarks and iconic places throughout the city where any event might be taking place, usually so we can have a nice shot to transition between games or matches or to lay advertisements over (example: if you watched Wimbledon coverage, you'd note how ads for IBM always had Buckingham Palace in the background).

So I pull a bunch of Los Angeles scenics from our archive and get ready to parse it down into one tidy clip reel. It's about 8 tapes, helpfully labeled as to what is on each (LAX, Santa Monica Pier, Sunset Strip, etc.) But one tape is just labeled "LA, Reel 1". So this first...the very first tape...I pop it in and what comes up on the monitor? Mickey, Donald, & Goofy standing smack in the middle of Sunshine Plaza at DCA (that's Disney's California Adventure for those of who not up with all the Disney "cast member" slang), waving to the camera. I couldn't help but wonder if somebody is trying to send me a message. I think what some of the old-timers at Parks & Resorts warned me about was true: The Resort is just gonna follow me around forever, like a sad little puppy begging for attention. It's not that bad really - I have a lot fond memories of the place and hey, you could be followed around by a lot worse things.

Anyway, there was a good amount of DLR footage so maybe you'll see it used as a scenic setting during next weekend's coverage of the LA Tennis Open. Or not.

Just Another Case of The Man Keeping You Down

2009-07-17T22:56:00.004-04:00

Not long before this year's British Open (or simply The Open as it is called everywhere except here in the United States; note - this is not just another example of American jingoism. We use the moniker because we too have what any real golf fan calls "The Open". We need some kind of measure for distinction), I read an article analzying recent success stories at the ultimate test of links golf. One of the key conclusions was that Tom Watson was likely the best links golfer of the last 50 years, a fact backed up by five British Open victories on five different courses during his career.

So here's Watson at age 59 leading The Open heading to the weekend. But he better enjoy it while it lasts, because under the rules and eligibility established by the older-than-dirt Royal & Ancient which oversees the championship, this very well could be his last one:

Here's a little wrinkle: The Royal & Ancient Golf Club has decreed that nobody over the age of 60 can play in a British Open. So all of a sudden, the greatest links player in history is down to one-and-a-half Britishes.

On its face, it seems to make sense, in a curiously unsentimental way -- nobody wants to see a bunch of old geezers doddering their way around a course. The oldest major winner was Julius Boros at the PGA in 1968 -- age 48 -- and the oldest to win the British was Old Tom Morris at age 46, which happened nearly a century and a half ago. So there's not exactly precedent for what Watson's doing right now.

The list of exemption rules for the British Open, like all majors, is a mile long, but the basic thrust is this: Watson can play next year on his Open-winner exemption, but that's it -- unless, of course, he turns in another outstanding tournament and records a top-10 finish in 2010. And then the question comes -- after such a magnificent performance this year, does Watson get another exemption? Or does he get a handshake and sent off into that Scottish night?

It would be quite a story for a guy with 13 full years on a winner they called Old Tom Morris to somehow walk off with golf's oldest trophy. But don't etch his name to the Jug yet. Even so, can't we all just agree that certain players do enough to warrant a lifetime exemption? The Masters does this. The U.S. Open does this. The PGA does it too. Why not just like the old guys have their two rounds and give the fans a chance to see the legends of the game walk alongside the next generation(s)? Just goes to show you that even snobby old white dudes can be straightjacketed by The Man sometimes.

There's Only One Reason I'd Go on That Field

2009-07-16T23:00:00.003-04:00

It could have been just me, but it seemed like every person I know in the greater Chicago area was at the Billy Joel/Elton John concert tonight. Here I am tucked away on a dark and stormy night in Connecticut (seriously, the power went out tonight, and for a solid 25 seconds a steady stream of lightning flashes kept illuminating the house like it was broad daylight. It was a scene straight out of James Whale's 1931 version of Frankenstein. I digress - apologies).

As I was about to be saying, I usually avoid going to Wrigley Field on principal unless the Sox are playing a Crosstown game there, but it occurred to me that such a night like tonight would give me the opportunity to do something I have (and I'm sure Ozzie Guillen has too) always dreamed of doing: literally take a dump on that landfill-excuse of a stadium.

I correct myself on this: Ozzie doesn't dream about doing this. Dollars-to-doughnuts he's done it a dozen times already. And of course I wouldn't worry about getting caught. Somebody would have to be able to separate my contribution from the baseball team which is on that field the rest of the time!

Anyway, here's a picture Erin e-mailed from her phone:

Killer seats. I would actually have enjoyed being that close to the Piano Man.

Handle With Care

2009-07-15T21:50:00.004-04:00

"You know, Hunter S Thompson once said to me: the movie business is a cruel and shallow money trench, where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. Then he added, 'There's also a negative side'."

-- Bruce Willis, while playing "Bruce Willis" in the movie What Just Happened?

One of my favorite things is hearing the crazy, down-is-up "tales from the wars" about the litany of failed projects, doomed ideas, and absolutely bats&*t nutso personalities that litter the minefield known as Los Angeles, CA and its favored business - known as The Business to Hollywood types. Personally, these guys can all take a long walk off a short pier. Kevin Smith illustrates why in this 20-minute excerpt from his Q&A tour on college campuses (note: definitely NOT suitable for work, unless you're wearing headphones and are locked in a room where nobody else can see/hear what you're watching).

Now I have to concede that for all the ripping I do on it (mostly deserved, I'll add), it's certainly not like Hollywood is the only place where people can be horrendously bad at their job yet meet with tremendous success. It's simply that Los Angeles is far and away the #1 place where the people who've mastered the art of failing upwards can be rightfully mocked for it.

Pictures Say 1,000 Words

2009-07-14T21:05:00.002-04:00

This is your brain:

This is your brain on drugs:

Any questions?

Look At Those Hippos, They're Wiggling Their Ears

2009-07-13T23:03:00.003-04:00

For anybody who's ever had to work the quintessential "pay the dues" jobs in dogged pursuit of the dream that seems to get farther away the more you give chase...perhaps you don't want to watch this video, now that I think about it. Weird Al Yankovic, master of the song parody, tackles the somewhat nomadic existence of a Disney Cast Member. There are definitely some Jungle Cruise skippers out there who are highly amused tonight...if they aren't weeping at how close to home this one hits.

Skipper Dan

Solutions for Problems That Don't Exist

2009-07-10T21:10:00.005-04:00

Apple recently trumpeted the news of how the iTunes App Store, an open marketplace for software developers to craft applications used on the iPhone and iPod Touch, just hit its first birthday . And my, how it's grown over one calendar year - when introduced it provided about 500 applications. Today? 55,000 and counting.

Of course, in a sample size that big, you're gonna find some applications that border on genius (I basically can't imagine my world without the MLB At-Bat application, particularly now that it provides streaming video of White Sox games direct to my phone), some that are superfluous at best, and more than a few that are downright stupid. To wit:

Fortune Magazine's 10 Dumbest iPhone Apps

The amazing thing is that a number of these colossal wastes of time and energy (on the part of the developers, to say nothing of the saps who would actually think that they were useful) is that most of them charge for their service. You're reading it right, there apparently is a healthy, robust market of people who will pay for the right to download a file that will make it appear as if your phone has a zipper. Personally, I would've paid to see the thought process of the guys in the software department who thought up #8 on the list. I'm not gonna spoil it with my own snarky commentary, you'll just have to click and read for yourself.

Like I Said

2009-07-09T22:36:00.003-04:00

Ron Artest is gonna fit right in. At yesterday's press conference, his rational for choosing the #37 with the Lakers (he's previously gone a little off the beaten path with number selection). But this...skip ahead to 1:33 in the video for the part that has me picking my jaw off the floor, and not precisely in "Where Amazing Happens!" context. The analysis before that about the proper usage of the word "hoodalize" is also gold, but just watch at the 1:33 mark:

He starts off well enough, posing his number selection as an egalitarian process complete with ideas submitted on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc (note to athletes: you're not a true man of the people until you incorporate services on at least two social networking sites). Then he somehow manages pluck out 37 because it stands for the same number of weeks that Thriller was the #1 album, and after all, "I'm number one in my life". I personally often have difficulty cracking the top five in my own life, so hats off to you, Ron Ron. This man and Los Angeles were made for each other.

The Shocking Video LeBron DOESN'T Want You To See!

2009-07-08T18:50:00.008-04:00

No, not that kind of video. Thank God. But apparently, there are some humbling experiences that The King will not suffer, chief among them the implication that a mere mortal from an Atlantic-10 school could dunk on him. Excerpt:

You want to see video of Xavier's Jordan Crawford dunking on LeBron James?

If so, too bad.

Because you're not going to see it.

Thanks to Nike.

Turns out, there were at least two cameras rolling Monday night when Crawford dunked on James during a pick-up game here at the LeBron James Skills Academy. It was a two-handed jam, the kind that would've circulated quickly on YouTube. But Nike officials eliminated that possibility shortly after the dunk happened by allegedly confiscating tapes from various cameramen.

Freelance photographer Ryan Miller was one of the cameramen shooting the game.

He told CBSSports.com that Nike Basketball Senior Director Lynn Merritt took his tape.

"He just said, 'We have to take your tape,'" Miller said. "They took it from other guys, too."

Worth noting is that there is no policy against filming at the LeBron James Skills Academy, and Miller said he had been filming all day without incident. Nobody ever told him to stop. Nobody ever said there was a problem ... until after Crawford dunked on James.

Crawford, a transfer from Indiana, apparently "posterized" LeBron not once but twice during the scrimmage. Reading further, it sounds like Nike officials were actually acting at the behest of LeBron and his entourage. To which I say: Why? What's the big deal? If anything, confiscating all proof that the dunk took place doesn't really do anything except enhance the legend. It's like the story about the investment bank CEO who beat MJ one-on-one (40-year old MJ, it should be noted). You hear about it and figure, Damn, this I gotta see, only to watch the footage and try to decipher what the hype was all about. Leaving this thing to the imagination means it's going to live on a lot longer than it would have during it's one week of internet glory.

Of course, would MJ in his prime, right where LeBron is now, have been big enough to let himself be shown up by a supposed nobody? I'm hesitant to say - we all know the stories of Michael's competitiveness and the assaults he would let out in frustration on teammates and opponents alike. Those were especially controlling during his younger, more formative days in the league. So I can get why LeBron's got just a little too much pride to let word spread about how some amateur dunked on him, but by sending in the goons to destroy the evidence he's now created the myth of "this dude who dunked on LeBron", and it's gonna spread faster and hang around longer than any viral video would have via YouTube.

I just can't close my eyes and imagine how it would've been so brutal anyway. What, if Garnett scales the castle wall next season is LeBron gonna go up to an ESPN cameraman during the timeout and demand they erase the tapes? I think the biggest question that should be asked is why would Nike go along with this? How did you fail to see an opportunity here? Pass this thing off as another installment of the HyperDunk series (you know, like how Kobe jumped over an Aston Martin?) and the thing would sell like hotcakes - Wear the shoes and YOU TOO can get mad air over King James!. They wouldn't even have to make some laughable attempt to convince us it wasn't CGI, because according to plenty of people who were there it really happened. Of course, apart from the obvious reason that Crawford's amateur status makes any attempt at marketing the moment a NCAA investigation waiting to happen (and spare the NCAA competency jokes for a better cause. They may be playing the part of the piano player in the brothel where Reggie Bush is concered, but they love a good violation that walks up and introduces itself like this one would), the real handcuffs appear to be coming from a player who might just be too image conscious for his own good.

Outrage

2009-07-07T20:43:00.003-04:00

Everybody needs to read this article. It's the bizarro world version of the Duke Lacrosse case, except without the attention it deserves. Unfortunately the headline and subtitle are a bit misleading regarding the true nature of the subject, so don't judge based on the opening words - this is about as severe a miscarriage of justice as you're ever going to read about.

The Story of Prisoner F95488

Why I Love Sports

2009-07-06T11:40:00.000-04:00

My favorite sport is baseball, I think if for no other reason that whenever I turn on a game or watch one in person, I feel a lot closer to the action than in any other sport. Football players intimidate with their massive, almost freak-show dimensions. Basketball players are too smooth (and freakishly athletic in their own right). But baseball? Even a guy like David Ortiz, or Jonathon "Fat Elvis" Broxton can find a place in baseball. It's a very democratic sport. Even as the game is awash in the dirty stain of the steroids era, I still watch and feel the urge to get out there, that classic "Put me in coach, I'm ready to play" feel we get when we charged out of the Little League dugout. Baseball also serves up the most important lesson of all, the one that I appreciate the most out of sports, the thing that makes me love sports: they remind us how life's not fair.

That sounds like (and I admit, is) a very strange reason to like something. What, you want to be reminded how painful and cruel and unrelenting primal forces of nature beyond your comprehension can be? What are you, some kind of sadist? Maybe this is the wrong reason to like something, but sports has a refreshing, no-bulls&*t quality that is so frequently lacking in other arenas. Either you make contact with the ball or you don't. Either the putt drops...or it doesn't. You catch the pass, or not; you cross the finish line first, second, third, and so forth; you get the idea. So I wouldn't say it's that I enjoy seeing the gut-wrenching emptiness that goes with a valiant effort coming just short, reminding us that there is always a winner and by default a loser; rather, I simply like the black & white nature of the outcomes sport delivers. It isn't about what's the most deserving, least worthy, most compelling, hardest fought - it's the embodiment of the Biblical parable that was so simple and so direct that no less a sports legend than Vince Lombardi made it the crux of his coaching philosophy:

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. (First Corinthians, 9:24)

Loose translation: we're all out there trying to win. But There Can Only Be One. One crown, no more and no less, and we are all to be defined by the effort we put forth to get it. That's the only guarantee sports offer: we all love the game, but it's not always going to love us back. In other words: life's not fair. Or, to be a little more hep to the Herm Edwards jive: "I don't care if you've got no wins. You always play...to WIN...THE GAME!! PLAY TO WIN!" But it's not always fair.

If it were, Andy Roddick wouldn't have lost yesterday. If life were fair, Phil Mickelson would have at least one U.S. Open trophy to his name; likewise Sam Snead. Greg Norman might well be the all-time majors winner if life were fair. If life were fair, Mary Decker wouldn't have fallen in the '84 Olympics, Rocco Mediate would've sank that putt on 18 at Torrey Pines, the Browns would've just once gotten to avoid John Elway in the playoffs, Mitch Williams would've pitched a boring 9th inning and given Philly a chance in Game 7, and a thousand other stories just like those, from stages big and small, would've had different, happier endings.

That's the cruel side of sports, the lesson this year's grand Wimbledon final taught us, the one we'd all be well served (no pun intended) to learn: there's only one winner, and that title goes to the player who proves to be the best. They arrive at that distinction by a million and one different variants of travel - no two paths to the champion's circle are precisely the same. Sports in that sense are the purest example of chaos theory at work, showing how the slightest twist and turns in the wind of some far-off place manage to come back around (or, to zero it in for Federer, how a set of worn-out knees that do not belong to him can dramatically alter the landscape for the two biggest tournaments of his career). The win goes not necessarily to the man who deserved it the most, or desired it the most, or even to the one who fought the hardest for it, but the man who somehow found a way to be standing at the end as the best. 15 times now, that's been Roger Federer at the end of a Grand Slam tennis tournament. He's taken on and cut down nearly everybody who's risen to challenge him along the way, the one exception a big one, posing a question that we won't be able to answer until sometime a decade or two from now, when he and Rafael Nadal have finally "played out the string" between themselves. Until that time though, there can be little doubt Federer has played the best tennis this summer despite being pushed and stretched beyond his means on several occasions - twice needing to rescue himself in a fifth set on the way to that elusive French Open, and then seeming to do nothing other than "find...a...way" to outlast Andy Roddick. Sport cliche has taught us that this is called "the mark of a champion", an appropriately vague term. After all, it's not a developed skill, gleaned from a "how-to" booklet or hours of private coaching; instead, it's a special, intangible gift that emerges out of a once-in-a-generation talent.

That there could be such a force of pre-determination, such an iron-clad will inside Federer tested over two dozen times leading up to Sunday's masterpiece...it's the only plausible explanation for how Andy Roddick could manage to win more games in the longest Grand Slam final ever played (77 in total, well past the mark set in 1927, with a final tally of 39 games Roddick, 38 Federer) and still somehow come up on the losing end. Even then, to just watch those figures ignores a career-high 50 aces from Federer, or the clutch backhand winners from Roddick, who not so long ago could hit a backhand at a key moment about as well as Mickelson could hit a driver on the 72nd hole of a U.S. Open. That's yet another dimension where sports reminds us that life's not fair. If it were, we'd play the NCAA Tourament by simulator every year and hand the title to the arbitrary math formula's chosen top team (we still do this, more or less, in NCAA Football - but that's neither here nor there). So we have to say that in almost all sports, maybe the numbers don't lie, but they also don't tell the whole story and they have no say in the final outcome. Yet another marvelous quirk which makes the fields of play a blessed release from a world that too often gets cold and calculative, driven by stats and polls. The irony comes when we reflect on how sports usually serves as a great example of the power of numbers. We obsess over them - batting averages, free-throw attempts, head-to-head records, first-serve percentages, goal differential, wins against an opponent with a certain seed - and often times maniacally so. That is, until things reach the tipping point; then the greatest moments of sport are, without fail, the ones that allow us to revel in how the numbers and the records get gloriously kicked to the curb and produce a moment, a match, a memory which "going by the numbers" should not be allowed to exist. What's that you say - Roddick's a 9-to-1 underdog and has lost to Federer 18 times in 20 matches, usually by comically lopsided scores? Didn't matter at all on this day, except for afterward when the stats crew needed to update the raw data so the media guide would show Federer making it 19 out of 21. To just read that line in a book would be to miss all the drama that had to go on in order to get to that point. No, in sports, numbers do not tell the whole story, even if the BCS would prefer that they do.

Something else sports do for us, something we ought to be quite capable of remembering on our own but somehow can't seem to grasp except in the context of a heartbreaking triple-overtime defeat at the buzzer: we are more than just the one-line entry of "W" or "L". After all, it's just a baseball game, just a tennis match, just a sporting event. To use the words of Brett Favre (who seems capable these days only of stirring in thousands the emotions that would be better spent on meaningful issues): "It's not life or death". Profound insight out of a man from Mississippi, where most of the population would of course say that a simple thing like football is not life or death - it's far more important than that. Yet it's not, and we know this. That's why we often gain in our admiration for a player or a team by how they handle the crushing and undeserving blows dealt to them by fate. Observe the two men who slugged out yesterday's championship. First there is Federer, who nearly broke down after losing "The Greatest Match Ever" in the 2008 Wimbledon Final (to Nadal), and then did precisely that seven months later, having to be hugged by Nadal during the trophy ceremony at the '09 Australian Open. The way he handled defeat - not only the fact that he did it the way most of would, as an aching and distraught human being, but that he redoubled his efforts to capture the next two titles - earned him as many plaudits as each of the 15 Grand Slams.

So it will have to be for Roddick, who now holds the dubious distinction of having more losses to Federer in championship finals than any other player. Nobody save for Nadal has had to go through it more than once, and Nadal at least has the warm comfort of five wins against his two losses, to say nothing of the constant whispers that he may yet eclipse the great Federer when all is said and played. Roddick, on the other hand, has to carry the burden of being simply good, but not blessed with the greatness that comes along only once (and just maybe twice) in a generation. Again, if life (and sports) were fair, he would not have to shoulder that weight. If life were fair, in this case, at some point late in the fifth set (say when it was tied 8-8, or maybe 11-11) Federer would have nobly laid down his weapon and conceded, if only so Roddick could enjoy just one taste of the glory that the Swiss has now experienced six times. But that's not the way it goes. It just can't. We have to go on until somebody wins. If life were fair, "poor Roger" would just have to wait until the U.S. Open to get his inevitable 15th slam, and Roddick would have the one trophy he covets the most.

You could say that is Roddick's curse, that he should steel himself so mightily, reinvigorate his game so thoroughly, and yet be dealt the dead man's hand over and over again. The '09 final was quite literally a reenactment of what it's like to volley against a brick wall - it will continue only so long as you don't make a mistake. The wall isn't going to make one. So it came to pass that Roddick lost on his serve for the first, last, and only time, in the 39th game...and therefore lost the championship. Life is just not fair. We need sports to teach us that, because in the midst of that hard lesson we find so many things to admire and respect about ourselves and our opponents. We come to find that we love the struggle, the purpose, the heroics and the theatrics that are all necesitated by the bottom-line world of sports. We are all running the race, but only one receives the prize. We wouldn't want it any other way.

That's probably why we identify so well with our sports heroes, and also why every so often the face of "the other side" sticks with us. After all, the matches are remembered in pairs, an acknowledgement that one left triupmhant but it damn well took two to tango. That's why we remember Roddick's pained face at the end just as much as Federer's unrestrained joy. For not only are we observing something totally unique that none of us will ever experience, but we simultaneously identify a tiny bit of ourselves in Roddick's plight. There's not much of a communion with the icon as there is with the ones he had to step on to reach that status, even if he did it with exceeding politeness as Federer has done. Fitting then, to see how Roger's BFF is Tiger Woods, as the two of them have found in each other perhaps the only person on the planet who knows what it's like to be them. You can imagine how the AIM sessions go:

-- How'd it go today Rog?
-- Oh, you know. Saved four set points against a guy playing out of his mind. Won the longest Grand Slam final ever. Earned a 6th gold cup. You?
-- Eh, about the same. Drilled a 20-footer on 16 for the win. Runner-up shot a course record 62 but still couldn't touch me.

We stand in awe of such greatness, and rightly so. Yet we observe men like Woods and Federer almost at a distance, as if they are far above the rules, and the failings, that color our experience as mere mortals. That's why the admiration of Federer seemed to grow over the past year, why Nadal has been a welcome addition to his legacy, because the swashbuckler from Mallorca reminded us that yes, indeed, Roger Federer is human and will cry just like all of us after seeing a dream crushed. It's proof that everybody, even the immortal Federer, knows what it's like to be Andy Roddick on Sunday. That Federer could take such defeat and return to the summit didn't make it less comical (in an epic, Greek tragedy kind of way) to listen to him try to console Roddick in the post-match interview. "Don't be too sad, I went through a tough one last year", and it was at that point A-Rod, rather tersely I might add, reminded him that he probably knew enough about the happy times (five) to outlast one haunting defeat. Roddick was left do what we've all been made to do in the area of sport and life: to have to accept you gave everything that was possibly left to give and then some, only to find it somehow wasn't enough. To accept that life's not fair.

As an interesting coda, the running storyline on this final for weeks to come will be about the inherent drama of Federer's quest and Roddick's rebirth, how if either man had cracked just slightly at different points it could've been a very different outcome. We'll hear a lot about how Roddick will surely come to wake up with nightmares at that missed volley in the second set tie-break, at least as often as we'll hear about how he stared down death 10 straight times when Federer was looking to close out the match before finally succumbing. There will be a lot of "had Roddick played anybody except Federer like that, he'd have won", and a few "if he could just take that one shot back..." analyses. But all those are again missing the mark. Roddick knew it afterwards, dismissing the hypotheticals about if Federer was the only man who could've beat him Sunday as "irrelevant". Both before, during, and after the match he very much played the part of Rocky Balboa, even if as a former Grand Slam winner and top-ranked player he was hardly a no-name palooka (and on that note, leave it to Bill Simmons to introduce some cold-hearted levity on the situation: "You're not making me feel sorry for Andy Roddick. He's worth $50 million & married a swimsuit model. Good try though." And yes, that was from his Twitter). Roddick's sole purpose was to push on to the end and not relent until every last ounce of effort had been given. How does a man know he's done all he can? When there's absolutley nothing left to do. At that point something much more lasting than the final result (a simple tally of Win Federer, Loss Roddick) is acheived. Sports are cruel and unfair, telling us in the clearest ways that, yes, first place is reserved for winners - but that doesn't render everyone else a loser. Even if he was more playboy than punching bag, Roddick was in the middle of a great Rocky moment - which by definition comes in defeat (I'm talking about Rocky, not any element in the parade of sequels featuring Hulk Hogan and Mr. T).

The Balboa imagery was alive and well at the end of the match too, the crowd chanting as much if not more for the vanquished, and when the combatants laid down their armor (literally in Roddick's case, tossing his racket toward the bench as he walked to the net) to embrace in an almost-full hug before parting. You could see Federer, very much playing the Apollo Creed role as the impecabbly (if somewhat foolishly) dressed champion, worn out like never before, somehow still upright and still the champ despite being battered-and-bruised beyond his or anybody else's expectations. He leaned to whisper something into Roddick's ear, and vice versa. I'm more than a little tempted to think it went just like it did in 1976: Federer, like Creed in a weak but almost awe-struck tone, "Ain't gonna be no rematch." And Roddick, for reasons more pointed than Balboa but just as heroic: "Don't want one."

Heavy Artillery

2009-07-04T23:05:00.004-04:00

On nights when I would have to work late in Anaheim for Parks & Resorts, there were times when we would actually be restricted from going outside due to "pyro" - fireworks, obviously. The whole backstage buildings and offices would be on lockdown to avoid the shell fallout, and when you're stuck in a sometimes windowless room hearing explosions in the distance lent the experience a very surreal quality.

The "bunker" experience returned tonight on the Independence Day holiday. The economy may be tanking and forcing a lot of cities to downsize or cut off their flashy celebrations, but apparently the city of Bristol had plenty of pyro left in reserve because it was an almost constant stream of bombs bursting in air from 8:00-10:00. And try though I might to get a glimpse of pageantry, I couldn't find these things! They were out there (believe me, I heard) but despite doing several laps to all the different vantage points I could think of, there just wasn't any place to watch it unfold. So I just curled up on the couch and took the long-distance artillery shelling in the way soldiers in the WWI trenches did.

To wrap up this patriotic day, what's a more vibrant symbol of Americana than 44 richly decorated robots? Here's Doris Kearns Goodwin and the Imagineering team discussing the rebooted "Hall of Presidents" at Disney World, which officially re-opened today. Happy 233rd Birthday America:

Coming Attractions

2009-07-03T23:01:00.003-04:00

I'm going to make a point of seeing this. It's World War II as seen through the eyes of the man who brought us the entirely new meaning of "Royale with Cheese". To be honest though I can't say if I'm expecting it to be good or to be a spectacularly glorious train wreck. There's only one way to find out...

I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying

2009-07-02T22:14:00.004-04:00

There's something wrong with Ron Artest. I'm not calling the guy out (because I know he'll come after me) or saying he wouldn't light me up on the basketball court (because he would, blindfolded and with both hands tied up) and I'm not really saying he bothers me.

I just know there's something wrong with him. It might be okay though, because it seems like whatever it is that's knocked a couple screws loose, it's made him into the player that he is. You know what they say about taking what you've got, "for better or worse", etc, etc. I guess I'm just saying, when this kind of thing comes up in the course of a nonchalant post-game chat, it makes me wonder if Ron-Ron (as he insists on being called) is somehow managing to turn over the motor despite leaving the keys on the kitchen counter:

I remember when I used to play back home in the neighborhood there were always games like that. I remember one time, one of my friends, he was playing basketball and they were winning the game. It was so competitive, they broke off a piece of leg from a table and they threw it and it went right through his heart and he died right on the court.

And thing about this is, if you watch the video, it's not some big, dramatic, "I've seen things you cannot even imagine!" moment. He spins it as if it were just another of those dime-a-dozen "So, this one time me and my buddies..." stories. Hey, life's tough on the New York courts. Every so often a guy will get SPEARED with a table leg, but no biggie. Ball's in!!

I don't know if it should be considered big-deal. I don't think it could be considered normal. I guess you gotta go with whatever works. But there's something wrong about Ron Artest - which of course means he will be an absolutely perfect fit in L.A.

Cleveland, You Never Cease to Amaze Me

2009-07-01T22:03:00.005-04:00

I don't have much to contribute today, but I just think Shaquille O'Neal ought to take a good long look at what he's getting himself into. The people in this video are right up there with the residents of Mobile "Who All See the Leprechaun?!?" Alabama...

This is what the bear probably looked like. This "recreation" shows how the bear escaped.

I mean, I can't figure out who looks worse in this: the stunned residents who are sure a black bear is stalking the neighborhood but can't find anything to take a picture of it, or the news reporter who figured it would do wonders for his career by personally having a cardboard cut out stand in for the bear, with the qualifier of, "It looks like this. Except real."

Oooooohhhkkkaaayyy...

The Ozzie Guillen Thought of the Day

2009-06-30T19:47:00.005-04:00

I would hardly be the first person to suggest that Ozzie Guillen, the White Sox raging volcano of a manager, would be absolutely electric on his own reality show. Like the other famous reality Oz, Mr. Osbourne, he'd require the censor button about every 9 words and would reliably say something controversial every 4.5 minutes - and he damn sure wouldn't apologize for it.

Take today's press conference after word leaked out that he and fellow Chicago skipper, the Cubs' Lou Piniella, were at the top of a Sports Illustrated players poll concerning the manager they'd least like the play for. "Sweet Lou" clocked in at #1 with 26% of the vote, followed closely by Guillen at 21%:

It's interesting that the top 4 choices on the s&*t list are among some of the most successful managers in baseball history (Torre & LaRussa) as well as two World Series champions (Guillen & Pinella). It also gives one pause to see that Torre has enough of a duality about him to make both this list and the prior week's poll of the skip you'd most want to play for. (Laymen's terms: most players just picked the guy they'd heard a bunch of rumors about and called it a day.)

So here comes Ozzie's response:

"Looks like players picked old-school guys. Maybe they don't like old school, don't like to be told what to do.
"It doesn't bother me. If 59 percent of my players say they like me, that's good enough for me."

Meanwhile, somebody brought up his long-distance love affair with the Beer Garden known as Wrigley Field:

If Cubs fans ever envisioned Ozzie Guillen switching sides of town and becoming the manager of their team, well, it would come with a few demands. The Sox manager addressed the topic without pulling any punches today.
''I never be in Wrigley Field [as Cubs manager],'' Guillen said. ''I don't give a [crap]. I can't I say I don't like Wrigley Field? Why can't I express myself? It's like I don't like to eat chicken. Why I should I have to like Wrigley Field? Whoever gets upset about that? [Bleep] them. I don't like Wrigley Field. What's wrong with that? I wish I could do something about it. The governor of Chicago, please, build another one. I don't know why people make such a big deal that I don't like Wrigley field. I don't work for Wrigley Field. I might manage the Cubs. No, not Wrigley Field. I hate that [expletive] place.''

Seriously, if this guy isn't on his own reality program in the next offseason for the MLB Network, a golden opportunity has gone by the boards.

Henman Hill in Panorama

2009-06-29T21:39:00.009-04:00

Unfortunately, when taking (and then later stitching) together photos from my "ancient" first-generation iPhone, the resulting magnificent vista can't really be shown in high definition. Click on the photo to get a much better (and larger) appreciation of the sight. This was my vantage point from the bottom of the hill during a late-evening tour of the grounds on Saturday: as you might suspect, this was during the third round match of local favorite Andy Murray, which he won with relative ease in straight sets.

That was not the case tonight as Murray battled it out with Stanislas Wawrinka for close to four hours under the brand-spanking new roof, which when illuminated in the night makes it appear that a gigantic marshmellow spaceship has landed in southwest London - but hopefully has no plans to harm our planet:

While admirers of enthralling tennis (and television bosses, particularly the BBC which airs Wimbledon in primetime and not against Oprah and the afternoon soaps like ESPN) were ecstatic about the roof's deployment, the man who won the five-setter was not a fan:

“Both of us were trying to get white towels from the locker room because your hands were drenched,” Murray told reporters after the match. “When I finished, it was like I’d been in a bath. It was very, very, very humid.”

Sounds like Andy Murray should pay a visit to Finnegan's on a Thursday when school is in session, eh?

When Did Noah Build the Ark?

2009-06-27T15:37:00.004-04:00

Well, the week is wrapped up here at Wimbledon, save one five-set epic going on over at No. 1 court between a pair of swashbucklers, Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero and Chile's Fernando Gonzalez. You've heard of him, right Thomas?

The big buzz during the first week of play in SW19 (Wimbledon's post code, for those of you in the dark) has been the decisive lack thereof. After the dropping out of defending champ Rafael Nadal due to lingering knee problems, it seems like this particular Wimbledon is missing the traditional simmering of tension, the looming sense of excitement that a clash between the game's two giants, Nadal and Roger Federer, is coming. There are of course great storylines: the resurgence of Andy Roddick, fresh from his best-ever showing at the French Open, seeking to redeem a second-round loss from last year; a potential encore of last year's all-Williams final on the ladies' side; the Cinderella run of the 17-year old American Melanie Oudin; and of course the great British (or is he Scottish only?) hope of Andy Murray, trying to become the first Brit to win the Championships in some 70-odd years. But for all the interesting angles, I kid you not, press conferences have been reduced to quizzing Roddick about a back-and-forth with his wife (Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker) on Twitter where he criticized her musical tastes and she his. The exchange, verbatim:

Roddick had written on his Twitter feed that he was going to ban his swimsuit model wife Brooklyn from bringing her iPod into the kitchen.

"Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, I feel like it's a 24-hour loop of the Disney Channel," he wrote.

she retaliated by saying: "One of his favourites is Rick Astley (enough said). He knows a few 'N Sync dances, and he LOVES Kelly Clarkson. I promise he is far worse."

Quizzed on his taste in music, Roddick told reporters: "What do you want me to say? I said I wasn't proud, but I'm not going to lie to anybody. I busted my wife on some of her ... music. She brought up Rick Astley. I can't deny it. It's in my iPod. I bet it's in your iPod, too, so shut up."

I hereby solemnly declare that Rick Astley has not, and never will be, on my iPod. Sorry A-Rod.

If there's one absence which has managed to upstage Nadal's, it's most definitely been the daily disappointment that has come with not being able to utilize the massive, translucent quasi-greenhouse roof installed over Centre Court for the purposes of eliminating the rain delays for which Wimbledon is famous (last year's epic final between Federer and Nadal took almost 9 hours of real-time to complete due to massive showers). But with the exception of some sprinkles this evening, the weather has been nothing short of glamorous all week. Everybody's on a knife's edge wondering when the legendarily tempestous England summer is going to arrive and finally give the All England Club the chance to unveil their shiny new toy. But even in staying put, the roof has already created an unheard-of new species: Englishmen and woman who are royally pissed off at how nice the weather is!

Farewell, Captain EO...

2009-06-25T19:43:00.002-04:00

I could flesh out some thoughts on this, but unfortunately I'm still a very young face in the blogging world and I can't do anything but follow the crowd today: the news cycle, the blogosphere, the Twitter-verse, Facebook Nation, and MySpace planet are all communicating on the same wavelength: Michael Jackson has passed away.

This was the final chapter of a long, bizarre descent for "The King of Pop" who had as many awkward "WTF?" moments over the past 15 years as he did hit singles in the previous 15. The guy had a chimpanzee named Bubbles following him around! He was a lot of things to a lot of people, but I choose to recognize what was one of the finest acting performance in the theme park 3-D film history (note: I'm not entirely sure this should be considered a compliment).

Ladies and Gentleman, I salute you, Captain EO.

SW19 Will See Your Butler Cabin and Raise You The Royal Box

2009-06-23T16:03:00.002-04:00

Dedicated American sports fans would narrow the list of "the most traditional sports event" to a few choice selections: certain college football programs, venerable baseball/football franchises like the Yankees, Packers, Red Sox, etc. But I'd bet the number one answer in that Family Feud survey would be "The Masters" (Certainly, CBS reminds us about this at every opportunity). But whoever came up with "a tradition unlike any other" has never been to a little strip of houses and lawns in the southwest corner of London known as Wimbledon.

Amidst the majestic trees of Augusta, everybody gets treated like royalty. But what would they say to the grounds of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, where on any given moment the patrons may actually be royalty? Everything at Wimbledon revolves around a tradition so old there's nobody within four or five generation who actually remembers why it got started. It's the ultimate delivery of the classic Fiddler on the Roof line: "How did this tradition get started? I'll tell you....I don't know. It's just tradition!"

The first couple days of the tournament have gone swimmingly, but I'm still in the middle of trying to re-acclimate to Europe. I spent a glorious summer in Dublin back in 2005, but never got a chance to make it to London until now. Certainly I've seen Wimbledon on television dozens of times, but the place has such an intimate, up-close feel. Most of the players rent houses and apartments just a few blocks (at most) from the entrance gates and walk freely among the pubs and shops along High Street in between matches. There's a great story of how, after losing one of the classic finals in all Wimbledon history (a five-setter to wild-card entry Goran Ivanesevic), Patrick Rafter headed down to the Dog & Fox Pub in Wimbledon Village and bought a round for the house. So while a fair comparison in terms of stature and power membership might be a lofty perch like Augusta National, I think a more legit parallel to the AELTC would be Bethpage Black, the municipal course which hosted the just-concluded US Open. Just like there, the locals feel an intense, prideful ownership over the place and welcome the world's best with open arms (not to mention LOTS of strawberries and cream. There is only one item that never leaves the menu down at the media 'canteen', and it unfortunately isn't the prime rib. That's okay, but there's only so much prime rib a man could consume anyway.)

One thing does throw you for the first few days in Europe, and that's the incredible length of the days. It's 9:40 here and the sunlight is just starting to fade, and it'll be up at full blast again before 6 AM. This affords us an opportunity for long, uninterrupted broadcasts that stretch from noon-10pm local time (7am-5pm back in the States). So to close with a perfectly shameless plug, tune in to ESPN2 every day during the week for all your Wimbledon needs.

A Generation Gap

2009-06-19T22:07:00.001-04:00

It could be merely a sign that I have far too much idle time to kill, but I find myself strangely invested in the ongoing late-night "wars", such as they are, with Conan, Dave, Jimmy, Jimmy, Craig, and a soon-to-be-revived Jay doing their subtle back-and-forth from across the airwaves. So this is what all the adults were gabbing about in the summer of '92 like it was some big deal! Here I thought it was just about the Olympics Triple-Cast! (If you have no idea what this is, I suggest you read up here. The OTC was further proof that genius is always one generation ahead of its time, because today we take for granted that any sporting event above junior-college football will be given the full-on treatment by no fewer than five networks. Observe the ongoing US Open - you can watch on ESPN, NBC, the USGA website, ESPN's website, your iPhone, ESPNNews, or any one of several stationary channel cameras on DirecTV. It's enough to make you think you're in the control truck on site at Bethpage! But back in 1992, the concept of extra channels providing exclusive start-to-finish coverage of sports was so revolutionary...they wanted you to pay for it through the nose. As a result, by my count, more people have signed up as followers of this blog - look to the right, we've hit seven! - than did for the OTC. If you couldn't have already guessed, I remember this all vividly because we actually had the Triple-Cast. And at the time, bragging about being able to watch four different channels of Olympics coverage was akin to claiming a Unicorn was on your front lawn. People heard about it but never saw proof it existed. NBC got a few maniacs like us on board, but still wound up $100 million in the red -yet they paved the way for the all-access coverage we demand out of today's sport media.)

But with the long aside about the Triple-Cast out of the way, I turn back to the current state of affairs in late night TV. The numbers keep rolling in, and they keep showing David Letterman and Conan O'Brien jockeying for the pole position in total viewers, with Letterman coming out in front most nights. Conan retains a vice-like grip on the younger audience though, and the younger the age-window, the more lopsided the comparison is. I could do a long-winded exegesis on what these TV preferences say about the gap between generations, but I think the material speaks for itself. Witness Conan's leveraging of his own set for comedy's sake:

NBC is banking getting the best of both worlds - the generation that grew up with Nintendo follows Conan to 11:30. Their grandparents come back to NBC in September to watch Jay Leno at 10pm and tune out David Letterman, just like they did before the Tonight Show transition. Everybody in Universal City goes home a winner. You know what they say about best-laid plans, though...

Twitter-verse

2009-06-18T17:02:00.004-04:00

The results from today's Crosstown game were decidedly less satisfying...Moving on.

I don't know if it has officially entered the dictionary, but if I have to lay bets on what will wind up being the Word of the Year, I'm betting the farm on "twitter". It's a noun, a verb, an adjective, and every so often a complete sentence all on its own. How did we find out Shaquille O'Neal and Paul Pierce's opinions on the NBA Finals? How did we learn that Oprah needs a suggestion on how to get ticks off a dog? The latest news and initiatives from that guy in the White House? Not to mention his loyal opposition? How about the really mundane s&*t like what Ashton Kutcher had for breakfast, USC coach Pete Carroll's choice for Song of the Day, or what Alex Richanbach of the acclaimed short film Stealing Second is up to? (This last one is a personal favorite of mine; I check it every day in the hopes that something useful will pop up. No luck so far, but I have to admit I'm jealous of how he apparently was in the vicinity of Al Pacino at the Denver Airport's Panda Express.) It was all via Twitter. It seems appropriate that this week, as golf's premier national championship is being contested on a true public course (for $50, anybody can play Bethpage Black), we were privy to up-to-the-second updates from numerous journalists and golfers on the playing conditions that ultimately led to a suspension of play. Twitter's become so prevalent in such a short timespan that ESPN's coverage of the rain delay led with Ian Poulter's "tweet" from the practice putting green: a very deadpan "Where's my canoe?"

I can't pin it on any one moment - perhaps it was the cover of Time three weeks ago, or how seemingly every show at ESPN now comes with the "Follow us on Twitter..." bug in the bottom third of the screen, or the inexplicable amount of press coverage devoted to Kutcher's "bet" with CNN over who could reach 1 million followers on Twitter first - but Twitter seems to be rapidly taking over our daily lives. As Conan O'Brien deadpanned last night, "It's tough to believe that only one year ago, man was totally in the dark about what Wilmer Valderamma had for lunch." A couple friends from my previous life out in California circled the rounds on Twitter breaking down all the latest minutiae from Parks & Resorts. My former colleague Allen was particularly amused by one report on the flurry of Twittering caused by a failure of a key Fantasmic show element:

OnFantasmic:"The lack of dragon nearly instntly sent rippls through the
Twitterverse as fans sent out dsappontd Tweets" LOLThe twitterverse!

I was laughing too, Allen. But just beneath the laughter was a very serious point, one I think we're taking for granted as too ludicrous to be taken seriously. While it does sound (and on many levels is) very funny and moronic, Twitter has rapidly evolved into precisely what that reporter was talking about - it's own freaking little miniaturized version of the universe, duping us into thinking that Oprah and Obama, Shaq and Kobe, ESPN and CBS are just like the neighbors next door who pop in to borrow a cup of sugar. Is this a good thing or the signal that western civilization as we know it is about to crumble until we cannot fathom a moment when we didn't communicate via 140-character, horrendously grammar-inaccurate internet posts? I'm undecided at this time. Just be warned though, over-indulgence on Twitter can lead to harsh consequences. Observe what happened to ESPN's Kenny Mayne:

Lesson du jour

2009-06-17T19:12:00.003-04:00

Sox 4, Cubs 1. I think that ought to just about sum up the day.

Summer with Stanley

2009-06-16T20:58:00.002-04:00

Well, the NBA and NHL playoffs are in the books, and as far football it looks like we'll once again have to go through "Football America Held Hostage" starring Brett Favre and the NFC North. Which means that summer has finally been cleared for what it's supposed to be about: the cut of the grass, the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd. Now that Kobe and Sidney have each taken a victory lap, it's baseball season.

There is one thing about the past weekend that really caught my eye though, something unique and greatly underappreciated in the world of sports. When players in other leagues talk about reaching the top, they refer to it simply as "winning the title" or some variation therein. For hockey, however, success has a clear cut and unyielding definition: the Stanley Cup. Not "a Stanley Cup", as we say when talking about winning "a Super Bowl" or "a pennant" or "a NBA title". In hockey you either have the Stanley Cup or you don't. Most people don't realize this or about the two dozen other cherished traditions that actually make hockey a very exciting and passionate sport.

Which is another sad indictment of how much Gary Bettman has mismanaged his own league - seriously, Gary, no matter how much baseball fans might disapprove of Bud Selig, they're not going to go out of their way to boo him during the presentation of the championship trophy. It's just wrong that such a unique sports tradition go unnoticed, though given the spike in viewership for the seven-game series between Detroit and Pittsburgh that might slowly be changing. In hockey, you don't get a copy of the trophy for every title you win: you get the Stanley Cup, there's only one, and keep it long enough for everybody to have a turn paying homage. Customarily, every member of the team and front office gets to spend one day with it, most with special requests that range from highly emotional (players take it to the cemetery to show deceased loved ones) to the "conquering hero returns" motif (many request using it in a parade or visit the hometown digs) and occasionally rowdy (Mark Messier apparently spent his time with the '94 Cup at a variety of New York's finer gentleman's clubs; legend has it that Mario Lemiuex's day with it ended with the Cup floating to the bottom of his swimming pool.)

Put it this way: no other sports trophy comes close to attaining the aura of the Stanley Cup. I don't see full-time handlers with white gloves escorting the Lombardi Trophy everywhere it goes, particularly since there are 42 of them in various NFL trophy display cases.

For some of the Cup's more eclectic misadventures over the 109 years of its awarding, click here.

I Think He's Mocking You, NBC

2009-06-15T22:36:00.005-04:00

It's usually pretty easy for ludicrous and stupid arguments to come off as precisely that - ludicrous and stupid. But the jockeying among late night comics has an element of the surreal to it that's making it quite funny to watch. Letterman continues to "spin" his Palin comments while there's apparently a desire for heads to roll at NBC.

Meanwhile, this is the moment when the sidekicks get into the act, as evidence by Craig Ferguson's grandstanding on Friday night in response to the edict out of Universal City that we shall all bow before King Conan:

He really had it for awhile there...but I don't know, he rode it right off the rails near the end - to his credit, he seemed to know it. That's one of the most interesting things to observe about a comedian, their capacity for self-evaluation in the middle of all the chaos. You can almost see the thought bubble over Ferguson's head spelling out, "I've lost control here and there's no way to recover!" (Not unlike Stan Van Gundy in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, come to think of it.)

And lest you think I'm the only loon paying attention to this, I'm sitting in the diner last night munching on some buffet selection and this octogenarian foursome next to me is in the middle of their own mini-focus group!

Old Lady 1: Who is is that we watch now, that Leno's off the air...
Old Man 1: You don't like Conan?
Old Lady 1: No, we don't watch him, we don't like Conan.
Old Man 2: Nobody does.
Old Lady 2: Wow, you're up late.

Really happened. This truly is the hot topic that all of America is buzzing about, from Connecticut to California. I need to focus my energy on what matters...so, how long until football season again?

Kings or Clowns? Guess That Depends on Who You Ask

2009-06-11T20:13:00.006-04:00

Now, on the list of things which should be considered important, the recent shake-up in the batting order of America's late night talk show hosts doesn't rank very high. But let's not stop that from huge bold faced headlines in the Hollywood trades and blogs over how dire the situation is!

If you don't really know (or care), NBC's "late" late night host, Conan O'Brien, finally completed the five-year waiting period to move up into the clean-up spot as host of The Tonight Show. This puts him in direct competition with the man he replaced once upon a time, CBS stalwart David Letterman. The man who retired from Tonight only to almost immediately regret it, Jay Leno, entertained a mega-offer from ABC but ultimately took a spot in NBC's primetime lineup at 10 PM. With a more home-spun, drama-free style built on Leno's super nice-guy person, Tonight regularly led the pack in viewership and cache among celebrities looking to plug their latest books and films.

O'Brien, despite being at 46 the oldest man to ever assume host duties on the Tonight show, pulls a much younger audience with his more subdued, almost nerdy style of humor. Perfect for the niche audience of college kids who need a laugh in the middle of an all-nighter, worrisome for a network that still counts on 60-year olds in Missouri to stay tuned after the late local news. O'Brien wisely took a poke at his apparent youth-skewing comedy during his second week on the show:

Now come the super-early returns on the changing of the guard in American TV. As expected, the curiosity factor piqued Conan's ratings to the tune of record levels, but there was sharp decline every day last week and by Tuesday of this week, Letterman was out-drawing the new kid on the block (relatively speaking - O'Brien hosted the Late Night show for 16 years, the same amount of time Letterman has been on CBS) and panic was - or at least should - have hit the streets. The 21st-century's answer to Walter Winchell, Nikki Finke over at Deadline Hollywood Daily, apparently has enough data to render a verdict:

It's the nightmare scenario for GE/NBC Universal that everyone but boss Jeff Zucker thought would happen: the network's cash cow The Tonight Show, once safely No. 1 in the ratings with Jay Leno as host, now can only hope to seesaw in the ratings with Letterman's Late Show. And it's all Zucker's fault. You'd think that NBC would be in a flopsweat over O'Brien's ratings slide during his first and second week as host of The Tonight Show. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. Now, most network suits would be spending every minute of every hour of every day brainstorming how to make the show more popular. But this is NBC where, when the going gets rough, the executives go golfing. That's right, Conan's longtime executive producer Jeff Ross is getting his money's worth out of his spankin' new membership at Riviera Country Club because he was on the golf course not only two weekends in a row -- but both Saturday and Sunday last weekend even after Conan's ratings began to fall.

I think the first problem here is that Nikki has obviously never played The Riv - neither have I for that matter, but I did get in a good walk there during the '08 Northern Trust Open - because once she's seen the place she'll never hold it against anybody for sneaking in a weekend 36 holes. More to the point, what precisely is somebody supposed to do between Friday and Monday that's gonna solve the problem for a show that runs every night of the week, almost every week of the year? It's this kind of over-the-top reactionism (INSTANT SUCCESS! INSTANT FAIL!) that I miss the least about Los Angeles. Actually, I'd say that comes in third behind the smog and the epic stupidity of the public transit department.

The story here isn't that viewers are deserting NBC in droves for David Letterman (they're deserting NBC for plenty of other reasons), but let's not let that get in the way of a good public dress-down from the relative safety of the internet. The numbers shift with O'Brien is in fact pretty predictable, and it's going to take more than 7 nights of shows to gauge if he's actually squandered the fanbase. Moreover, he brought his own fanbase with him, as the spin doctors were out in force today telling anybody who would listen, "Hey, even if his audience is smaller - and we're not conceding it is - it's far and away the top audience for coveted 18-49 demo!" In normal people terms, that means that more adults from age 18-49 watched Conan than any other late night show (significantly more, as it turns out: 156% more than Letterman. When you narrow the window to viewers 18-34, the margin becomes even more lopsided: 236%.)

How they actually determine this stuff is a process only about 11 people locked away in the Nielsen ratings bunker understand, but the network suits eat it up just the same (or spit it out, depending on the circumstances). The raw audience sizes have tilted to Letterman for the moment, but the key slices of the population advertisers drool over (young urban types with money to spend) have come to the 11:30 hour along with Conan. And in case anybody forgets - he's been on the job for seven days! Can I be the only one who wants to gag when an NBC press release calls him "the new king of late night" at the same time Hollywood's most influential internet honk is tearing his production a new one?

To solve the conundruum, I did something really bold: I actually watched the two main pugilists (Leno's 10 PM presence will make for an interesting wild card come fall) for a segment apiece last night. Conan...let's just say he's done better. It was an uneven monologue trying to mix in jokes about the Fiat purchase of Chrysler, Krispy Kreme, Jamba Juice, and Spencer Pratt (a nightly riff on Pratt has quickly become the signature sign-off move of Conan's monologue). I laughed, but more than a few times it was simply mild amusement at Conan's very breezy brush-off a joke that just couldn't quite connect.

So I switched over to Letterman just in time to catch his apology to Sarah Palin. Given the former VP candidate's appearance in New York, Letterman had (as comics are wont to do) cracked wise at her colorful family history and the governor took offense. Letterman took a moment during his show to clarify and apologize...kinda. As only a superbly skilled, well-timed comic host could possibly do, he seemed to mix genuine empathy over hurt feelings with an all-too-obvious "Are you f&*kin' kidding me?" indignation. It was the kind of brilliant high-wire act that only somebody with 30 years of savvy in the late night game could've produced, simultaneously apologizing while milking the absurdity for all it was worth. Conan's just not there yet - he's the equivalent of a valued baseball prospect, groomed to perfection at Triple-A and finally receiving the call to the big leagues. He's supposed to have the gig down pat after 7 days? Whenever I try to take this seriously, I'm reminded about just how much the dirty business of show business is like nothing else in America.

Thank God.

Note - if you're in the mood for perfectly understated humor, here's the Letterman "apology" in its entirety:

Blogger Beware

2009-06-10T17:40:00.004-04:00

ESPN's Outside the Lines had an interesting roundtable on the back-and-forth among the press and blogosphere concerning the late-career explosion of Raul Ibanez:

Another Great Moment in NBA Officiating History

2009-06-09T22:56:00.005-04:00

When Mark Cuban once snarked that he wouldn't hire the director of NBA officiating to manage a Dairy Queen, the folks at DQ memorably took offense and challenged Marky Boy to put up or shut up, which he humorously did. Here's the thing: the NBA would find a way to royally screw up a Dairy Queen. An NBA ref would call three seconds on the M&M toppings of a blizzard.

When the coach of the winning team is publicly pointing out to the officials that they've blown a call at the most critical moment of a championship series game, and pretty doing it for no particular reason other than a feeling of, "Hey, somebody should point out that we've got rules", you have a problem. I wouldn't want David Stern's lackies handling my laundry, much less my basketball team's fate.

Jers-day at Work Day?

2009-06-08T22:12:00.003-04:00

A freebie to all of you who think that ESPN is actually a vast conspiracy concocted by the shadow governments of New York and Boston to shower East Coast teams with nothing but praise and adulation - I have to say that I sometimes find myself in agreement with you. I mean, how else can you explain the penchant for painting the decade-long incompetency of the Knicks as "brilliantly positioning themselves for LeBron in 2010"? Note to NYK ownership: it worked for the Democrats, who tripped over themselves just often enough for Obama to place himself as the man who would not only save Howard Dean from himself, but America by extension. Do not expect lightning to strike the same place twice.

Anyway, I digress. Today was an opportunity for all employees to show off a little team pride by wearing the attire of their favorite MLB team to work. The occasion was a visit by MLB's Chief Operating Officer Bob DuPuy. The top choice teams, by an overwhelming margin?

Well, it wasn't the Mariners and the Rockies. What does it mean? You be the judge.

Pedroia and Jeter weren't on campus today, but they would've fit right in.

Fun with Language

2009-06-04T23:02:00.003-04:00

You never know what you might find while scanning the day's news. For instance, while reading up on today's important policy speech by President Obama, I learned the following:

Obama's remarks were televised on all radio and television stations in Israel...

Now, I'm more than willing to chalk this up to a simple miscalculation by the editor: it's basically second nature to say all stations televised the speech without considering the medium. Makes you wonder though: how precisely could a radio station televise something?

Huh???

2009-06-03T21:31:00.003-04:00

The "Huh?" Moment of the Day is brought to you by the man who invented the concept of being "A Legend in His Own Mind", the announcer who loves fewer things more than hearing himself talk, Ken The Hawk Harrelson. Analyzing the swing of one Jack Cust for the Oakland Athletics, the Hawk-aroo sent even his most devout followers in search of a head to scratch when he dropped this line:

If he were about 115 years old, that movie The Natural would've been dedicated to him.

As Harry Doyle would say, "Dynamite drop-in. That broadcasting school has really paid off." You're still my boy Hawk, even if you hear what nobody is saying.

Time Goes By

2009-06-02T20:56:00.003-04:00

First, updating our top story from yesterday: Hummer's gonna make it after all! Okay, maybe a little bit too excited, but there will be a save of about 3000 jobs for the soon-to-be-ex GM brand, as a Chinese company has agreed to buy the obnoxiously fuel-inefficient minivan on 'roids line. Drinks at the Backer are on Rick Wagoner.

Moving on...a few things happened this weekend that made me feel old. Or more accurately, they made me acutely aware of the fact that I'm getting older, like it or not.

First, my sister got married this weekend in Chicago - gorgeous weather, wonderful ceremony, perfect union, wild and crazy after-party for the reception (and really, would the Heidkamps do it any other way? Of course not). I even tried to add to the specialness of the moment by educating the wedding party on the parallels between the wonderful adventure the happy couple was embarking on and the moving lessons of Up. I'd say the response was mixed between, "That was very sweet" and "pass me another beer."

The specialness of the occasion, and the fact that two more good friends from college are getting married this summer, while a third close buddy from high school is already married (and welcomed his first child) kind of hit me hard with the knowledge that - hey, ready or not, here comes the big stuff. For the longest time, big life-altering stuff like marriage, having kids, moving to far-off places (or better yet, trying to lock down a career) seemed a dozen worlds away. When I was 10, which would place me in the year 1995, maybe I'd think off to life as an adult some twenty years or so from now, but it was a pure fantasy. 2015? Yeah, sure, 2015 will be here one day. We'll all be flying around on HoverBoards, hydrating all our food, and we of course will no longer need roads. If only that were true. Then you turn around one day to find 13 years have passed, and we're probably not gonna be zipping through the sub-stratosphere in our HoverCars (dang!), but all those seminal moments that were out in the distance weren't that far after all. They also tend to pass by pretty quickly, so make sure to pay attention.

Another milestone got touched when Jay Leno signed off of The Tonight Show Friday. Now, since I'm not 63, the evening news and a touch of Jay are not regular appointment viewing for me; I can truthfully say I've never watched a completed episode of any late-night talk show, unless one includes The Daily Show on Comedy Central. But I do remember Johnny Carson and the passing of television's most famous comedy flagship from him to Leno, more vividly because of the Cheers episode that aired right around the transition which featured Cliff Clavin's gloriously stupid attempt to get one his jokes read by Carson on the air. (For those who don't remember, Cliff wound up in jail, and his mother hammed it up on Johnny's couch.) I was a young kid when that happened; now I'm a college graduate watching a gray-haired Jay hand off the show to Conan O'Brien, who's in the process of going bald in front of our eyes. If you think this has me catching myself with the wonder of how fast things recede into the rearview mirror, think of how my parent's generation, which came of age watching Johnny Carson, must feel. Not only is Carson dead, but the guy who replaced him was on the air for nearly two decades before retiring himself!

Time does indeed go by, ladies and gentleman. We've got to make the most of it, and I mean all of it, because it turns out we've got a lot less of it than we think.

Show Us What We've Won

2009-06-01T21:10:00.003-04:00

A hearty congratulations to all of us, first and foremost. We good, honest, American taxpayers have just bought ourselves an auto manufacturer! (Awkward pause added here) I'm sure it has been a dream of every U.S. citizen to own a slice of General Motors, although we probably didn't imagine having to discontinue the Hummer in order to do it. This is another blow to the area surrounding my adopted college hometown of South Bend, as the central Hummer production plant was located in nearby Mishawaka. Historically the downfall of South Bend as a major industrial city coincided with the demise of the Studebaker in the the late '60s. Hopefully the loss of the international gas guzzler of choice will not produce a deeper sinkhole, because anybody who's been there knows South Bend needs all the help it can get...

With barely 14mpg highway, the Hummer can be green in color only.

Most UP-lifting

2009-05-29T21:53:00.005-04:00

One of my favorite things to do after watching a movie is to imagine the process that it had to go through in order to get made. Having caught the matinee of the newest Pixar film Up, I can imagine Pete Docter's pitch went something like this: "What if I were to give you a movie about a cranky old man who ties a few thousand balloons to the roof of his house and flies away in it (literally), seeking to recapture the spirit of adventure and fulfill the lifelong dream of his late wife - to explore a mysterious wilderness in Venezuela. Is that something you might be interested in?"

Most Hollywood types would laugh the guy out of the room. I'm sure there have been times when the Disney folks, particularly in the bean-counting heyday of the early 2000s, wanted to do the same. Luckily, they long ago learned that these guys are just crazy enough to make anything work.

And to me, that's the secret of great animation. It's a medium meant to create worlds that could not exist any other way. Pixar takes it to a different level because they venture into territory that most big-budget, star-packed live action films wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Sure, the loony hook about an old man in a flying house is what sticks out - but at its core, Up is tale about the greatest adventure of all: love.

Another pleasant surprise, especially considering the marketing muscle that went into trumpeting this as the first Disney/Pixar 3-D movie, was the seamless nature of its presentation. None of the story-killing "HEY LOOK, MA, WE'RE IN THREE-DEE!" gimmicks the format was suffering in earlier films like Beowulf. Seeing them produce another wonderful film, it's easy to shower Pixar with praise as if it were some enchanting land of the mystics, akin to the Wonka Factory - where nobody ever goes in, but magic comes out. Personally I think it's pretty basic: focus on a great story, and great artistry will follow. You start to wonder, as the studio hurdles into its second decade, if the pressure is finally building on them, particularly with John Lasseter's attention starting to stretch between Walt Disney Feature Animation and Imagineering. It's truly the only thing that could slow them down - a self-imposed restriction to stop think creatively, the point where the pitch meetings resort to nixing ideas because they might be seen as too "out there". How long before the pressure starts to be a burden, where the underlying message of the company is, "Whatever comes next, it better not be the one which stinks. The streak must remain intact" But who are we kidding - the latest movie was a blast and it's about an old man in a flying house! With a dog that talks via electronic collar (who, by the way, is the most hysterical and endearing character in the film)!

As unbelievable a run as it's been, it has to end at somepoint, right? Eventually, there came a day when even Joe DiMaggio didn't get a hit. I'm relieved to see something like Up, which is so out there on the surface, be pulled off with such charm, intrigue, and conviction. It makes me think these guys are bullet-proof; some would argue they already got the misfire out of their system with Cars, which I would agree has some underwhelming and overdone moments but hardly sinks to the level of some of the crap produced by rival animation studios in the last 10 years. Whatever your age or current status in life, do yourself a favor and go see Up. If you really can't find yourself enraptured by the heart and warmth of a film like this, then your inner-child is locked away forever with no possibility of parole.

Where "It Was Amazing in a Kind of Crummy, Had the Feeling of Totally Being Rigged Kind of Way" Happens

2009-05-28T23:25:00.006-04:00

Don't know if the cameras fixated on him a lot, but Brady Quinn was caught being a witness late in the fourth quarter of Cleveland's victory tonight.

Hat-tip to the Cavs, who avoided laying another colossal dud on their home fans by blowing every point of a lopsided lead of 22 only to clear everybody out of the way and deploy the "we are all going to stand here like we have no clue what to do and let LeBron James literally hold the ball for 20 seconds before jacking up a 21-foot jump shot, which will go in because he's The Chosen One" offense. While this is a well-known staple of the Mike Brey offense at Notre Dame (minus the whole going in part), there's something about the last five minutes of a critical elimination game being willingly turned into a 1-on-5 game of H-O-R-S-E that doesn't have me firing up Kanye West. It just leaves me scratching my head.

They say that all sports evolve as we move up the ranks of age and status. Youth hoops lay a foundation, high school and AAU ball is where a basic separation of talents occurs; college is where the select few get to shine, and the truly elite make it to the pros. But it seems like the basketball has reached the truly archaic post-modern phase of its development: the game is done evolving (and really, how do you top the Magic/Larry/MJ years?) and the only thing that changes is our interpretation of it. There were about 5 straight possessions when the Cavalier's offensive plan, and I'm positive this was by design, was four the other four members of the team to get as far away from James as they possibly could. Either LeBron pulls up for a jumper or drives the lane, where a no-doubt foul call was waiting by whistle-happy officiating crews. (Side note: Bill Simmons has an intriguing exegesis on the state of play in the professional ranks; check it out here)

Still, it's not like LeBron didn't drop in a couple of clutch jumpers and single-handedly pull out an elimination game for his team. I just fail to see anything awe-inspiring about it. Of course the NBA can't rig it to make Cleveland systematically squander a comfortable for the third time in as many games, leaving the door wide open for Bron-Bron to heroically ride in for the save. Nobody's that clairvoyant. But performances like James, as good as they may be, are a side product of the culture the NBA has embraced: 11 guys out there playing one-on-one...fourteen if you include the refs, who seem hell-bent on figuring out a way to influence the game rather than regulate it.

As funny as they may be, the current cycle of Kobe-LeBron puppet commercials speaks a cold-hard-fact commentary on the state of the NBA: it's simply too concerned with its own interest to actually embrace the game as it was meant to be played. We can't look at the league and picture a brilliant battle between Los Angeles and Cleveland for the championship - we have to couch it in terms of "KOBE!" vs. "LEBRON!", which isn't all that difficult when we've got both players and an army of promotional yes-men reminding us how 'awesome' they are.

Yeah, I get it. I'm just not particularly inspired by it.

Circus Circus

2009-05-27T23:19:00.002-04:00

I firmly believe that in the 21st century, we have progressed to the point where we judge people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

And you, Carlos Zambrano, simply are bats&^t insane.

Strings Attached

2009-05-26T23:54:00.006-04:00

If it weren't for a miracle three at the close of Game 2, this playoff series between the Magic and Cavaliers would be over. For my money, it is over now that the Magic held on in overtime for a 3-1 lead over The LeBrons.

So with the Cavs one game from extinction and Team Kobe locked in a dogfight with the Nuggets, the suits who populate David Stern's top secret lair must be sweating bullets. An Orlando-Denver finals? After all this energy and hype expended on trying to manufacture Kobe v. LeBron into the next Magic-Larry? I sincerely hope the puppet masters over at Nike were smart enough to cut a version where Kobe and LeBron are sitting around with nothing to do:

Live and Let Bye...No Chance

2009-05-25T23:32:00.002-04:00

The White Sox had a pretty adventurous week. It started with two consecutive wins over the rival Minnesota Twins, and the news before Thursday afternoon's game that a deal was in place for them to acquire Jake Peavy from San Diego. Oops. Then they went on and gave new definition to the old cliche about being "taken out behind the woodshed" with a 20-1 loss in the finale against the Twins. It was more lopsided than the score would have you believe.

So naturally on the heels of a 20-1 loss, the Sox proceeded to throw back-to-back shutouts and were on the verge of the sweep when normally automatic closer Bobby Jenks blew his first save for a 4-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates (this year being an unusual scheduling quirk in which the Sox and Cubs did not play, as traditional, on the first weekend on interleague play; in fact, for the first time ever the Crosstown Classic will be a mid-week affair at Wrigley come June).

Most would expect another flat, predictably stupid West Coast trip to follow such a deflating loss. I don't know what it is, but the Sox and horrendous play in the Pacific time zone (save three glorious nights in October 2005) have been like the Masters and CBS - partners for a tradition unlike any other. Current score? White Sox 16, Angels 3. You just never know.

Speaking of 2005, and as a recent refuge of the Southland I have personal experience with this, but I think we need to have a nationwide fan intervention on the followers of the Halos: you have to let this AJ Pierzynski thing go. I'm not saying you can't boo the guy; he's on my favorite team and I sometimes have to fight the urge to boo him. It's no accident AJ likes to dabble in pro wrestling in the offseason - he knows that every sport needs a villain, and the quickest way to be cast in that role is to act like somebody who simply should be booed on principle. But the incessant whining over Game 2 of the ALCS needs to stop. Let it go. Seriously.

By the way, the 4-2 homestand failed to make an impression of the pundits of ESPN power rankings crew: the Sox moved one spot up from 23rd in the latest edition, with the following "Did you know?" tidbit:

The White Sox got two straight shutouts after allowing 20 runs on Thursday. They're the first team in MLB history to achieve that feat.

Congratulations on making baseball history, White Sox. Too bad this "feat" has to be accompanied by one of the more dubious pitching performances in league history.

Quote of the Day

2009-05-22T23:03:00.004-04:00

Reflecting on the never-ending story that is TV political punditry, the following comes to mind:

When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained. -- Edward R. Murrow

In other words, Nancy Pelosi would've been a great speaker back in the heyday of the Pony Express.

Funny Flashback

2009-05-21T23:58:00.005-04:00

One of the perks about living in Los Angeles - such as it is - was a theoretical placement right smack in the center of the media capital of the world. It does make sense - most of the major conglomerates who produce media content these days (movies, TV, the elusive "catch-all" known as new media) are centered in LA, and every major newspaper, magazine, network, and "adult" company has at least a satellite post there. A bank robber holds up banks because that's where the money is, and the thousands of aspiring stars for tomorrow scurry about Los Angeles for the exact same reason.

Like everything else though, being in proximity to the money and power comes at a cost. In a lot of ways California hasn't changed all that much between the days of the Gold Rush and the late 2000s. Namely, that in exchange for the chance to live and work among the huddled masses with the possibility of someday maybe hitting paydirt, you implicitly agree to take what is given and expect nothing more. It's a wonderful little social contract probably drawn up in the lunch room at Paramount by Harry Cohn and David Selznick which has unofficially been grandfathered in to every studio exec ever since.

Did that stop the Writer's Guild of America? No. That's why, after years of apparently bending over for the Hollywood majors who control and produce nearly all content these days, they stood on principle last fall and went on strike, putting many people out of work (literally) and many many more people out of work theoretically (all the estimates about "lost income" centered mainly on money that could've been made off of productions that might've gotten started if everything else had gone exactly according to plan). I count myself in the latter group; there of course were no guarantees of more work had the writers not gone on strike, but put it this way: bringing all episodic TV production and nearly all local, union-sanctioned film production to a halt between November and April was not a recipe for young up-and-comers without plum hereditary connections.

Still, the strike accomplished what it set out to (mostly), and I can't say it hurt me too bad in the long run. In hindsight, I'm sure that if you put it to a vote everybody would've preferred to skip straight to the bottom line and resolve things without a labor stoppage and three and a half months of nasty name calling and bickering in that oh-so-shallow and quintessential Hollywood style. But I think out of all the madness a new nerve of creativity was struck - think about it this way: if the WGA and the studios had settled their issue like responsible adults, would we have been treated to comedy gold (and sweet, sweet irony) like this clip from the Colbert Report? I think not.

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The Gym, Lloyd...

2009-05-20T23:40:00.000-04:00

Went to the gym for the first time in almost two months. Between a hectic cross-country drive and several weeks of trying to adjust to a new living dynamic, personal fitness had been kind of kicked to the curb. I can't offer a really good reason for why I was avoiding it, which I guess just proves the point about why there was no reason not to try and stay active. Just missed the boat for a little while, but I'm back in a workout groove now. Whether I can stay on track (and push around enough free time on my schedule this summer) to stay on the relay team for the Chicago Triathlon remains to be seen.

Another Life

2009-05-19T23:11:00.005-04:00

I could write all night about last week's season finale of Lost. That's a promise, not a threat, although I'm sure some of you out there who either: a) don't watch LOST b) are among those who once watched only to finally tap out, likely midway through the third season or c) know what Lost is but hate it with a fiery passion, would consider it to be a threat. But aside from the fact that none of you would read it, the simple fact that Lost is too much for any one individual to try to wrap his brain around dissuades me from attempting to recap it all. It could be summed up by the following Stewie Griffin monologue:

One moment did catch my eye as a HUGE opportunity blown at first blush - right before one of the key characters, Dr. Jack, was about to drop the hyrdogen bomb down the drill shaft into the energy pocket in a Doc Brown-style attempt to spark a chain-reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum and destroy the entire universe (or at least wipe out that little corner of it which contained the plane crash and all subsequent activities of seasons 1-4), all the characters had this really odd, rough moment where they silently looked at each other, mentally saying goodbye. (See why neither I nor you would make it through a whole recap? Look how much mental energy you had to waste just making it through that one sentence! Sorry, I digress.) Anyway, all the characters were quickly making peace with the fact that if this bats&^t insane idea actually worked, they'd instantly vaporize into the nothingness that is an altered space/time reality (or something like that. I'd be more confident if Back to the Future had shown us where Marty McFly was on the verge of disappearing to before his dad manned up and planted one on his future mom). Would that not have been a ridiculously appropriate moment for somebody - ANYBODY - to pull out one of the all-time cult favorite lines of Lost, namely, "See ya in another life" with a slight Scottish brogue. Am I totally alone on this?

Probably.

Quakes For Nothing

2009-05-18T17:58:00.004-04:00

This is too easy.

Now, anybody who knows me in the slightest way knows that I've got no love lost for the city of Los Angeles. It's a hell-hole. You know the L.A. you see in the god-awful-yet-totally-awesome Kurt Russell movie "Escape From L.A."? That's the sanitized version of Los Angeles. The place sucks. And not only because of the air quality.

There's also earthquakes. The earth itself is literally trying to shake free of the burden known as Los Angeles County. I say, "Who are we to mess that up?" Some doomsday-types interpret such events to be the expression of a higher power's displeasure with us. Personally, I take it as validation that I got out of Dodge not a moment too soon.

And before certain people out there get started (I'm not gonna name names, but I think we all know I'm talking about Pat Girouard here), there is not a thin line between love and hate. There is, in the words of Dr. House, a Great Wall of China with armed turrets every 50 feet. There are certain things that are just meant to be hated in this world. Los Angeles the city is one of them.

The Missing Post

2009-05-16T22:29:00.004-04:00

Since I missed posting yesterday, does that mean today's has to be twice as long? Survey says no.

Last night was a rough one, mainly due to a bout with what I suppose could most accurately be called "a head-cold". I wasn't particularly sick but I was bone-tired. I'm guessing it was the swine flu. As a result I fell off the strict "one-post-per-day" commitment I struck out with when the blog started. To all loyal readers (in other words, nobody) I pledge to make it up to you somehow.

Meanwhile, in self-evaluating previous posts, I noticed a crucial element was missing - links! What self-respecting blogger doesn't spend hours fine-combing the internet for interesting and enlightening fare (read: the rambling, self-righteous thoughts of other bloggers) and then put up five-word hits telling everybody to go read it. It's the ultimate get-out-of-jail free card - I fulfill my promise (to myself) to put up a blog post, while somebody else has already taken care of the independent thinking and analysis for me!

Kidding aside, there is one blog I do find particularly inspiring and try to catch up with whenever I can - Kung Fu Monkey. I do this not only because of its awesome title, but because the main contributor is a former writer for Bill Cosby who currently works as head writer on the TNT series Leverage. Anybody with serious writing ambitions should check this guy out for his plain-English navigation of the s&*tstorm that is trying to land steady work as writer in Hollywood. As a true renaissance man (he holds a degree in Physics and has dabbled in stand-up, film, TV, comics, and video games), he's got a unique take on what clicks and what doesn't in the world of arts and entertainment, but his thoughts don't stop there. Do I rank him as one of my writing heroes? Well, he's the savant behind such classic scripts as American Outlaws and Halle Berry's Catwoman. So...no. But there are a lot of interesting takes on a lot of subjects to be found. It's the kind of site that typifies what a "blog" should be: minimize the soapboxing without wading down into the "when I woke up I had a bowl of cheerios" personal tracking data that belongs on Twitter (although it actually belongs nowhere, but that's a rant best saved for another post).

This was one of KFM's more enlightening posts, on the process of hiring writers for Leverage - if nothing else it underscores the shark tank world of Hollywood, as they fielded 210 potential applicants for four staff jobs (that's a 2% hire rate for those keeping score). Of course, it stopped at 210 only because they stopped taking apps, not because there weren't about 700 more aspiring writers out there ready and willing to take their cuts. Most of the time, getting the "big break" centers around being lucky enough to be among the 10% of potential employees who get the chance to be among the 2% of people who actually get hired.

Original Six

2009-05-14T22:34:00.002-04:00

Thanks to the Red Wings 4-3 win over the Ducks tonight in a feisty Game 7 of their semifinal series, Detroit will play Chicago in a matchup of two Original Six teams; this will be the first time a pair of the NHL's super six pack will play to determine a conference champion for the first time since 1995, when the two teams were...Detroit and Chicago. Maybe it is like Lost said it would be - no future and no present, just the past, repeating itself over and over.

Well, assuming the Red Wings win 4-1 again, that is.

They Faded to WHAT?!?!

2009-05-13T23:14:00.008-04:00

For those of you who don't watch LOST, now we know they must be serious - they concluded tonight's final episode with a bang, and ditched the industry standard "fade to black" for what I personally feel is a much cooler fade to white. Brings to mind one of the all-time great fade to white moments (T-Mac, this is for you...)

Whose History is It Anyway?

2009-05-12T20:15:00.005-04:00

I mentioned yesterday my overall impressions of Citi Field were quite positive, but there were a couple of things about this new Flushing Meadows beauty that didn't quite jive for me. Specifically, I was caught wondering on more than one occasion just what specifically the Mets were trying to honor.

The impressive, beautifully rendered exterior of the park harkens back to the old Ebbets Field (above; see below and note the resemblance), home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, which was demolished shortly after Walter O'Malley, exasperated by attempts to get the city of New York to cooperate on a new stadium for the team, booked it out of town for Los Angeles with the Dodgers in tow. This westward migration, which was soon joined by the Giants and Athletics plus expansion franchises in San Diego, LA, and Seattle, was one of the watershed moments in the creation of modern baseball as we know it, but that's a story for another time and place. How, precisely, does this relate to the Mets?

Inside the main entrance it gets a little stranger. The charmless concrete ramps of Shea have been replace by what I'm guessing is an architect's rendering of what the pearly gates would look like if He insisted they become equipped with escalators. Historical photographs and motivational quotes line the the rotunda's exquisite walls and floors of marble, all geared to a salute for one of the great heroes in baseball history: Jackie Robinson. Ah yes, who could forget his glory years with the...Brooklyn Dodgers. Jackie Robinson played his last game of professional baseball in New York City five years before there was ever a Met to meet. So what's the story?

Now, it's not like Jackie Robinson belongs to one team alone. His is the only number retired by every Major League Baseball team. He left a legacy that goes way beyond the simple definitions of where he played and for how long. But while a tribute to Robinson and the romantic notion of a by-gone era which Ebbets Field represents were impressive, dare I say there was a crucial element that had gone missing amid all the opulence of Citi Field and its grand concourse: the Mets themselves.

Officially the Ebbets-Citi connection could be explained by the fact that the Mets were the team that restored National League baseball to New York City, thus a tribute to those who came before was appropriate while making sure no luxury gets left behind. After all, the main reason the Mets exist today is because of NYC's staunch refusal to back off a demand that O'Malley build his new stadium in Flushing and share the revenue with the city (he preferred to stay in Brooklyn with a domed stadium that he alone held ownership over; New York balked at his requests, but as I can persoanlly attest they'll go for anything in Los Angeles, and as a result Sandy Koufax became a Hollywood icon). So when NL play was restored to the sprawl of Long Island five years after the Dodger/Giant exodus, the new stadium was precisely where city boss Robert Moses wanted it and the rest is history.

It's beautiful to look at for sure, but something about the excessive attention to detail in recreating the Ebbets Field exterior just screams like a team grasping for straws. It's almost like the Mets figured 'The Yankees spared no expense in a modern-yet-classic redo of their 1920s stadium, so we might as well follow suit'. Realizing that they had abosultely no contributions to the first seven "innings" of Ken Burns' Baseball to call their own, they borrowed some from the Dodgers.

Which, again, would make sense had O'Malley pulled an Art Modell and dumped Brooklyn to create a glorified spin-off franchise in Los Angeles. But the Dodgers are still the Dodgers out at Chavez Ravine, and if somebody's gonna pay homage to 50 years of Brooklyn baseball, shouldn't it be the club which actually played in Brooklyn at that time? And it's not like the Mets don't have a legacy of their own to celebrate - two World Series titles, each of which is easily among the most dramatic in baseball history, plus a slew of larger than life characters ranging from Nolan Ryan to "I'm Keith Hernandez", and who could forget Lenny Dykstra? (Okay, maybe you don't want to be associating with him right now). I guess what I'm saying is that there were options behind the standard - and somewhat oddly placed - love letter to Dodger icons.

Joe McKenna, your thoughts?

Meet the Mets

2009-05-11T19:24:00.000-04:00

Riding the wave of nostalgia for ye olden ballparks that has swept over New York City (and, let's face it, all of major league baseball) the New York Mets recently unveiled a gorgeous $850 million dollar love letter which, unlike its predecessor Shea Stadium and its namesake corporation, will be in no need of a bailout. Since Fallon and I had little to do on Mother's Day after the obligatory (and richly deserved, I might add) phone calls home, we decided to drop in at the newest hangout just a stone's throw away from John Rocker's favorite MTA subway line.

I had two major objectives on Sunday. A breakdown of what they were and how we made out:

To hear, live as it was intended to be heard, a full-throated rendition of the original recording of "Meet the Mets". If you're unfamiliar with this ditty, a brief primer can be found here. There's something delightfully corny about a professional sports franchise in the largest city in America attaching itself to a song that sounds like a cross between Main Street USA's Dapper Dans and the banjo players from Deliverance, with a strong dose of 1961-era Big Bands thrown in for no apparent reason. For a reason I can't quite pinpoint, it would be impossible for any other team to get away with this, but for the Mets it couldn't have been a better fit. They went through the full-out sing along with requisite "follow-the-bouncing-ball lyrics" only once during the game, but when meeting the Mets, once is never enough.
To watch the Big Apple itself rise from center field. Unfortunately this proved difficult from our seats in the "Left Field Landing" area, which didn't offer much of an angle into the apple's home beyond the batter's eye in center field. Also complicating matters was the lack of a home run by the Mets, which is the only time the apple rises (to my knowledge; it may come out pre-game or after a Met victory, but some LA-habits die hard: I arrived late and left early. Oh well.) The preserved "old" apple and the accompanying New York skyline are on display in the center field food court.

As far as ballpark ratings go, Citi Field would have to get high marks in virtually all categories. Not a perfect 100, but it's got to be an seismic improvement over Shea Stadium, a park I never had the privilege of visiting. New York's NL franchise hasn't caught as much flack as their Yankee brethren over their ticket prices leading to rows and row of empty premium seats, but like any shiny new toy an afternoon at the park comes with a cost. Not $50 for upper-deck like you'll find in the Bronx, but the wallet definitely gets a little lighter after a trip to Citi box office.

As far amenities, Brian and I made a point to visit the food court where a local legend was growing - a legend known as the Shake Shack. As a recent emigre to the east coast I'd never heard of this, but to offer some context for you Chicago/L.A. types, this place is like a cross between Giordano's Pizza and the In'n'Out. Locals practically speak in a whisper about it; throw in the type of lines you might find at Pink's on La Brea during a hot Saturday in Los Angeles, and the myth is one of epic proportions. Even the website for this place is keen to remind you of how long you'll have to wait.

So what is Shake Shack? A burger and milkshake joint, primarily, with some hot dogs on the menu for variety. I did not taste their "cleverly" titled Shack-ago Dog, but on its face I'd offer the seal of approval for descriptions: Vienna all-beef on a poppy seed bun with mustard, relish, onion, cucumber, pickle, sport peppers, and celery salt. Sounds promising, but as we all know there are many pretenders to the "Chicago style" throne. Not all are worthy.

The Shake Shack got its start (and is still thriving) inside of Madison Square Park in downtown Manhattan; Citi Field is its third location. The greatest accomplishment I guess you can afford these guys is that the burgers are so good people will waste money just to get inside Citi Field and then stand in line for one. I mean, really stand in line. I felt like I was about to join the queue for Toy Story Midway Mania! when I saw the mass of humanity. I've admittedly not been to every pro sports stadium, but I'm pretty sure I've found the only one that felt the need to set up an extended rope line for a concessions stand. Maybe the patrons were unaware that a baseball game was being played - but then again, the Mets addressed this contingency by adding a video screen on the back of the main scoreboard to face all those waiting in line at the Shake Shack.

Since Fallon and I had no particular allegiance to the on-field result (the Mets wound up winning comfortably 8-4) we waited in line. And waited. And waited. About 25 minutes later we approached the counter and were promptly greeted with the fact that one of the famous shakes was gonna cost us $6.50. Now we really were in a scene from Pulp Fiction. I wanted to do a quick double-check with the cashier just to make sure they weren't sneaking something in on the side. A shake is, after all, milk and ice cream. We can haggle over quality of the ingredients, and I'm sure the Shack prides itself on top-quality grade items, but I have a difficult time imagining how any combination of milk and ice cream is worth $6.50. So we passed and instead picked up one of the famous Shake Burgers for only the slightly less ludicrous price of $5.75 (for a single; a double would've been preferable, but it cost a whopping $8.75). Even allowing for the inevitable supply-and-demand price jack which applies in three distinct places (sports arenas, airports, and Disney theme parks), these prices were out there. All told it took more than 30 minutes and almost two full innings, not to mention clost to $20 when you include fries, to obtain a Shake Shack burger. Would the meat and cheese live up to the hype?

Eh, yes and no. Price gouging aside, this was a quality burger (one might have even said, "MMM, this is a tasty burger!") To describe the taste for those of who weren't there, it was very much on par with what you might get at Culver's, almost with a really rich "buttery" feel to the bun and a somewhat crisp touch on the meat. I wouldn't be eager to waste almost one-third of the baseball game to get one again, but don't interpret that as a slight - not many things would be on that list, least of all a burger that despite all promises to the contrary falls short of being "the greatest thing ever created". It was good, but not that good.

I've got more thoughts on Citi Field, specifically the sometimes odd disconnect between the franchise occupying it and baseball history, which apparently didn't bother any of the Met brain trust. Then again, these are the guys who entrusted their team to Jerry Manuel (snark!). I'll save further rumination on the House that The Collapsed Banking Industry Built for another post. In the meantime, I encourage all of you in the greater NY area to step on up and greet the Mets!

Fortune Cookie Says...

2009-05-08T23:48:00.000-04:00

...your existence has made a positive contribution to the Earth. No joke, that was actually what the fortune cookie said at the really bad Chinese buffet I went to this evening. Although I guess you get what you pay for, and trust me when I say it was cheap. The only qualm I have with this is that it seems to have framed my fortune in the past tense. I have "made" a positive contribution...but what does this say about my future prospects? Details at 11.

For those curious minds wondering why the Milwaukee Brewer Brats no longer roam the halls of ESPN, maybe it's because they creep Stuart Scott out...

Just a Rookie Trying to Make it Out of Camp

2009-05-07T23:29:00.001-04:00

The first few days at a new position within Walt Disney Company are about orientation. No surprise there, I guess, but then again this isn't the usual cut and dry "this is your desk and there's the bathroom" office introduction. The opening salvo at Disneyland was a blur of walking tours, company history & policy, and cheeky moments like having everybody's favorite costumed mouse hand you your ID badge. ESPN may skimp a little on the theatrics (I doubt they're gonna pay Mickey's per diem to fly out to Bristol every two weeks), but like everything else that comes in contact with the Disney culture, there's a firm (and completely accurate) belief that the employees are part of a grand, some might say cosmic, plan to produce the very best at all times. Orientation is the first step.

Welcome to Rookie Camp!

Now, the good news is that this is one camp that you can't get cut from...although I suppose you could. It would be pretty hard, but I'm sure there are a few who've wandered into it and decided that it was all just a little too Stepford-ish for them and booked it out of town. The two-day "camp" was structured in much the same way as "Traditions" is done for Parks & Resorts, which made even more sense when I was told that one of the grand architects of it had previously worked in Hotels for WDW in Florida (that's Walt Disney World for those of you who aren't into the whole brevity thing). To some of my fellow Cast Members, I'm happy to report that such Traditions classics as the Disney "sizzle" video were displayed, plus familiar standbys "Working with Integrity" and the "Legal Standards & Practices" video. Other time-honored favorites such as "The Disney Look" and the sexual harassment video unfortunately did not make the cut.

On the whole, the point they were emphasizing, and having prior knowledge of Disney practices leads me to think it was no coincidence, was that working here is not just any old job. It's interesting as I start to move further and further into the world of a "career" such as it were how certain places will emphasize a top-down atmosphere and others will go in the opposite direction. Disney, in every division I've come across, at least wants its employees thinking that the place is made from the ground up, that the tone is set by the content and those who produce it, whether that's a national nightly sportscast or a tightly-orchestrated show put on in 6 minute increments in Fantasyland. Where ESPN is concerned, that's an ethos that can come in very helpful for an organization that proclaims itself the worldwide leader of its field (and not without merit, mind you).

Sometimes it's really easy to feel like the big, indifferent machine just swallowed you whole, especially when working inside a company where profits by can drop by 46% (which they just did)...to a measly $600 million or so. The sheer scope of it leaves you feeling very, very small. Rookie Camp and the other programs like it have you primed to start work with the opposite feeling - you're not small, you're unique. Yes, a needle in a very large haystack, but that's what people are looking for, isn't it? As Don Draper told his clients in Mad Men: "You want to be the needle in the haystack. Not the haystack."

On the Other Side of the Wall...

2009-05-06T22:21:00.000-04:00

Anytime you begin a new phase in your career there's an adjustment period. At first you find it difficult to escape those funky "What am I doing here?" moments, particularly when it's a place that has a long-standing public profile, always out of sight but never out of mind. I wouldn't go so far as to say you feel like you don't belong, but there are places that carry a certain, 'Pinch me, is this really happening?' vibe.

That was certainly the case when I started at Parks & Resorts. Then again, how could it not be? In the blink of an eye I was suddenly on the other side of the wall. You know what I mean. You visit attractions at Disneyland, or at Epcot in Florida, and you pass through an area that's labeled "Cast Members Only" - usually this gets gussied up in theming, i.e. at Space Mountain it's "Astronauts Only Beyond This Point", or in the Disney-MGM Studios they put up a lot of "CLOSED SET!" signs. The point is the same - this is the line you do not cross. Ever.

Then one day you find yourself dumped on the opposite side of that line and it's like you've just wandered backstage at the circus. I remember one of the first times I got to go into the backstage area of Disneyland. I was sitting at the cast cafe and, no joke, two seats down from me was Aladdin and the Genie. Eating lunch as if it were the most normal thing in the world. To describe it as a surreal moment would be dramatically underselling it.

Now despite what the commercials would have you believe, you don't walk down the hallways and see LeBron James trying to fix the copier, or Dale Earnhardt Jr. offering free tech support, or the Milwaukee Brewer Brats in the cafeteria at ESPN (though it would be sweet if you did). But much as was the case at Disneyland, you instantly feel like you've crossed over to the other side of the line. Suddenly a place that didn't really exist - it was always "that place" on the other side of the line - is not only there but has now let you become a part of it. People who were previously just a face on TV or a voice on the radio are now your colleagues. You've become part of a global brand that's consumed every day by people who speak every language and crosses every barrier. That's pretty cool when you stop to think about it. Just for a moment though, because the biggest line you crossed is the one that separates consumer from producer. Now you're not just a fanboy - you've got a job to do.

Will Today be the Day?

2009-05-05T23:51:00.001-04:00

Will today be the day that starts the rest of the days? The day you do 50 sit-ups before you walk out the door? The day you put on a suit? Lose the suit? The day you don't hit 'snooze'? The day you feel relieved? Taller? Wonderfully nervous? Will today be the day that starts the rest of the days?

Monster.com's ad slogan used to be "Today's the day." Really miss that campaign...

What's up everybody? Since I recently went through a major change in status and location, I figured one way to keep the mind limber would be some daily journal keeping in blog format. This also helps me keep in touch with all the family and friends who might be wondering what I'm up to when I can't seem to manage a reply to a phone call or e-mail, which is pretty much all the time (I can hear you all thinking to yourself "Aww, how sweet. He thinks we're actually going to read this thing.")

It's been, to put it mildly, a hectic three weeks. Over the course of less than a month I've gone from living in Los Angeles, CA to Bristol, CT, a 3000-mile change accomplished with a little grit, a dash of luck, and a willingness to cram all my stuff into the Montero and book it out of town as fast as humanly possible. It was the kind of stretch that makes you think of that old John Lennon lyric, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."

So almost two years after graduating, I'm finally able to lock down a job in sports broadcasting at this energetic little start-up known as ESPN, Inc. This comes after a year of working elsewhere in the Walt Disney Company as a Cast Member in Parks & Resorts (The Disneyland Resort, to be precise.) I'll be dropping in to write pretty much every day for the duration of my time here in Bristol, which is scheduled to last six months - but who knows what's gonna happen down the road? Thirty days ago I'd never thought I'd be here, so 180 days seems like an eternity.

Ah, but it's not. Lest we get too laissez-faire, I've established two basic goals to keep up with on the blog:

1) To try and keep a daily record of thoughts and activities that my family and friends can use to stay in touch (which might be aiming a little too high. If I manage to get five different people to view this site once I'll consider it a moral victory.)

2) To write five pages daily for the screenplay I've been working on (this would be a completely and utterly pathetic cliche back in Los Angeles, but now I'm a distinguished writer who's taken a sabattical from the smog and disgust to clear his head in rural Connecticut...alright, fine, I'm a cliche. Still.) But I've talked about this idea long enough, and today is the day that is going to start the rest of the days. Every day, a blog post. Every day, no matter how painful it is to sit and write, five pages. If I turn around the following day and delete 'em, fine. But five pages, every day, no excuses.

Today is the day that starts the rest of the days...