reiter's rant

Decisions decisions

2008-11-04T19:09:00.002-05:00

Who the hell scheduled Rangers-Islanders on election night??

The good news: according to fivethirtyeight.com, if Obama wins Indiana, he's most likely got the election locked up. Exit polls too close to call.

Unfortunately, there's no data on how many goals the Rangers will score on that kid from Dennis the Menace tonight. I'm betting six hundred goals in the first period, and hoping Valiquette stays nailed to the bench so he doesn't allow six hundred and one goals in the final six minutes.

No, I'm not bitter about Saturday, why do you ask?

In other news, Fatso will miss 3-4 months with elbow surgery. Terry Sawchuk and Patrick Roy laugh. So do I.

I wish I had two TVs to keep an eye on the game and the election.

Oh wait. I'm at work. I've got 14 TVs to watch!

Jessiman going to Music City...

2008-10-30T21:58:00.003-04:00

...for future consideration.

Adios, Huge Bustiman. I'll always look at you and think of what coulda been.

And by that I mean Dustin Brown, Zach Parise, Ryan Getzlaf, Mike Richards, or anyone else taken after you in the first round who actually made it to the NHL.

Oh, and Rich Huffam is still a welching douchebag.

After two periods.....

2008-10-30T20:50:00.002-04:00

Rangers and Thrashers still tied at 1. Naslund's power play goal is waved off.

And Rich Huffman is still a welching scumbag. Go figure.

In happier news....

2008-10-30T19:46:00.002-04:00

Rangers-Thrashers are 1-1 after 1. Aside from a Colton Orr-Eric Boulton fight that was pretty solid, not much else to report right now.

Oh, Gerry Cosby has re-opened. Just in case you feel the urge to drop $300 on a hockey jersey or anything.

I know I would, if that idiot Rich Huffam paid out my winnings.

Rich Huffam is a welching douchebag

2008-10-30T19:42:00.004-04:00

So I won my fantasy baseball league last month by a large margin, and because I paid in late (I was asked to join four hours before the draft), the commissioner of the league, a semi-retarded Oak Bluffs cop named Rich Huffam has decided to withhold payment until such time as he deems acceptable, to 'balance things out' as he claims.

I'll spare you the details, but let's just say that after asking for four months, I was finally told who to give my money to. This after I'd already locked up first place (by 33 games, no less). Rich, on the other hand, tumbled from second place to sixth in the final weeks of the season, and was bounced from the playoffs quickly. Think the poor Red Sawx fan has a bruised ego?

How does he explain that to his buddies? "Yeah, those Yankee fans are all dumb, man....shit, this one guy was in my fantasy league, and he was so stupid he destroyed me in head to head matchups by an aggregate 19-9, and then beat the hell out of everyone else and won the league handily."

A childish reaction to getting demolished for six months? Yep.

A sad statement on his maturity? Oh yeah.

Pathetic? Without question.

Rich, you're a piece of shit. And I mean that sincerely.

In-game update

2008-10-27T21:16:00.006-04:00

***UPDATE*** 4-1. This is just too funny for words. Drury on a 5 on 3 power play. Most of the third period has been spent in the home team's zone, with predictable results.

On the ensuing 5 on 4 four minute minor (3:25 remaining after the faceoff) Richard Park breaks in shorthanded, and Dan Girardi does something I've never seen: he lets Park get a step on him, skates around to Park's left side, and swats the puck away with his stick. It's been said so many times before, but he's just that damned good.

Rangers 3, North York Storm Pee Wee C Team 1 in the third period.

Didn't they used to have a professional team on Long Island?

What is Doug Weight thinking at this point?

Joey McDonald....bahahahahahahahaha...this is what happens when you let the kid from Dennis the Menace play goal.

When is a hit not a hit?

2008-10-27T15:36:00.003-04:00

So yeah, the Rangers beat Columbus and Pittsburgh (scoring with eight seconds left in the game to tie it, no less), but I'm a little irritated right now.

And it's all the Islanders' fault.

No, it's not Rick DiPietro. He's just sad and pathetic and continually injured and not worth mentioning and likely not playing tonight. Dammit, too late to not mention it now.

I'm talking about Doug Weight's hit on Brandon Sutter Saturday night and the idiotic outrage it's caused.

Sutter comes through the neutral zone and puts his head down and crouches as he skates. Weight hits him clean and hard.

If Sutter is skating upright this isn't an issue.

Eric Lindros did this continually, and it's one of the reasons Scott Stevens (among others) used him as a throw pillow throughout the latter stages of his career.

You skate with your head down, or crouched over, and if somebody hits you, a shoulder to chest hit becomes....well....shoulder to skull.

Some of the thirty-seven Hurricanes fans are screeching for hits like this to be outlawed. That's probably because they're still new to hockey.

This is a contact sport. People get hit. If people skate with their head down, when they get hit, it's worse.

This is not a difficult concept to understand. These aren't Gordie Howe or Mark Messier elbows to the side of the jaw (hi Jamie Macoun!). We're talking open ice hits, which some people are now clammoring to outlaw, to give us a great, hit-free brand of hockey.

Maybe the next uniform changes the NHL tries out can be something like this.

Because if we're going to cry about banning open ice hits, why not also stop....oh....leaving your feet when you throw an open ice hit?

Wait a minute....that wasn't Brandon Sutter in that video, was it?

Catching up

2008-10-20T15:13:00.003-04:00

Missed posting the last couple of Ranger games....to recap:

Wednesday 10/15 - Ranges lose to Buffalo, perfect season comes to an end - A sloppy effort, a long stretch without a shot on goal, and a five minute major to Paul Mara ensured their first loss of the season last night. Mara jumped Pat Kaleta, the same guy who'd hit him last season and done all the damage to his lovely mug. Kaleta apparently made some comment in a scrum, asking how his face was. Bad as the penalty was, it's hard to blame Mara for jumping him. Nobody seemed too upset by it, either.

Friday 10/17 - Rangers beat Toronto in a shootout - No Avery, no Tucker, Valiquette in net (hey, it rhymes!)...hard to believe this was a 0-0 game that needed Sure Hands Sjostrom to win it in the shootout (and by sure hands I mean sure to miss the net). Toronto is going to be pretty terrible this year. Man, if it was tough being a Leafs fan before....

Saturday 10/18 - That damned Hossa guy again - There's an old saying...some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you. On Saturday night the bear came out and swatted the Rangers, only to slowly be put into a choke hold and almost put down, before waking up and eating the Rangers late.

A terrible analogy, I know. But after watching the defense stand around in the first minute of the game and the first minute of overtime.....

Tonight, Sean Avery returns to Broadway. What's he thinking about coming back to New York? Who knows? He's got a media blackout thing going, although watching the pre-game right now, he's skating at center ice yapping at Brandon Dubinsky.

They know his tactics. They shared a locker room with him. Do they take the bait?

The best kind of workout

2008-10-17T00:13:00.005-04:00

My wife picked me up from work tonight and pointed out the gas gauge was fairly close to the bottom line of empty. I figured let's go for it, we should have enough to get through the Battery Tunnel and right off at Hamilton Avenue for gas.

So, of course, we run out of gas about halfway through the tunnel.

You ever stop your car inside a tunnel? Especially when one tube is closed, and the other is running one lane going each way?

Doing my husbandly duty, I got out of the car, she put the car in neutral (I drive a Charger, by the way), and I started pushing the damned thing through the tunnel on the uphill swing, all the while wishing I'd bought a Volkswagon.

After about two hundred feet I thought I was going to collapse, and luckily the guy behind us offered to push us the rest of the way. He was either being compassionate or tired of going three miles an hour. Or he had a premonition of me dropping dead in front of him, and his commute being completely destroyed. Either way, thank you, whoever you are.

Once out of the tunnel we were pulled to the side and hooked up to a tow truck, which dropped us on Hamilton Avenue right outside the tunnel. Once again, the wife put the car in neutral and I pushed it the remaining two hundred feet to the gas station, while another tow truck followed us, then looped around once we reached the gas station and gave me a final push to get up and over the curb.

Forty dollars of gas later and we were on our way.

All in all it was a hell of a cardio workout, but I don't recommend sucking in tunnel fumes. I think my lungs are seriously pissed off at me right now.

But, as I explained to my wife, this was one of those tests of your manhood. You really can't consider yourself a man's man until you've pushed a car to a gas station....and felt your legs turn to jelly when pushing uphill.

Man up? Mission accomplished!

Homeward Bound

2008-10-15T15:10:00.003-04:00

Today's Times Online in the UK has a story about US Sergeant Gwen Beberg and her efforts to be reunited with Ratchet, a dog she rescued while serving in Iraq.

The most chilling part of the article is this:

So far the programme claims to have facilitated the transfer to America of fifty dogs and six cats. Terry Crisp, of Operation Baghdad Pups, flew to Dubai yesterday and is due to arrive in the Iraqi capital tomorrow to speak to members of the military. “Iraqis view dogs and cats as rats, as nuisances, carriers of disease,” she said, noting that US soldiers had rescued many abused animals, such as a puppy that was being kicked by a circle of Iraqi men.

Operation Baghdad Pups was born last year to help soldiers bring these dogs back to the US to be reunited with the soldiers that saved them, but it's a very time consuming (and costly) process.

I donated $50 this morning, mostly because I'm a sucker for saving dogs, but also because it reminded me of a visit to Greece back in 2001. In the port of Katakolon, we stepped off a cruise ship and were met by a cute black lab mix, but were horrified when he turned around to follow us.

Instead of a tail, he had a mangled stump, partially grown over with hair and covered in scabs. One of the Costa cruise employees explained to us the dog had drawn the wrath over one of the locals, who used a machete to chop the dog's tail off, hoping it would leave him alone.

I still get sick to my stomach thinking about it.

People killing people I can understand on a certain level. People doing these kinds of things to dogs, though....there aren't enough tortures in the world that can be inflicted on these people to satisfy me.

If you can, please donate something to help these dogs today.

Ok I take it back about Rick Jeanneret

2008-10-15T01:07:00.002-04:00

I just looked up and listened to a few audio clips and he made me laugh. He gets a bump for that.

Fa-la-la-la-LaFontaine

More here.

Not quite Mike Lange, but at least he's comically homer-ish.

Mike Haynes still sucks.

Homers

2008-10-15T00:50:00.003-04:00

The best thing about watching NHL's Center Ice package is getting to hear the crappy announcing teams you normally never know anything about.

After watching Calgary beat Colorado tonight, and sitting through 2/3 of the Avalanche feed, I'm hard pressed to say who's worse, Buffalo's play by play guy or the guy who works the 'lanche games.

Man, I thought John Sterling's radio work for the Yankee was pompous.

Mike Haynes as Colorado gains the Calgary zone: "Here comes STAAAAATSNY shot goes wide"

Mike Haynes as Colorado chips the puck into the corner: "Sakic WITH A SHOOOOOTTTTT that's blocked in front"

Why do these guys scream every single action? It's the second week of October, isn't it? I know, I know...."every game is important", but come on.

Say whatever you want about a Bob Cole or Jim Hughson, but they're much easier to listen to. Hell, Bob Miller is a better example of how to do it right. Haynes and Rick Jeanneret are just brutal on so many levels. Do you need to go to school for this? I can scream into a microphone every time the Rangers charge up ice with the puck and be just as good.

"OH MY GOD HERE COMES STAAL HE GOT THE PUCK ACROSS CENTER ICE!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT, DRURY JUST HIT THE SIDE OF THE NET AND ALMOST GAVE THE RANGERS A THREE GOAL LEAD!! YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAARGGGGGH!!!!"

I can even patent a yeti mating call to punctuate goals being scored.

Bleagh. I need to dump some hydrogen peroxide into my ears to stop the bleeding.

You can't beat us!

2008-10-14T21:10:00.004-04:00

Yes, we all know Fatso Brodeur is going to the Hall of Fame. We also know he liked his sister-in-law better than his wife. And, right now, we know that when it comes to the Rangers, Marty does indeed suck.

It was kind of tough to watch the game last night considering the death of Alexei Cherepanov earlier, but, as was mentioned during the pre-game, most of the Rangers players had little or no interaction with him, and thus knew him only by reputation.

Some quick game notes:

- Zherdev and Dubinsky break in two-on-one during the second period, and Nik the Stick passes to Dubinsky, who doesn't get off a clean shot. I like the play (even though he should have shot) because it shows a willingness to fit in. Don't worry, he'll be taking that shot before long. But this was a good sign that he's happy with his teammates and his head is in the game. For now.

- In my fantasy draft a couple of weeks ago I needed a defenseman, and my first three picks had been centers (I operated on the get-the-best-player-available strategy), and my pivots were/are Malkin, Spezza, and Lecavalier. So I took Kris Letang, and Brandon Dubinsky went right after. Worse, Ed Jovanovski was availble in round 20. How stupid is this going to be if Dubi is indeed on-track for a monster year?

- Wade Redden does not look smooth on his skates. Not one bit.

- I don't know how long Aaron Voros will continue piling up points, but let's enjoy it while we can. Gotta love the in-your-face celebration he gave after some post-goal pushing, very Avery-like.

Too bad the Giants couldn't go 5-0 on the same night. Now that would've been interesting.

Somebody posted video of Cherepanov being taken from the bench while he was still conscious on YouTube. It's creepy to watch, and I'm curious to see what the KHL investigation comes up with.

6-0 tomorrow against Buffalo? I don't know, the Sabres looked strong yesterday in their exhibition match against the North York Storm Pee Wee C team.....

On another note, Gary Bettman is still a tremendous tool. In a recent interview before the Canucks unleashed a ten shot barrage at the Capitals, Bettman stated that the NHL was still in "growth mode". Does this mean he wants to expand out to more cities? Sure, we need franchises in Kansas City, Houston, Las Vegas, and Albequerque. Why not just have 40 teams in the league? What's a little talent dillution among friends, anyway?

Our buddy Bettman also claimed they're looking at adding two additional regular season games, to bring the total up to 84. I'm telling you, the man is a genius. That's what the league needs, more NHL games in the regular season, to push back the start of the playoffs and hope that the playoffs end some time around the MLB All-Star game in July.

Absolute genius, I tells ya.

Avery is gone....

2008-10-13T18:57:00.003-04:00

...but the Rangers and Devils still have to play each other.

Pre-game stuff from MSG:

Brodeur admits that it will be "easier" without Avery playing for the Rangers, and he wondered who else would take that role for them now. Also mentioned how the Rangers have their number, and had to flash back to the late 90s/early 2000s when the Devils won 3,204 straight games against the Rangers. I might be a little off on the official tally of that streak, I'm just going by what it felt like.

Dan Fritsche is playing tonight in place of Pat Rissmiller. I'm not quite sure why he hasn't played since Bern. He was only one of the stronger players in training camp and during the preseason.

Tom Renney was having lunch when he heard about Cherepanov's death. This isn't really relative to anything, I just had a vision of Al Trautwig pulling a Clue and saying it was Renney in the library with a lead pipe. Sorry, that wasn't very funny, was it?

Interesting bit of news from the Hartford Wolf Pack: They signed Brandon Sugden to a try out, as the team was a little short on toughness (i.e. someone to drop the gloves). Sugden played for the Summum Chiefs, formerly known as Les Chiefs du Laval. There was a documentary made about them, which you can buy from Amazon for less than ten bucks. Go buy it, now, because it's a great flick, and there's lots of hockey fights. And if you don't like hockey fights, you're basically supporting the terrorists.

Anyway, Sugden is on a tryout contract, and here's hoping he makes it, because anybody that plays for the Chiefs deserves a shot.

Alexei Cherepanov dies during game

2008-10-13T16:10:00.005-04:00

Wow.

Just....wow.

The Rangers' first round pick in last year's draft died during an Avangard game tonight and died in a local hospital.

Google translation from sports.ru site is here. TSN has the news here, and the Rangers' website confirms it here.

I don't even know what to say to this. One report stated he collided with Jagr, which knocked him unconscious and led to this. If that's the case, I don't know how he'll (Jagr, that is) recover.

*UPDATE*

Apparently the ambulance which is supposed to be at all KHL games left the arena and had to be called back, which means it was 15-20 minutes longer getting him to the hospital than it should have been.

An unbelievable tragedy.

Three and ohhhhh baby!

2008-10-10T22:25:00.002-04:00

The last time the Rangers started a season 3-0, I was a fourteen year old sophmore in high school. Guy Lafleur was playing for the Nordiques in what would be his final season in the NHL (after playing the previous season for the Blueshirts). And...er...Georger Herbert Walker Bush was president.

Yes, 1989-90 was a long time ago, although I remember Z100 (at the time New York's number one radio station) jumping on the bandwagon early, playing a parody "This is Our Year" song after the seventh or eighth game. And don't ask why I remember these things, I just do. I need help, okay?

Thanks to the commute from a late night at work I saw only the first ten minutes of the first period and the final fifteen minutes of the third period. The one thing I took away from tonight: I don't know how long this Voros-Zherdev-Dubinsky line will be together, but wow!

In 2005, Jess Rubenstein (who's currently writing up Rangers prospects at Prospect Park) told anyone who would listen that Brandon Dubinsky was something special while covering him with the Portland Winter Hawks. Doubt him, Jess would say, and he'd go out of his way to show you how wrong you were to doubt him.

He made enough of a believer out of me that, before the third game of the 2006 playoffs against the Devils (try not to remember the outcome), while Don Maloney was being interviewed in the lobby at MSG, I was behind him repeatedly yelling "bring up freaking Dubinsky already!". When the cameras cut, he turned, looked at me, and asked how I knew about him.

This kid is really something special. It's a brutal thing to put a label on a player (Lemieux, Lindros and Crosby have each been heralded as 'The Next One'; to this point Lemieux lived up to the billing, Crosby is showing the potential as long as he stops the whining, and Lindros is counting stuffed animals after suffering three hundred concussions in his career), but Dubinsky has a bit of Messier in him. Don't forget, in the Moose's first NHL season, he was a third/fourth line player who wasn't a major force, and he worked his way up to become the 1A center on the Oilers dynasty.

Now understand this: I am not saying Dubinsky is the second coming of Mark Messier. Absolutely not.

But there are some similarities between them. Where Dubinsky winds up is strictly up to him.

Admit it, though. It's refreshing to see a player like this come up through the system and develop here, rather than get traded for, say, Chris Chelios.

We've come a long way from the days of John Davidson talking down youth on the Rangers by saying "So-and-so needs to earn his ice time" while a 41 year-old Messier coughed up the puck and didn't skate hard to get back into the play.

A long way indeed.

This could be a fun season. At least it's off to a good start.

Interesting opening so far

2008-10-10T19:01:00.003-04:00

NYPD Emerald Society drummers play the intro before the PA starts.

Always gives me goose bumps to hear that sound. Also makes me wish it was St. Patrick's Day. And then I get angry because it's not, and I don't have a Guinness in my hand.

Damn it all.

The intro with the generational elements is pretty cool though. Love seeing the old time footage. And the Chief!!

Using the Dark Knight music is actually making me even more hyper.

Must find the I AM THE BLUE SEATS shirt. I want six of them for Christmas gifts.

Pre-game stuff

2008-10-10T18:34:00.002-04:00

Watching MSG Network, the crowd filing in for the game is definitely fired up...John Giannone is being drowned out (not necessarily a bad thing) continually by Let's go Rangers chants.

Without the surprise element, it almost seems like a let-down to know already that Drury is team captain. His mini-interview with Kenny Albert was pretty by-the-numbers standard. Don't think we can expect to hear too many good sound bites from him during his time as captain.

Markus Naslund and Wade Redden talk about how special it is to step onto the Garden ice. I think it's clear the PR department gives new players a script to read off of about how wonderful it is to play in New York. I'm sure Redden and Naslund never thought twice about how great it would be to be here when they visited over the years.

Does this sound overly negative? I'm trying to tamper my enthusiasm and desire to grab a hockey stick and start randomly swinging it at people. Not in a bad way, just in a "hockey season is here!!" way.

And finally....hockey!

2008-10-10T15:53:00.003-04:00

Well, not exactly. In gearing up for the home opener tonight, you're bound to hear about who's dropping the puck before tomorrow's Rangers-Flyers game in Philly. Amazingly, fans in Philly seem to have an opinion, too.

On the other hand, the puck drop for the Ranger's home opener tonight will feature Harry Howell, Andy Bathgate, and Adam Graves, all of whom, you might've heard, will have their jerseys retired in February.

No word yet on whether Barack Obama will throw up the ball for the Knicks' home opener in November. I'm not even sure if it's before the election. Shows how much I follow basketball.

Sam Weinman and Steve Zipay are reporting Prucha is a scratch for tonight. Replacing him in the lineups, but not in our hearts, will be Freddie Sjostrom.

It's a long way to Friday.....

2008-10-07T21:22:00.002-04:00

Until then, it's presidential debates, baseball playoffs, and...well, definitely not Dancing with the Stars.

Hockey is succeeding big-time in Atlanta. I just checked their website and you can get tickets for opening night at the Phillips Arena at ice level for $150 per seat. Only 40% of season ticket holders renewed for 2008-09. Granted, they're not exactly building a good team (trading Dany Heatley first, and then Marian Hossa later) doesn't help the notion that...well...they're going nowhere. There's blame going around about the economy and the direction of the team, but really, the NHL failed in Atlanta once, and it's failing again. If Jim Balsillie winds up gaining control of the Predators and does indeed move them to Hamilton, how much longer will it be before the Thrashers move? Quebec City, anyone?

Lots of speculation as to whether a move (trade or waive) is coming before Friday's opener against Chicago. Tom Renney stated that Glen Sather was 'working on it' when asked about the roster and the fact that almost 2.5 million dollars worth of players sat out in Prague. Dumping Rissmiller would be tantamount to admitting it was a bad signing, and we know Glen doesn't like doing that. You can stick pictures of Rissmiller, Sjostrom, Prucha, or Fritsche on a wall and throw a dart best two out of three and get a strong idea of who's on the chopping block. Personally I think Fritsche should stick around after showing enough in the preseason. Sjostrom has speed, and Rissmiller has....a large contract. What happens next? Maybe get Dave Tallon drunk while he's in New York and offer both of them for Patrick Kane.

Ugh. Days without hockey is just borderline criminal.

Melrose Musings

2008-10-05T18:08:00.002-04:00

Just a couple of interesting sound bites from Tampa coach Barry Melrose over the weekend, because he's just so damned quotable (if not all that good of a coach):

On defenseman Andrej Meszaros' reputation as a hard partier: "I'd much rather have a guy like that, that had a couple of beers, than a guy who doesn't compete that's home at five o'clock every night watching the Brady Bunch. So that's how I am with players. Give me guys who compete, and same thing with guys who live in the weight room and never hit anybody. Give me a fat guy who goes out there and hits everything that moves. I'd take him any day of the week."

On the NHL opening its season in Europe: “I think that any NHL team would love to come over. I’m sure that the NHL will continue to do it every year. We’ve got so many European players, the fans over here deserve to see their homeboys play.”

Post-game stuff from Prague....

2008-10-05T15:39:00.002-04:00

....via Brooklyn, of course.

There's a story told by William Goldman in his brilliant book, Adventures in the Screen Trade (which should be required reading for any and all aspiring screenwriters, or writers period, along with Robert McKee's Story, but that's another....er....story) in which he quotes a studio executive to ask him about the opening of a Sam Peckinpah film called Ride the High County.

As Goldman explains it, the film opened on the bottom of a double-bill (something you never see anymore); the film which was ahead of it was a 'European Mongol-type picture'. Ride the High Country got all kinds of great reviews from everyone who saw it, and Goldman tracked down said executive to ask why they'd put it out as a double bill. The executive explained that yes, the film had gotten high marks in previews, but the made it a double feature to ensure they'd make money. The studio didn't believe the hype because the movie didn't cost enough money to be that good. The italics are taken straight from Goldman, for emphasis.

So it's not a direct correlation to the first two games of the season, exactly, but I couldn't help think of that line watching today's Ranger-Lighting game and wondering can they really be this good?

Logic tells us no team is as bad as they look when they get blown out (except the Islanders), and no team is as good as they look when they're the team doing the blowing-out.

There's absolutely no question left now that the Jagr era is over; this team is about skating (fast), attacking (relentlessly), and recovering the puck. How they match up against the elite of the league remains to be seen, but in this so-called 'new' NHL, this is a style of play that will make the home crowds happy, as long as the ice isn't so choppy as to slow them down.

An interesting note that Joe Micheletti mentioned at the start of the third period: in today's second period, the Rangers attempted thirty-eight shots. 38!!! They were credited with 18 shots for the period, the remaining 20 were either blocked or missed the net.

Is it a little disturbing that they continued that pre-season trend of scoring two goals a game? Yeah, a little. But Mike Smith was outstanding yesterday, facing 41 shots, and Olaf Kolzig was very good today, facing over 40 shots himself.

Some random observations from yesterday and today (and apologies about no updates yesterday, it was an early ride into the city to make the ESPN Zone by 11:30AM, and off to Queens for my aunt & uncle's 25th wedding anniversary, which led to my getting home at close to 11 last night, and a couple of angry pugs who needed to be walked, calmed, and cleaned up after):

- Even with all the shots, it seemed like most of yesterday's action was shots from the outside, and not a whole lot of skating room, moreso today as Barry Melrose apparently put Wes Walz (a disciple of Jacques Lemaire in Minnesota the last couple of years) in charge of getting the players to clog up the neutral zone;

- It's early in the season, but there was a lot of sloppy passing and puck handling early on yesterday and today;

- Marek Kalinin went from an awful game yesterday to an average one today, so maybe there's a ray of hope he's not the second coming of Malik;

- Scott Gomez played a strong game but had a couple of very nearly-costly turnovers in his own zone in the third period, on the same shift....the Rangers, as a whole, didn't get tested very much in the defensive zone, which leads back to my initial question: exactly how good are these guys?

And this team did cost enough money, so theoretically they should be 'that good', but with all the personnel turnover and change in play style, there were bound to be questions going in about how this team would gel.

Two games in, they've picked up four points. And we know how important a few points can be if you're fighting for a playoff position between the fifth and eighth seeds in the East.

By the way, if you live in New York, I highly suggest becoming an MVP member at the Zone. It cuts down on the wait time for a table since you can make a reservation, and it allows you to start killing your liver all the sooner.

Your next Rangers captain....

2008-10-03T15:45:00.004-04:00

....is....

....wait for it.....

Chris Drury.

Keep in mind this is coming from Larry Brooks. Nobody else has the story at this point. Gomez and Naslund will each wear an A.

**UPDATE**

Wait, check that. Sam Weinman's carrying the story now too, so it's official.

Drury joins Ranger legends like Kelly Kisio, Barry Beck, and Bob Nevin as getting to wear the C.

I'm kidding. Seriously, I loved Barry Beck as a kid.

This was kind of a no-brainer. There were people wondering about Gomez possibly getting the captaincy, but it seemed destined to be Drury for a while. I'm a little disappointed that Naslund gets an A, I'd rather have seen it go to Dubinsky, but, well, I'm kind of biased for the kid.

Notes on the eve of the season

2008-10-03T13:28:00.003-04:00

- Brian Fahey and Corey Potter are Hartford-bound;
- According to Steve Zipay, the scratches for tomorrow could be Patrick Rissmiller, Dan Fritsche, and....Petr Prucha.

Pru apparently blew off a television interview, stating only that "he wasn't playing tomorrow".

I'm all for players earning their ice time, and even though he's been held off the score sheets he's looked okay. You've gotta play the kid in his hometown, it'd be huge for him. And who knows, maybe he'd respond by popping a couple of his chances (finally).

The projected forward lines might look like this:

Naslund-Gomez-Drury
Dawes-Dubinsky-Zherdev
Sjostrom-Korpikoski-Callahan
Voros-Betts-Orr

Sitting Sjostrom for Prucha seems like a better option to me, but we'll know more later. The naming of the new captain is expected at the team dinner tonight, there may be an update soon.

Meanwhile I'll be at ESPN Sportszone tomorrow morning bright and early at 11:30. Eating that tailgater special before noon, with beer, is going to really make my intestines angry.

What's better than hockey season being upon us?

2008-10-02T17:39:00.005-04:00

A fantasy hockey draft and season, that's what.

Looking forward to my league's live draft tonight. Last year's fantasy hockey league kind of crashed and burned when some people missed the draft, complained, couldn't come to an agreement on setting up a new league, and then (for separate reasons) a fight broke out between two of us that essentially killed the entire idea.

I just finished a mock draft on ESPN because I'm still coming down of fantasy baseball (my family league saw my team die down the stretch AGAIN....another league I joined at the request of a friend from Martha's Vineyard went much better, I ran the table and won the championship with very little challenge from anyone).

That Martha's Vineyard baseball league was just ridiculous; it was filled with Red Sox fans, along with a couple of Reds and Indians fans, and they made some really awful picks in the draft, allowing me to take, through the first five rounds: David Wright, Prince Fielder, Alfonso Soriano, Brandon Webb, and CC Sabathia. Derreck Lee was available in the ninth round, so I grabbed him. And when I took Mariano Rivera, the Sox fans laughed and predicted a last place finish for me. Ten teams total, and if I showed you the picks through the first three rounds you'd laugh until you snorted milk through your nose. Seriously.

I finished 33 games ahead of the team in second place. I lost four times all year, by scores of 8-6, 7-6, 8-6, 7-6. Every other week I dominated.

Suck it, Sox fans!!!!

Now pay up, Danny.

*UPDATE*

Just saw the video of Carey Price making a stick save behind the back spin-o-rama move which has to be seen to believed. He just moved up on my draft board for tonight (T-minus 75 minutes and counting).

You feeling lucky, punk?

2008-10-01T15:43:00.004-04:00

Ryan Callahan sure is.

He scores the winning goal with twenty seconds left in the game by interecpting a pass at the Metallug blue line, breaking in, putting on a fantastic deke, and sliding the puck into the net, Mario Lemieux-style, to cap off the win and the inaugural Victoria Cup title for your New York Rangers.

That's a hell of a gut check, coming back from a 3-0 deficit starting late in the second period.

I always hated hearing stories about how clutch Chris Drury was in Colorado/Calgary/Buffalo (they were always followed by footage of him from the Little League World Series...talk about beating a dead horse), but man, the guy came through big time.

And yes, it's still the preseason, but what a way to end. I hope the video of Callahan's goal is on the 'net sooner than later, it was a thing of beauty.

Speaking of beauty, not so much for the Victoria Cup Trophy. It looks like a silver version of the World Series trophy but with hockey sticks instead of flag poles.

How about that?

2008-10-01T15:26:00.002-04:00

A late power play goal by Drury in the second period, two goals in the first ten minute of the third period, and the game's knotted at three.

Fritsche with a rocket from inside the blueline made it a one-goal game, and Drury's second effort on a rebound in front ties it.

I'm not quite live-blogging so much as following the action behind a wee bit. I'm keeping a buddy of mine in the loop via IM. He's gone quiet, so he's either celebrating or buried in work.

That late Drury goal seemed to light a fire under this team. If I had to guess, I'm betting he wears the C come Saturday.

Zavarukhin

2008-10-01T14:42:00.001-04:00

That was the goal scorer for Metallurg on that last goal. Thankfully the Rangers' official site is live-blogging the game so I can get the names right (on the second try, at least).

Wake-up call

2008-10-01T14:34:00.003-04:00

Almost halfway through the game and Metallurg up 2-0. Missed the first period while on the train coming to the office, but got here in time for the start of the second.

Lots of sloppy passing in the offensive zone, especially on the power play. The puck seems to be doing quite a bit of rolling, wonder what the ice quality is like and if that's playing a role.

Whoooop, power play goal for Metallurg, Zavanahaugh was the goal scorer. I might be a little off on the spelling of his name.

And now the video's out. MSG must be part of a conspiracy to avoid having North America see the Rangers lose to a Russian team.

No, never mind, it's back. Just in time for more sloppy passes (but better than sloppy seconds, I assure you).

My guess: the Rangers lose the game, every Ranger blog and fan panics and wonders A) Is Lundqvist REALLY hurt?; B) Is this a sign of things to come?; and C) Can we still bring Jagr back?

The answers: No, No, and No.

How to Become a Metallurgist

2008-10-01T12:20:00.002-04:00

I've reeeeeally got to stop doing those play on word blog headline titles....fortunately after today I should be fine.

Speaking of today, game time is 1:45 EST. Not expected to play: Corey Potter, Brian Fahey, Colton Orr, Aaron Voros, Miika Wiikman, and, possibly, Patrick Rissmiller, still fighting off an illness. Marc Staal is expected to play, recovered enough from the bruised palm he suffered against the Devils last Saturday.

With the IIHF ejection rule in place for fighting, not dressing Orr and Voros makes sense. Naslund and Dawes are back, which should make for some interesting pairings today. Larry Brooks speculates on who plays where in the Post. You can probably rule out his line combinations because...well...it's Larry Brooks.

King Henrik starts in goal, which essentially ends Dwayne Klessel's silly speculation on imminent knee surgery for the goaltender. Still waiting for that Flyers imminent big trade he predicted yesterday too.

Metallurg, meanwhile, are led by top scorer Jan Marek, the same Jan Marek the Rangers drafted in 2003 , was dealt to the Kings as part of the Sean Avery trade, and spurned Kings GM Dean Lombardi in Prague last May to play in the KHL, where he explained he'd make a lot more money. Should be interesting to see him play, finally.

It's still just the pre-season

2008-09-30T21:28:00.002-04:00

Watching the replay of today's game against SC Bern, and it just completely went south for the home team in the third period.

Some observations:

- The lower tier seats weren't filled, most of the noise comes from the upper levels, which are standing room only. These people stand for the entire game, banging drums, and according to Al Trautwig, they don't leave their spot for the entire game because it won't be there when they get back.

I wonder how many water bottles filled with urine are found up there after the game.

- Brandon Dubinsky has been the Rangers' best player throughout the preseason. His goal in the third period (the Rangers' fourth) was almost highlight-reel worthy. He could be looking at a real breakout sophmore season.

- Lauri Korpikoski should be on the roster to start the season. Send Rissmiller down, cut him loose, whatever you choose, since he moved to center he's been awesome. If Drury's move to the wing really is permanent, and Dubinsky is your second line center, Korp can pivot the third and provide some scoring punch, maybe with Prucha and Voros to play good cop.

- Wade Redden and Marek Kalinin had some bad passes out of their own zone. I'll be curious to see if it carries over into Saturday against Tampa.

Mark my words: Kalinin will be riding the pine by December in favor of Corey Poter.

Lundqvist's knee

2008-09-30T17:42:00.003-04:00

People are going into a panic because of that idiot Eklund's Khabibulin-clears-waivers post at his Hockey for Dummies site (and no, I will not post a link to it, google it if you're desperate), where he claims:

BUT, as I have been mentioning, there are swirling rumors that a deal is in place involving an Eastern Conference squad. Rumors include the Sens, Thrashers (odd to me, too)...and the NY Rangers. The latter could tell us something about a possible Ludqvist injury...involving a knee? Maybe involving surgery?

Lundqvist is starting tomorrow against Metallurg. Nobody on the Rangers' beat has mentioned anything about an injury, and they'd be the first ones to mention it, considering they're with the team and in constant contact with Tom Renney.

This looks like another "hey, look, I've got an unconfirmed scoop!" stories that routinely makes the rounds on that site. Kind of along the lines of the "Scott Gomez trade imminent"....or Eklund's 'scoop' that the 2004-05 lockout wasn't going to kill the season, about three hours before the season was canceled.

The "anonymous hockey blogger" indeed.

Oh captain, my captain

2008-09-30T17:12:00.002-04:00

Just saw the Vancouver Canucks named Roberto Luongo captain, replacing Markus Naslund.

He can't wear the C as per league rules. Instead, Willie Mitchell, Ryan Kesler and Matthias Ohlund will wear As. Big Willie has been tabbed as the guy to deal with officials during games while Captain Luongo stays in his crease.

Is this a desperation move geared towards keeping him in Vancouver after his current deal is up in 2010? Most likely.

If Toronto comes calling with a boatload of cash to be their savior, probably not. Vesa Toskala is not going to be the answer for them at that point, and after spending this year (and possibly next) as doormats in the east, they'll be looking for a marquee name to give the fans something to hope for.

Rangers burn Bern

2008-09-30T15:08:00.002-04:00

Ok, I'll stop with the burn/Bern jokes now, I swear.

Only got to see the first period and the first five minutes of the second, will have to catch the replay on MSG tonight at 8. But from the game reports, this one became a rout shortly after SC Bern scored to make it a one-goal game early in the third period. Six unanswered goals later, the game ends with center ice salutes to the crowd from both teams.

The one thing I'll say for now (and I'm sure will be repeated elsewhere) is that the fans really make it a wild experience over there. The noise levels are ridiculous, and the whistling/jeering of bad calls has got to be unnerving if you're not used to it. Some of those whistlers make the "Potvin Sucks" guys at the Garden sound like five year olds missing their front teeth.

Also funny to see how big Christian Dube is over there. Not physically, mind you, he's still the same shrimpy player he was when Neil Smith drafted him in the second round in '95. He's just absolutely beloved by the SC Bern fans. One man's trash....

Bern baby Bern!

2008-09-30T09:25:00.002-04:00

Today....er....tonight's Rangers-SC Bern matchup will be notable for who's not playing.

Marc Staal and Paul Mara, out. Nigel Dawes and Markus Naslund, out. Henrik Lundqvist will not start.

Looks like the last chance for Brian Fahey and Corey Potter, fighting for the seventh d-man spot (although I still think Kalinin melts down by December and gets banished to Hartford, especially after seeing the trouble he had making outlet passes against the Devils Saturday....that'd open things up for Fahey and/or Potter).

Also could be the final push for Lauri Korpikoski to make the team. Does he benefit from playing on the bigger ice surface? The good part for him is that Patrick Rissmiller will not be playing tonight, so as long as the refs in tonights game (using merged IIHF and NHL rules, no less) don't kick him out for a hit from the side, he should be fine.

Game time's at noon EST. Make sure you start your coughing fit in the office around 11 so you have enough time to leave early to catch the game.

A sad state of affairs

2008-09-29T16:19:00.004-04:00

Thomas Pock was claimed by the Islanders, according to Dubi Silverstein at Blueshirt Bulletin.

Pock's had lots of chances to crack the lineup over the last 4-5 years and hasn't shown enough consistency to stay in the NHL.

He could wind up as the Islanders' version of Michal Roszival, who wasn't considered good enough to make the Penguins coming out of the lockout (some of the defensemen deemed better: Dick Tarnstrom, Rob Scuderi, Richard Jackman, and Eric Cairns). Not that I'm a huge fan of Roszival, mind you, but it's just that sometimes a guy needs a change of teams to really blossom.

Of course, if you take a look at the Islanders roster, specifically their defensemen, well, Pock isn't much worse than Freddy Meyer. Or Andy Sutton. Or Brendan Witt. Or Chris Campoli. Or Radek Martinek. Or Bruno Gervais. Or Mark Streit.

Hell, Pock could end up being their best d-man. And wouldn't that be alternately funny and sad?

Swiss Miss

2008-09-28T13:23:00.003-04:00

So the Rangers are off to Switzerland now for their ever-continuing pre-season. This time, they play SC Bern and Metallurg Magnitogorsk in Berne. Both teams are looking to show they can play with an NHL team, both teams will be going all-out, and both games will be played on a European-sized rink.

Note: that would be 200 x 100 feet, as opposed to the North American 200 x 85 dimensions. An extra fifteen feet board to board. I was sort of expecting Nedved to stay with the Rangers until the final game against Metallurg, if only because he's just another player with experience on that ice surface, but it makes sense not to drag it out any longer.

Questions abound as to how the Rangers respond, after scoring 2 goals a game for their six NHL preseason schedule. Keeping in mind the travel grind for the last week, plus the fact that it was more about getting a look at some of the kids than anything else, I don't think there's too much reason to panic. They dominated the Lightning for most of the two games they played them, they played very well against Ottawa, and aside from the flat game against the Devils yesterday, they didn't look terrible. It's not like they're the Islanders in terms of roster talent.

As everybody's been saying, this team needs good offensive output from Dubinsky, Dawes and Callahan and, if he makes the team, Korpikoski. I think we'll know more about what this team is capable of by next Thursday, on the eve of the home opener against Chicago (and that'll be fun anyway, to see Toews and Kane; Dale Tallon's building a pretty good team).

Until then, it doesn't make sense to panic and worry. I think.

Writing for dollars

2008-09-28T13:19:00.002-04:00

So the Fade In 2007 awards are done, word's making the rounds about the winners, and I haven't heard anything as of yet. Considering how backed up things must be because of the WGA strike last year, I'm not ready to panic. Hell, it's only been three weeks since I sent them the revised version of Robbing Hoods.

But hey, I wouldn't mind getting the W9 paperwork to fill out so I can get my $500. And a couple of execs looking to make a deal would be great too. Oh, and also maybe an agent with ICM or William Morris? Nah, maybe Endeavor.

C'mon, either pay me to write or crack my head open and use all the ideas I have.

Wait, scratch the second suggestion. I like my head as-is.

This just in: preseason NHL officiating is terrible too

2008-09-27T13:21:00.006-04:00

Every April through June, hockey fans complain about terrible officiating, and talk about how it's worse now than ever. Usually, this comes after hockey fans complain about how terrible the officiating was in the regular season.

Now in vogue: bad preseason officiating.

Lauri Korpikoski, fighting for a playoff spot on the Rangers' roster, just got a five minute major and a game misconduct for hitting Sheldon Brookbank from the side (called a hit from behind).

Borderline two minute penalty? Okay, I can live with that.

Toss a kid out of the game? In the preseason? For a borderline hit?

Korpikoski has been sharp since moving into the center spot, which makes his getting kicked out all the worse. It looked like this was the game for him to lock down a spot on the team.

More importantly, how did two referees and two linesmen not pick up it was a hit from the side?

Note to the NHL: two refs on the ice at the same time is serving no purpose. Go back to one ref, two linesmen...one ref misses the same number of calls as two.

And while I'm making a never-will-happen wish list, please fold the Atlanta, Nashville, Phoenix, Columbus, Tampa, Florida, and Carolina franchises. Or, at the least, combine them and put them back in Winnipeg, Hartford, and Quebec.

Thanks!

Let 'em know you're there!

2008-09-27T10:35:00.003-04:00

The best advice ever given, from Slap Shot. The line was one of player-coach Reg Dunlop's motivational pre-game speeches to his Charlestown Chiefs. But hey, I'm sure you've seen it. You have, haven't you?

Dunlop was played, of course, by Paul Newman, who died this morning at 83.

He's really the last of the great actors, the man's man actor who wasn't as prissy or primped as most of today's Hollywood creampuffs.

Paul Newman stated often he had more fun making Slap Shot than any other film in his career, and it remained one of his favorites. It's also the only really good hockey movie ever made (ok, Miracle on Ice was good too, but come on. Mighty Ducks? Youngblood? Ugh).

Interestingly, the role was supposed to go to Al Pacino before it wound up with Newman.

Ah, Paul Newman. The world just got a little less interesting without you.

I don't have the words....

2008-09-26T22:44:00.006-04:00

I'm trying to temper my anger right now.

In anticipation of the Seahawks-Giants game next Sunday, a fan message board for the Seahawks decided to welcome Giant fans to their board with 'jokes of the day'.

You're not seeing things. Jokes of the day, accompanied by a picture of lower Manhattan smoldering on September 11th.

Oh, it gets better. Here's one of the jokes:

Q: How many Giants fans died in 9/11?
A: Who the F cares?

I'm born and raised in Brooklyn. I lost friends and former co-workers on September 11th. My initial reaction is to grab a baseball bat, drive a few nails through it, and introduce said bat to this piece of shit's skull.

I'd like to meet this Mason guy for, say, thirty seconds. Preferably in New York, because there's no jury in this state that would convict me.

Blogging the Rangers?

2008-09-26T17:39:00.002-04:00

On another note, since John Dellapina announced on September 20th that he was leaving the Daily News for a position with the NHL, there's been not a peep out of that paper's blog from his replacement, Michael Obernauer.

Let's make this clear: I have posted more about the Rangers in the last six days than the new beat writer for one of New York's major newspapers.

At least they've updated the banner on The Blueshirts Blog with his face. That counts for something, I guess.

It's the most.....wonderful time....of the year....

2008-09-26T15:19:00.002-04:00

The preseason's winding to a close and the happiest news of all broke today: Petr Nedved will not be a Ranger in 2008-09.

Sam Weinman reports:

“I told him this summer we had a lot of young guys and we have only so many spots,” Glen Sather told me just now. “Plus, there’s a cap issue to deal with. I thought he played well. I just knew what we’d be up against. But I didn’t want to not give him the opportunity.”

Thank the almighty Zeus. Not that he really had much of a shot, since there's a decent logjam at center ice, and he doesn't backcheck well enough to warrant a fourth line spot. Plus he can't kill penalties. Oh, and did I mention he's awful in the corners?

Nedved's first tour of duty as a Ranger was unproductive, and he didn't impress Mark Messier, so was dealt to Pittsburgh, where he promptly blossomed into an offensive force (albeit for all of two seasons).

Eventually he came back to New York, and continued to play uninspired hockey before mercifully being banished to Edmonton at the infamous 2004 deadline purge.

Great wrist shot, not much of a head for the game. Enjoy the Czech league, Petr.

Patrick Rissmiller, meanwhile, has shown nothing to warrant that three year/1 mil per year deal he got. Lauri Korpikoski has been outplaying him all over the place and should be in the lineup next Saturday at noon.

Speaking of, there's a Rangers-sponsored event being held at Beer Garden in Astoria to celebrate the opening night....er....afternoon festivities.

Me, I'll be at the ESPN Zone in the city, plowing through the tailgate special, getting drunk, and trash talking some friends about how badly they'll suck in the upcoming fantasy hockey season.

The sky is falling!!

2008-09-19T23:32:00.009-04:00

In case you don't know, the big news this weekend in New York is the imminent closing of Yankee Stadium (well, as far as baseball is concerned; there won't be any playoff baseball this year, and there's a concert/tribute thing scheduled for early November).

Of course, flipping around the radio dial, everybody's calling in with their favorite Stadium memory, and most of them seem generic and rooted to 1996.

Normally, I hate being a bandwagon hopper, but I wanted to put my top three out there, just for the hell of it. As a former season ticket holder who gave 'em up when they traded for A-Rod, I've seen some good stuff over the years.

In no particular order....

- Game Four, 2001 World Series: I've heard other people mention this one (and Game Five), primarily for the back-to-back home runs that essentially made Byung-Hyung Kim a household name, synonymous with the Buffalo Bills as the epitome of a choke. Well, I was in the stands for that game, and let me set the stage for you:

The Diamondbacks scored in the top of the 8th, if I remember correctly (and I'm not in the mood to check right this second), and by the time the Yankees headed for the dugout to start the bottom of the ninth inning, my cousin and fellow ticket holder Chris was on the verge of tears.

"I can't watch them go down 3-1," he said, and got up to leave. So did most of the other people in our section (our season tickets were in main field level 307 in right field foul territory, for the playoffs we'd been moved out to left field loge), and by the time the first pitch of the bottom of the ninth was thrown, I was the only person left in our section. What's worse, my cousin had driven me to the game, so not only was I about to watch the Yankees lose by myself, but I was gonna have to take the train home too.

Ah, but then lighting struck. O'Neill doubles, Tino Martinez hits the first pitch he sees from Kim over the center field wall, and the game is tied.

And me? I had to climb over one section just to celebrate with other people so I didn't look like a complete jackass by myself.

My cousin, meanwhile, told me later he'd pulled over into a gas station on the Grand Central Parkway to listen on the radio and beat his forehead into the steering column a hundred times. To this day, I still remind him of that.

- 2002 Division Series, Game Two, Yankees vs. Angels: Ahhhh, the only thing I remember is that the Yankee aura was gone by this point, the Angels didn't crap their pants like the Texas Rangers had done so many times before during the dynasty run, and they wound up losing this series in four games.

But oh, Game Two....

Season ticket holders were rewarded with a move down to the main field seats this time in left field, rather than loge level. When Chris and I made our way to our spot, I counted we were twenty rows back from the fence.

"Holy shit, we could see a ball hit near us, finally!" I said.

Chris shook his head. "No way, we're twenty rows back, we'll never see a home run this far back."

Fast forward to the top of the first inning. I think the Angels had a man on, Tim Salmon steps to the plate, and hits a ball that looks like it's going straight out of the park.

Seriously, I was watching this thing go up, up, up, up, straight up over our heads, and destined, I was sure, to land above us in the upper deck.

And then, in the blink of an eye, it stopped, right over our heads, and started to drop.

"It looks like it's coming down near us," I thought.

"No, it can't be, no way--"

"OH SHIT, HERE IT COMES!"

Those three thoughts passed through my brain in the span of three seconds, about the time that the ball dropped....near me? There was a crack, and then all hell broke loose.

I had never been in a fight for a baseball, and all of a sudden people were diving everywhere. I saw something roll under the seat to my right, where Chris was sitting, and reached for it, shrieking "I've got it, I've got it!"

My hands reached out, and came up with....a broken pair of eyeglasses. I heard jeering to my left, and turned just in time to watch a guy in a beat up Yankee jersey launch the ball I'd been looking for back onto the field.

I was dismayed. The ball was RIGHT THERE. I saw it come down. I turned to Chris, cursing out luck of grabbing a pair of broken glasses...

...and then I found out what had happened.

Chris was half-sitting, half laying in his seat, holding his head and yelping in pain. The glasses I'd grabbed were his; being near-sighted, he didn't see the ball coming towards him until the last possible second, and the crack I'd heard was Tim Salmon's home run introducing itself to Chris' head. He had a basbeall-sized welt on his scalp, and the skin was partially peeled back.

I quickly administered first aid by ordering two beers, drinking one and putting the other on his head.

He was fine, only his pride was damaged. Especially when the replays were shown on ESPN that night, and you could see sort-of clearly him falling over when the ball landed on his skull.

- Late August / Early September 1990, Yankees vs. Oakland: Ah, the late 80s/early 90s, when the Yankees were terrible, the Bronx was dangerous, and Steinbrenner threatened to move the team to Jersey. Anybody else remember those days?

By the time 2004 rolled around, I was nostalgic for those times. Sure, the team sucked, but the stadium wasn't packed to the gills with wanna-be fans who screamed "HIT A HOME RUN" no matter which Yankee was at bat. You wanna have an intelligent baseball conversation? Go to Busch Stadium. Yankee fans, at least the ones inhabiting the stadium now, I'm sorry to say, are among the stupidest.

So back in 1990, there was this sort-of dynasty brewing around the Oakland A's. Remember them? Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Carney Lansford, Terry Steinbach...and Rickey Henderson.

The Yanks, meanwhile, boasted a Don Mattingly who was a shell of his former self, and a bunch of other scrubs.

Back in those days, my friends and I were insane enough to ride the D train to the Bronx, pay whatever it cost for a ticket in the upper deck, and make our way down to field level by the third inning to watch the game. See, there weren't that many people going to see the Yanks play, and it wasn't hard to get a ticket. Plus, the field level seats in the outfield weren't roped off by security guards as they are now.

And for real fun (and a sense of danger), we used to cross River Avenue after the game to McDonald's for a quick bite to eat...where we were usually accosted by a half dozen homeless crackheads begging for money. We were once treated to a woman in a ripped shirt rubbing her crap-covered cans on the window we were sitting in front of in hopes we'd find it appealing enough to give her money. When my friend Mike shook his head, she proceeded to beat the window with her shoe, calling us "crackhead honky bastards".

I really miss those days.

Anyway, for this particular game, we wound up down in the right field seats, two rows back from the field, by the second inning, and the A's were already running up the score. Mike Witt might've been pitching....or it could've been Andy Hawkins for all I know. It was the year he threw the no-hitter and lost, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was him.

Right after we took over our seats at field level, a Yankee player hit a foul ball that started hooking towards us. The guys sitting in the row in front reached out for the ball....only to have Rickey Henderson snatch it away at the last second, reaching into the stands and making the grab. He started to run back toward the dugout, then turned and told the guys "Next time get the fuck out my way."

That prompted us to heckle the shit out of him for the rest of the game.

But we saved our best heckling for Mel Hall. For those who don't remember the Yankees pre-1996, he was a shitty outfielder who is probably best remembered for letting his pet tiger walk around the clubhouse post-game.

Mel Hall just completely sucked, and he had one of those really bad afro-jeri curl perm things that looked perpetually wet, so as soon as he came out to the field, we started yelling for him to show us the 'do. He ignored us, I think, for an inning or so, until he made this diving catch (that wouldn't have required a dive if he'd had enough baseball sense to get near the ball off the jump) and lost his hat in the process.

There, for all 5,000 people in the stadium to see, was Mel Hall's nasty looking afro.

Oh, did we jeer. And oh, did he get pissed.

"Whyn't you support us, mothafuckas?" he yelled at one point.

"Because you're hitting .250 and you fucking suck in the outfield!" my friend yelled back.

He made a dismissive motion with his hand and ignored us again for most of the rest of the game. That is, until the ninth inning, when we just let everything go at him.

"Hey Mel, we let a cougar loose in the clubhouse, your tiger's dead!"

"Mel, your tiger covers more outfield ground than you do!"

"Mel, if I give you a baseball can you get Mattingly to sign it? These seats are cheaper 'cause nobody wants to look at you but I'd rather see Donnie!"

"Go back to fucking Cleveland, you fucking steaming pile of dog shit! The day the Yanks release you will be the greatest day of this franchise since 1978!"

Those and other gems. The best part, the stadium was nearly empty, so he (and others on the field) could hear the whole thing.

We brutalized Mel Hall over the 1990, 1991 and 1992 seasons. Do I feel bad? After hearing the stories of how he treated Bernie Williams...nope. Not one bit.

Amazingly, that game beats out the David Cone perfect game, the game two division series in 1995 versus Seattle (the one where Mattingly got his first and only postseason home run in the Bronx....forget 1996, forget any other World Series moment, I was absolutely convinced the whole building would implode from the fan reaction when that ball left the field).

Why?

Because it was fun then.

Now, with all the continual A-Rod drama, the bandwagon fans believing the playoffs and World Series are a right owed to the team....it's just not the same. Hasn't been for a while. I've been hoping for a few years of losing to shake the shit from the tree, and maybe 2008 is the start of that.

Ahh irony....

2008-09-08T20:33:00.002-04:00

After complaining about Kevin Connolly and his need to show off his love of the Islanders last night (something that kinda ruins Entourage for me, because now I visualize myself beating E with a bottle when he's on-screen instead of rooting for him to come out ahead), I came across this rundown of Islanders history, post-dynasty.

They forgot to include the Ice Girl follies with Henrik Lundqvist (and really, dressing up a bunch of std-infested Long Island bar skanks and parading them around is just a sad way to bring fans to the game), but overall it's the flashback to the fishsticks era that made me laugh hardest.

This is gonna be a long two weeks.....

It's official

2008-09-08T17:00:00.004-04:00

Go here:

Fade In

Click on 2007 FI Awards Finalists on the left side.

There it is:

COMEDY
1st Cover Band – Matt Warren & David Zarif
2nd Robbing Hoods – Joe Reiter
3rd Matri-Money – Harold Katkov

Surprising, really not anything to get all gooey over, but still kinda cool.

One more thing....

2008-09-07T23:44:00.003-04:00

...I'm a big fan of HBO's Entourage. As a screenwriter (well, sort of) it's always nice to see an insider look at how the industry operates....sort of....

But as a Ranger fan from age 4, I have to give a great big FUCK YOU to Kevin Connolly.

Yes I know he's a nice guy. A buddy of mine is an assistant principal on Long Island and told me Kevin showed up for some event last Christmas and was pretty cool with everyone. Mike Bossy was at the event too, but my buddy didn't cave in his skull with a bat like I asked.

Some friend, right?

Anyway, in tonight's season five premiere, the first time we see Eric, he's wearing a fucking New York Islanders t-shirt.

When I was a kid playing roller hockey, our goalie was the lone Islander fan in our Brooklyn neighborhood, and he always wore his sweat-stained Billy Smith 31 jersey, and every time he made a save he'd provide his own audio play-by-play.

"Oh, and a save by Billy Smith! He stops Maloney cold!"

"Glove save Billy Smith, Barry Beck can't put it past him!"

"And Billy Smith whacks Larouche with his Koho!"

You get the idea.

I hated that fat little bastard. Our goalie, I mean. Well, I hated Billy Smith too. Still do. Pretty much anyone that played for the Islanders in the early 80s, too. I almost got into a fight with Bobby Nystrom at Madison Square Garden once. He was retired, of course, but that's beside the point.

Where was I going with this?

Oh, right.

E/Eric/Kevin Connolly, fuck you for advertising for that shithole of a team and giving me early 80s flashbacks.

Now I need a beer.

Ah, the interweb....

2008-09-07T23:09:00.002-04:00

....how did we live without it?

So a couple of weeks ago, some kid/amateur blogger named Greg Caggiano used an 'unnamed source' to announce the imminent trade of Scott Gomez as a way of clearing cap space so the New York Rangers could sign the leaning-towards-retirement Mats Sundin.

Yeah, go ahead and read that again.

A seventeen year old kid had not one, but TWO unnamed sources telling him their big-ticket free agent signing from last year was about to be traded to Vancouver....um....Los Angeles...er....Minnesota?

After the dust settled and he was (appropriately) laughed at, he posted his own explanation and rebuttal.

In his own words:

I have been bashed and attacked unmercifully over the last few days, all for merely suggesting a trade situation and rumor. People act as if I were talking about their mother the way they have attacked me this last week.

Oh, I get it. He was just 'suggesting' a trade situation.

My inside source has now told me that the Rangers are officially trying to shop center Scott Gomez in order to free up cap space. Not only will a trade free up enough space for Mats Sundin, but will also add wingers and give the team more depth.

See, when you play journalist and use the phrase "my inside source tells me", you're doing a little more than offering up a scenario. You're telling your vast audience that you, one of the top writers in the NHL community and community leader of the New York Rangers (listen, just follow the link, these are his words, not mine) have a source and that this is serious news.

Puck Daddy Greg Wyshynski took him to task already, but I couldn't help myself. I left this kid a comment on his story last week and took him to task. I even signed up for a stupid account on that bleacher report site just so I could say something.

And you know what? The kid deleted it.

Now to be fair, I remember being seventeen. I graduated from high school when I was seventeen. I had a hard-on every time a girl in a tight shirt walked past me. I loved hockey. I worshipped at the altar of Mark Messier.

What's even funnier is that this Greg Caggiagno (or whatever his name is) was one year old.

Listen, I'm all about new blood coming in to hockey. I think it's essential now, with the NHL stuck in limbo on Versus to build a solid grass roots fanbase. I also think they should contract every team south of St. Louis (and throw in Columbus, too), but that's beside the point.

It's just a sad state that some kid tries passing himself off as a journalist and shows absolutely no ability to run damage control and own up to his own stupid rumor mongering. His response to criticisms?

The way I see it, if Wayne Gretzky could be traded, then any player in the league could be as well.

From now on, I'm asking all of my readers to be smart about how they react to hockey rumors. Sometimes they're right, most of the time they're not.

I took a chance, hoping that it would come true, and I will never admit that was wrong.

Yeah, he wasn't even alive when Wayne Gretzky was traded.

Listen, I know a guy who met Adam Graves at a charity event last month and he swears he heard Gravey say something about Brandon Dubinsky and Marc Staal being sent to Detroit for Niklas Lidstrom.

Go ahead, spread the rumor. My source is solid. I think.

When is an award not an award....?

2008-09-05T20:29:00.002-04:00

Just got a call from the editor-in-chief of Fade In magazine.

Apparently all of the delays caused by the writer's strike have been resolved and they finally moved on to choosing the finalists for the 2007-08 screenplay awards, and today was the day of notifying finalists.

I'd kind of been surprised to get notices in March and May that I'd advanced to the quarter and semi-finals, because I didn't think my submission was particularly great.

So imagine my shock to hear I just finished 2nd in the comedy category.

I really can't believe it. The notes attached all spoke highly of the characters (strong) and the dialogue (exceptional!!), and there are some tweaks, which I knew and had already started working on. They also weren't wild about the title....but hey, if somebody wants to option it for a boatload of money, they can rename it Attack of the Giant Rampaging Penis Monster and I won't complain....too much....

Consistency is the spice of life....

2008-08-31T13:56:00.002-04:00

....or something like that...

Coming out of the NHL lockout a few years ago, I had suggested to a buddy of mine that we start some kind of hockey blog and/or podcast because, hell, if that Eklund moron can figure out how to work a network connection and throw a bunch of nonsensical crap out into the blogsphere, anyone can.

Well, we never actually moved on it, because we were both at different places back then in our personal lives.

But, like something out of Night of the Living Dead, it's an idea that won't die for me.

So, as a precursor to getting that rolling, I've decided to use this space as my little kick-off...er...puck drop....er....slap shot....

I've kinda hesitated because I thought a writing blog would be more useful, but let's not kid ourselves, I'm not in a place to advise anyone on writing until I'm getting paid. Well, that makes sense to me, anyway. I'm not that much of an egomaniac.

So I'll be touching on all kinds of things here, but mostly, it'll be hockey stuff. More specifically, New York Rangers stuff.

And I'm an angry bastard, so it may not always be PG.

Hide the women and children.

Fantasyland

2008-07-30T20:46:00.003-04:00

So back in late March, a friend of my wife's who lives on Martha's Vineyard sent her a desperation text asking if I'd be interested in joining his fantasy baseball league. Seems they had someone back out at the last minute and needed a body to fill the spot. Me being the fanatical stat-watching fantasy baseball freak that I am, naturally I said yes, and joined a league filled with Red Sox, Indians and Reds fans.

Now those who know me can tell you that I've been a Yankee fan for...well...as long as I can remember (I was even a season ticket holder from '98 until 2004). But after they picked up A-Rod...well, I never liked the guy, and it felt hypocritical to me to root for a team that had just picked up the ultimate 24 + 1 guy, so I dialed back my rooting interests and adopted the San Diego Padres until A-Rod goes away. By the way, it looks like I'll be a Pods fan until 2017 at this rate, but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, 2004 is also the first time I played fantasy baseball, and it's become a minor obsession during the summer months. The female members of my family pretty much despise me for starting a league exclusively for all the cousins and uncles, because I'm robbing them of quality time or something.

I'd figured on only being part of the fifth incarnation of the cousins league this year, but I just couldn't turn down this offer. Plus, even though I've scaled back as a Yankee fan, I still just can't stand Red Sox fans (or New England fans in general for that matter. The day of Super Bowl XLII, I was in central Massachussetts visiting my in-laws and I defaced this Patriots display at a Big Y, about ten hours before the Giants clocked the Patsies. Yeah, that's right, it was me! Suck it, New England!!!).

The draft was essentially five hours after I was invited, so I used my prep sheet from the cousins league draft from two days before. I cut short a visit with mom and made sure I was ready to go when the draft started.

And holy crap, what a draft.

If you follow baseball, or you play fantasy baseball, you'll think I'm kidding if I showed you the results.

In a ten team head-to-head league, drafting fifth, my third round pick was Alfonso Soriano.

Derrek Lee was still on the board when I grabbed him in the ninth round.

In the fourth and fifth rounds I took Brandon Webb and C.C. Sabathia back to back.

When I drafted Mariano Rivera in the eighth round, a couple of the Sox fans laughed at my terrible draft choice. In the fifteenth round I took Joba Chamberlain, three spots after a Sox fan grabbed Clay Buchholz, and he crowed about getting the better pitcher. I nabbed Ian Kinsler and Geovany Soto back to back in the ninth and tenth rounds, to a chorus of "Huh? Pedroia's out theah an' you took Kinslah?"

Edinson Volquez wound up going undrafted, and on a tip from my brother I grabbed him three days later. I traded him last week for Vladimir Guerrero, who's going to be protected by Mark Texeira for the rest of the year.

And how am I doing?

First place, eleven game lead, and this week I'm beating up the second place team13-2. I'll have a 20 game lead by next week, and without talking a word of trash all year (since I don't know these guys) they all hate my guts. I told them at the start I was a Padres fan, but Danny, the guy who invited me, keeps referring to me as "that asshole Yankme fan in first", so the secret's out. And hey, if it pisses off a few New Englanders, I don't really care.

It's $100 a team, so I'm expecting to clean up by the end of September. And really, who can't make do with an extra $900?

Indiana Jones and the Terribly Lazy Script of Doom

2008-05-27T00:11:00.007-04:00

Yeah, another review of Indy 4. I'll try not to bore you to death.

Let me just start by saying I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark when I was six years old. The summer it came out, my parents took me to Guadeloupe, about a month after we saw it in the theater.

Now I was a fairly bright kid, and for some reason, I knew Harrison Ford's name, but couldn't remember the name of the characters he played. As far as I knew, his name in Empire Strikes Back was Harrison Ford, and in the movie I'd just seen, he played an archaeologist named Harrison Ford. Don't ask.

Anyway, I wound up making friends with this French kid named Louis, and we decided to play Raiders of the Lost Ark around the pool. He announced he was going to be "Doctor Jones", and I announced I was Harrison Ford, figuring that my newfound friend wanted to be the bad guy.

Maybe five minutes after we started, both of us realized we were playing the same character, and a fight broke out, which ended with me punching Louis and knocking him into the pool. His father dove into the water and pulled him out, and after our parents exchanged some heated words, we didn't see each other again.

Insert French retreat joke here.

So Indy and I go back a long ways, and I'm not some average knucklehead hitting up AICN or DHD forums ripping it behind a screen name "georgelucassucksass", okay?

Bottom line: This movie was not very good.

I'll spare you the rehash of the crappy Shia LaBeouf Tarzan CGI swing through the jungles, whether Harrison Ford is too old for the role (he's not, that isn't the problem), or Cate Blanchett's Boris and Natasha accent.

Here's the biggest problem with the flick: it's got a plot hole the size of...well....the Amazon.

If you've seen it, keep reading. If you don't wanna know, turn back now.

Okay? Ready?

Last chance....

For all those left, here we go:

So these aliens came to this world from "an interdimensional rift"....okay.

And they became like gods to the ancient tribes in South America. So far, no real problem here, even for an Indy film. There's an archaeology/mystical angle.

So then we have our merry band of conquistadors, who find the temple, break in, and steal the skull of one of the alien bodies.

And...nothing happens. No booby traps go off, nothing is disturbed, not one problem.

Then somehow they die, and the skull is buried.

And then, once the skull is brought back, somehow the hive mind, which had been undisturbed for however long, suddenly comes to life, granting a gift to whoever returns the skull, which turns out to be....a trip to their dimension in their ship, and a massive implosion and tidal wave that wipes away any trace of the "kingdom of the crystal skulls"

So, as per the script, these aliens somehow set up this antechamber with themselves inside, positioned and seated appropriately, coming back to life and granting gifts only on the off-chance one of their skulls is returned after it's stolen and their tomb is discovered?

Why wouldn't the whole thing implode and flood once the chamber was found and disturbed?

Well, hey, maybe if you make a burglar alarm that goes off after your home has been broken into, the thief has a change of heart, comes back and gives you what he stole, you see the logic here.

By the time the flying saucer makes its appearance I was so uninterested that it didn't matter.

I liked the 50s angle. The Red Scare, blacklisting, Russians in the U.S., the fear of Communism on campuses, all that felt fine.

The Wild One ripoff, not so much. CGI monkeys and vine swinging, ehhh. Long distance waterfall shots, awful.

Giant plot hole...ehhhhh.

Shame, because it was pretty good at some points. The opening, the motorcycle chase, the ants....well, that's about it.

Lazy script, poor effort on Lucas' part if Frank Darabont is to be believed.

End of the line

2008-05-07T16:29:00.002-04:00

This is going to get long and rambling, but there’s really no other way of putting this out there, so I hope you bear with me because it’s just something I’ve gotta put down in writing.

May is traditionally not a very good month for my family. My father’s birthday is May 3^rd; in 1998 he turned 49, and eleven days later, on the 14^th, he died of a heart attack in his sleep.

In 2005 I proposed to my wife on May 12^th, hoping to reclaim the month with a positive event, rather than dwell on the negative.

Right now, though, the pendulum is swinging back toward the negative. But to explain why, I need to go back to the fall of 2000.

We had a Norwegian Elkhound named Rocky. Got him in February 1986 when he was six months old, about two weeks after my 11^th birthday. He wasn’t friendly with anyone outside our immediate family, but he was a great dog.

In September of 2000 he collapsed, and died in my arms while our vet was en route to our house to put him to sleep.

Two family members dead in a two year span.

My mother vowed never to go through that again with another dog.

Me, I’m stubborn. It’s an Irish thing I guess.

Through the petfinder website I found an amazingly adorable two year old Siberian Husky named Maverick, who was being held with Mighty Mutts.

I trekked down to Union Square Park one Saturday in May 2001 to see him in-person, and started the application process as soon as I saw him. To say he was beautiful would be a gross understatement. He had personality, howling the whole time I walked him and spoke with the Mighty Mutts volunteer, who was interviewing me to see if I was a good candidate to adopt Maverick.

The process was lengthy, including two home visits, and required us to build an extra six foot high section of fencing near our backyard deck to make sure he couldn’t jump over into the alley to escape. Huskies are prone to jumping, digging and escaping, you see, and Mav was no exception.

Finally, we were told we passed their requirements test and were clear to adopt Maverick. My brother and mother still had yet to see him, and thought I’d completely lost my mind going to these lengths for a dog.

Just wait, I told them. When you meet him, you’ll understand.

So on a rainy Saturday in June we picked him up at Union Square, and they both broke down in tears when they saw him. He was more beautiful than I described, they said, and we loaded him up into the car and drove him home.

Ten minutes after we got home, he wanted to leave. He kept pacing near the front door, howling to get out.

Typical.

Walking him was even more of a joy. He was about 80 pounds when we picked him up, and his first inclination when we hit the street was to take off like the Iditarod had started.

He could jump onto the seven inch-wide window sill, which he did frequently to watch us when we left the house.

He’d jump onto our couches after we’d been gone more than thirty minutes, and claim them as his own. In the beginning, we’d catch him hopping off as we came through the door; eventually he decided the couches were his and he’s lay there, daring us to shoo him off.

Mornings were the most fun. If he had to go to the bathroom before you got up, he’d pay you a visit in your bedroom to wake you up. First you got the probing nose and hot breath. If that didn’t rouse you, the lick came next. If you slept through that, you’d get the trademark husky howl. And if you somehow didn’t respond at that point, you got the massive paw, swatting you in the head.

Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the shedding. Clothes that were wrapped in plastic before he was brought into the house somehow acquired a fine layer of white hair, to say nothing of the rugs, couches, bedspreads, and every other surface in the house that suddenly looked like hair transplants gone wrong.

All of this was welcomed with open arms. Because he was the most well behaved, even tempered, and loveable dog I had ever seen.

Frequently we’d ask ourselves how we’d gotten so lucky. How could a dog like this wind up at an animal rescue?

Clues started to surface after a few months, and we gradually pieced together the picture: his owners had trained him exceptionally well, and apparently let him out into the street after the birth of their child (his reaction to anyone holding a baby or a stuffed animal that was infant-sized was panic and distress), where he wandered for a year or so before being picked up by animal control. He was scheduled to be destroyed, but for a woman at Husky House, who saved him and brought him to John Contino at Mighty Mutts.

One year as a stray, living on the streets. It’s unimaginable that someone could turn their dog out like that, without a second thought. I really don’t know how anyone can do it to any dog, much less a pure bred like Maverick.

For seven years he’s been the bond that’s held our family together. Times change, I moved out, my brother was forced to relocate for his medical residency, but Maverick stayed with my mother, keeping her company at night, and jumping for joy when my brother and I visited, as often as possible.

Many people don’t understand the relationship between a dog and its owner, especially when the dog is treated like a human being. It was always funny to watch the reactions of guests who happened to be around if my mother ordered food, because all she needed to do was tell him “the man is coming with the food”, and he instantly went to the front door, howling until the delivery arrived. He understood everything.

Less than a year after we adopted him, I tore the ACL in my left knee, and the subsequent surgery forced me to take up residence on our couch downstairs for a month. Maverick slept at the edge of the couch every night I was down there, many nights putting his head on my chest and licking me before he’d do his usual three turn rotation before laying down to sleep.

All of this I’m putting down in writing is really the tip of the iceberg in trying to explain just what’s so special about this dog. I could spend hours telling you stories of Maverick climbing onto my mother’s bed to steal a stuffed polar bear, which he’d carry downstairs and drop into his toy basket. He never chewed on it, he just liked having it with his stuff.

I’m sure you’re realizing by this point what this is.

It’s a eulogy.

Maverick’s spent the last two days unable to stand on his own, unable to hold his weight up on his legs. Several trips to the vet have established that it’s neurological, something on his spine (a slipped disc, a tumor, or something else) is impacting his hind legs, and as he’s anywhere between 9 and 11 years old, an MRI and surgery would be too much for him to bear.

We’ve tried putting him on Rimadyl, and yesterday upped him to a stronger steroid, Dexamethasone, hoping that it could at least help him get up under his own power to get out into the yard to go to the bathroom (rather than having me carry him outside two or three times a day).

The medication was a last ditch effort, and it’s not working. I could see it in his eyes this morning, the frustration of not being able to stand like he always does. The inability to fully comprehend what’s happened, but the knowledge is there, in his eyes.

He knows it’s over.

So tomorrow, May 8^th, 2008, Maverick will be put to sleep, and the greatest dog I’ve ever known will become one of the greatest memories I’ll ever have.

I miss you already, buddy.

While we're on the subject....

2008-02-05T18:12:00.000-05:00

It didn't take long...some knucklehead on a forum at boston.com stated it didn't matter the Pats lost, they still had more wins than both New York teams combined.

Right.

That's what matters.

Not this...

(Photo taken by Holly Van Voast. No, seriously.)

Mistakes were made....

2008-02-05T18:06:00.000-05:00

Ooopsie, looks like Amazon's pulled that book on the Patriots' undefeated season.

I think they should've kept the title and just changed the sub-headline.

19-0: The Historic Season of the 18-1 New England Patriots And A Region That Should Know Better Than To Count Their Chickens....

Open foot, insert mouth

2008-02-03T23:37:00.000-05:00

A picture's worth a thousand words...I've already placed an order...

Descent into madness

2008-01-07T11:16:00.000-05:00

You know when you get into one of those ruts that it seems impossible to get out of?

That's my professional life.

I've been on a roll lately working on the novel, averaging about 5 pages a day for the last couple of weeks. Of course, that includes re-writing myself as I go along, which I've been doing frequently (especially since I'd written a hundred and fifty pages and stopped three-plus years ago, and I'm seeing all the mistakes having had enough time away from it).

But the thing is, I'm impatient. My wife did a tarot reading last night (no, she's not a professional, she's going along with a book she has for it) which basically said I need to believe things are going to happen rather than continue to look past the moment to the end result, and focus on finishing. The cards also said something about trouble focusing while working on multiple projects.

Wow.

I've been re-writing the novel, re-writing the screenplay, and doing some notes/outlines on a couple of comic projects I'd like to take on at some point in the next couple of months....and the cards knew I was making myself crazy.

Basically, I'm at the point now where writing is the career I see for myself, come hell or high water, but I'm going insane every day I'm not doing it professionally (i.e. getting paid for it). I really need to calm down a bit, but I can't help it. I want what I want and it's making me crazy to not have it. And looking at other people's published/professional writing, be it screenplays or tv shows, novels or comics, makes me crazy if I don't think it's anywhere nearly as good as my own. Which sometimes makes me wonder if I'm over-inflating how good my stuff is?

Gaaaaaah.....you see why I make myself crazy?

I've taken to carrying a moleskine notebook in my jacket with a pen so I can write anywhere (if you see a guy in a short black coat on a Brooklyn-bound D train writing away, it's probably me). I've jotted down notes for screenplay ideas (a movie based on Blackjack Pershing?), tv show concepts (a kinda sci-fi conspiracy show....Matrix meets Independence Day meets Doctor Who), and comic-related projects (basically ignoring anything currently going on, I wrote up proposals for about two years worth of stories for DC's Atom and the Flash, along with a bunch of notes on revamping the Global Guardians....plus an idea to bring back Marvel's Gargoyle. I know, I'm insane).

All of this is keeping me busy on the writing front, while I continue mucking my way through the day job....

On another note, after reading about the guy who went subway-diving to save his iphone, I had to laugh. Not because I have never, in my thirty-two years as a native New Yawker, been on the tracks. My wife has, though, to save a pair of gloves I had given her for Christmas she'd dropped accidentally.

She tried to do the right thing, telling the MTA worker in the booth about it. Of course, there's a procedure. The booth woman would've had to make a call to the transit boss, then call the NYPD, then they'd have to wait for an officer to respond, then he'd go down and assess the situation.

Deciding she didn't want to be two hours late for work over that, she just dropped onto the tracks, grabbed the gloves, and got a helping hand from people on the platform...some of whom thought she was looking to commit suicide.

I didn't think being married to me was that bad....

i'll take five.....

2007-12-21T11:31:00.000-05:00

On another, completely unrelated topic, I was going through my bookmarks saved on del.icio.us and found this from last year: the Japanese skating robot plen, which, for some reason, just makes me want to take out a loan from the bank and buy them in bulk...maybe re-wire them with mini-lasers and send them off to rob banks?

Definitely lost my mind. The holiday season always makes me loopy.

Nothing to fear....

2007-12-21T10:05:00.000-05:00

Got a text the other night informing me one of my closest friends, Paul, was in Washington D.C. because his mom (a reporter for the Italian news channel RAI) had a stroke and was in the hospital.

Talking to him on the phone brought back memories of my mom's "minor" heart attack in 2000, and the helplessness I'd felt sitting in the hospital room watching her laid up as she was. My father died of a heart attack in 1998 (at age 49), my maternal grandfather died of a heart attack at 48, but they were both heavy smokers. Either way, the future doesn't look too good. My running joke has always been 'once I turn 50, get the funeral home on standby'.

Now, though, standing seven weeks away from my 33rd birthday, and after this whole thing with Paul's mother, it's really making me think. Not just of my death, which is however far in the future, but of what I'm doing with my life right now and whether I'm living it to the fullest.

I'm doing more with myself going forward but I'm tired of doing work that doesn't interest me. I'm tired of getting up every day to bust my ass doing work that's so far removed from what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm deciding a week-plus in advance that my goal in 2008 is to make more strides to live the life I want.

I want to write. Professionally. For money.

Go ahead, laugh if you want.

For me, it's full steam ahead.

Just so there's no doubt....

2007-12-19T16:37:00.001-05:00

Fix!

2007-12-08T16:53:00.000-05:00

My wife's pug Pandora (the cute li'l dog pictured above) just finished 6th in a "cutest/best dressed dog" competition a few minutes ago, out of 40something dogs.

Four of the top five dogs included three chihuahuas and a poodle.

This is why I hate watching American Kennel Club competitions on TV.

Ok, granted, this was just a local Brooklyn contest, but still...why is it the ugly breeds always place highest? C'mon, look at that mug. How can she place behind this?

Back to the future

2007-12-07T11:52:00.000-05:00

Many moons ago, in the early days of the first tech bubble, I got together with a buddy of mine who had started a comic fan site. Nothing spectacular, really, mostly reviews of stuff that was out at the time, although my column (an early stage blog I guess) was a bit more….acidic. Once a week I’d post a thousand word commentary on either something happening in comics at the time or a review of a book that I was reading at the time, and I’d find some perverse joy in ripping something I didn’t like. My prime whipping boy back then was the Flash artist Pop Mhan, who, to this day, I can’t understand how he got a job working in the comic industry. Seriously, he was horrible. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself.

One of the only noteworthy things to happen during the course of that blog was a cease-and-desist order that was sent to me from a law firm representing a guy I went to college with, who took offense to a column in which I mentioned him by name.

A little backstory’s in order here. Ready?

I went to the School of Visual Arts from 1992-1996, graduated with a BFA in Illustration/Cartooning in June of ’96. I’d wanted to be a comic artist/writer since I was three years old, and I really kick myself now that I wasn’t a better/more dedicated student of learning while I was in school. I had an ego, I thought I knew it all, and the fact that I never made it kinda tells you everything you need to know.

Ah, nothing like a little soul-cleansing to bring the humility down a notch or ten.

Anyway, when you go to art school, you meet some real freaks. When you go to art school in New York, multiple the freakiness by a hundred. We’re talking way-the-hell-out-there types, women who won’t shave their legs because they’re all about challenging the female image, guys who mix their feces with paint and smear it on a giant canvas, calling it “The Triumph of Mankind”.

Sophmore year of college one of my professors brought in a guest speaker (the woman who’d created Fido Dido…anybody remember that squiggle-headed 7-UP advert?), and she brought along a bunch of merchandise with the character to showcase licensing agreements and such. One item was a one-of-a-kind ceramic Fido Dido frame that had been sent to her from a guy in Japan. Can’t buy them anymore, she told us.

As a gift she’d also brought along a bunch of t-shirts for the class, which were in a pile under some of the merchandise. One guy went a little apeshit, started grabbing shirts, muttering loud enough for people to hear “One for me, one for my mom, one for my dad…”.

Said person proceeds to pull out another shirt, and the one-of-a-kind, can’t-get-it-anywhere-else ceramice frame that was sitting on top of the shirt slid off the desk, onto the floor, and shattered.

The look on the woman’s face was the kind you see when someone’s dog dies a slow, horrible death. The shirt grabber, meanwhile, had circled to the other side of the room, and was looking over the mess on the floor asking “Oh man, who did that?”

I related that story in this old column way the hell back in 1999 as a bit of insight because the same guy was, at the time, pushing himself as a comic book professional, offering lessons and critiques of work for a price. I found that funny because his professional work consisted of winning a fan art contest and having his work published in an Image comic, and I blasted him for being disingenious and a fraud, passing himself off with credentials he didn’t have.

Sixteen months later, long after the site and column had been abandoned (but left up and running), I got a notice from said professional’s legal team, informing me that I was slandering their client (or was it libeling?) and I’d be sued if I didn’t take the offending column down. After some lengthy conversations with some friends about what to do (I was all for fighting it, my friends, who had gone to school with me and knew this guy were of the opinion he’d use it to make himself a victim and draw attention to his own mostly-ignored work), the offending column text was blanked out but not removed; it would still show up on a google search, but was, for all intents and purposes, “down”. The domain expired not long after, and I never heard another word about it, although this lunatic still passes himself off as a comic book professional and filmmaker now. If you ever see a guy in a leather jacket with the sleeves rolled up using an American flag as a mask running around a comic convention, you’ll know exactly who I’m talking about.

That site is long since gone, but since I’m kind of looking for a direction to take this blog in I’ve been thinking about it lately.

I don’t wanna turn this into a soap opera day-in-my-life type thing (and then he was all “no”, and I was all “ok”), but I had a revelation the other night that I’m really, really stupid. Well, maybe stupid’s too strong a word.

Walking home from the train station, I had a revelation of something I should’ve done three years ago: start a blog about my experiences at Cantor Fitzgerald, along the lines of the insider spilling secrets. Oh, the stories I could’ve been telling about that place on a daily basis. Typically, I had this idea two months after I left the company, so that’s out.

But with my re-focusing on making a career out of writing, maybe that’s what I’ll devote this space to.

I finished a screenplay called Red Menace earlier this year, picturing it very much as a Hitchcock-type period piece involving a deep cover Soviet spy working for an undiscolsed American agency (the CIA, but, as the Professor notes in North by Northwest, “It’s all alphabet soup”) and showed it around. It got some positive feedback but, in the words of one manager “it won’t sell because execs in Hollywood were in diapers when the Cold War ended, the last few period-piece movies to be made about this kind of subject/time period (The Good German, Hollywoodland) were flops at the box office, and the budget to do this would be higher than any big studio is going to pay for right now”.

It still needs work, but I took her advice and put it aside, instead focusing on another screenplay called Robbing Hoods, which is more contemporary, almost indie-budget capable, sort of semi-autobiographical about a guy who runs into financial difficulties paying for his wedding and winds up robbing drug dealers as a supplementary income. The first draft I showed anyone (which was actually a third draft) got a lot of positive feedback, but the same manager proceeded to tear through it, pointing out what she felt were flaws throughout. Once I stepped back from it for a while, I came around to see her point of view, and I’m in the process of re-working a lot of it now.

Years ago I was easily discoraged by a critique, which kept me from showing any of my work and thus kept me from making myself better. Now, though, I’m past all that.

And while the WGA strike continues, I’m continuinally refining my work and trying to figure out where I go next. I wouldn’t mind getting a shot working in comics, that’s for sure. Any editors out there wanna see a sample….?

Oh, and if anyone cares....

2007-10-11T22:00:00.000-04:00

The intrepid Gabriel Perez is (eventually) going to have the newest version of my own site up.

I saw eventually because...well....it's been quite a while since I sent him the specs. I should probably just bite the bullet and learn to do it myself, but I just don't have time right now.

Now that I'm no longer a 24/7 slave to Cantor Fitzgerald, I'm taking back parts of my life that had been lost and rejoining civilization.

Where I am at the moment:

Myspace

Facebook

My site

(still very much in progress, remember)

Ning

Debbie's Porn Shack

Sometimes I amaze myself...

2007-10-11T21:31:00.000-04:00

Last December 31st, my wife and I celebrated a very quiet New Year's Eve at home, toasted a couple of glasses of champagne (well, more than a couple), and declared that 2007 would be the year.

Which year, you may ask?

The year we finally moved ahead and pursued what we wanted out of life. No more sitting around watching The Secret. No more wishing things were different. Shut up, stop whining, knuckle down and do it.

Late last week I finished the (for now) final draft of my second screenplay. I posted it to Triggerstreet, I'm registering it with the US Copyright office and Writer's Guild East, and showing it to a potential manager/agent early next week; she had some positive feedback on my last effort, and while she thought it was good and polished enough, the subject wasn't one she had confidence in getting a sale generated (Cold War Hitchcockian espionage doesn't sell in Hollywood these days), but she had nothing but good things to say about my abilities.

So far on Triggerstreet, the one thing I was most concerned with (the dialogue) has been the one thing everybody has unanimously loved, and some of the things I thought were great have been questioned. Nature of the beast, I guess.

I'm finally getting comfortable showing my writing to other people, something that has plagued and hurt me in the past. I always lived in mortal fear of rejection/criticism/laughter/mocking, and I've finally decided the hell with it. Nobody who writes for a living is immune, so I'm jumping in with both feet....or something like that.

The new script? It's called Robbing Hoods...the slug line goes like this: Three men, each facing their own financial crisis, decide to take on second jobs...breaking into the homes of drug dealers and robbing them blind.

Sound interesting?

No?

Screw you then.

Freedom....Glorious freedom!!

2007-10-02T15:36:00.000-04:00

Most people hate their jobs, right? I'm sure you're no different. You're probably reading this while you're at work, staring out the window (if you have one), daydreaming of being elsewhere.

Without any numbers handy to back me up, I'd guess that most people hate their jobs more because of their boss than anything else. The tyrannical boss, the sociopathic boss, the wishy-washy unable to make decisions boss...you get the drift. This isn't a posting about different types of bosses. No, this is a little about wish fulfillment. Or, rather, the kind of wish most people who have crappy bosses have probably had at one time or another.

As a former employee of Cantor Fitzgerald (YES!! I can finally say the name now without fear of being sued!), I got to see a lot of things. Most of them were not good (I'll save details for another time, this is a happy story, after all).

The manager I've been reporting to for the last three years had, in the year since he was promoted, gone into a steady decline of psychotic, destructive behavior, turning from a guy who had frequently funny meltdowns and hissy fits into a tyrannical loon who vowed to revoke vacation days for being two minutes late to work. Or for going to the bathroom without letting him know. Or throwing a walkie talkie at one of his guys (not me) because he couldn't get the volume to work. Whereas once he was a boss I could talk things out with, reason with, now he was just a raving lunatic, sending out e-mails at 11PM on Friday night and pitching a fit if he didn't get a response on Saturday morning.

Lately, he had taken to using a phrase in response to any question he felt was a challenge to his authority...which meant any question asked, basically.

"This is a dictatorship, not a democracy, and if you don't like it get out and find another fucking job!"

I've heard that quite a bit this year, just because I'm not the type to blindly follow bad instructions. I was taught to ask questions; it generally has a habit of removing uncertainties and reducing the chances of something getting completely fucked up.

So last Monday morning, while I was mulling an offer letter that had been sent to me by my new place of employment, the angry boss went on a rampage, first at one of my co-workers for not doing something he wasn't told to do, and then at me for doing something he had told me very specifically to do. It wasn't an argument so much as him screaming while I kept saying "stop yelling, listen for a second", but I digress.

That's when he did it. He went and used that magic sentence, telling me all about the great dictatorship I was working in, and how if I didn't like it, I could go find another job. I bit my lip and said two words:

"Ok. Done."

Of course, he had no way of knowing what was coming. Nobody did. That was the beauty of it.

I printed the offer letter, signed it, and faxed it back. Then I went out for a long lunch, came back to my desk, printed out a copy of a resignation letter I'd been working on for a while, and waited for my boss' return.

When he came back, I pulled him to the side, handed him the letter, and told him I was taking his advice and I'd found another fucking job.

He looked like I'd simultaneously kicked his dog and told him he had three hours to live. I seriously thought he was going to cry.

Sucks to be him...especially after I told his boss this story.