Say it isn’t so, Joe!

Any Mets fan will tell you not to count the hated Yankees out even when their backs are against the wall - particularly when that’s the case. However, the Mets nation stands back and watches Kenny Rogers pitch the game he pitched last night and there is an amount of guilty pleasure derived from witnessing the mighty Yankees being humbled.

The Yankees are a great team, there’s just no mistaking it and every baseball fan has to give them their due and acknowledge the wealth of future hall of famers on the team. As a Mets fan, I respect the Yankees.

Hell, I was a Yankee fan for a long time and there are still a couple of guys on that team from those days (a tip of the hat to Bernie who followed Roberto - don’t call me Bobby - Kelly). Mariano came up when I was still a Yankee fan and Jeter did too that last year. There’s also no question for me that New Yorkers are privileged in watching Jeter play - he really is one of the greats.

But... and this is a big one.

The Yankees lost their compass at some point. See what separated those teams of the late 90’s from today’s group is that the team was greater than the sum of it’s parts. Yeah, they had some great players but, it was the way the players performed as a team that made all the difference in the world. Since the Yankees faced the Mets in 2000, it has seemed as if the team’s direction has been more about going out and getting the biggest free agent on the market during each off season rather than building a team.

Let’s throw some names out and see if Yankee fans aren’t nodding in agreement: Chad Curtis, Scott Brosius, Tino Martinez, Ramiro Medoza, Paul O’Neill, Joe Girardi, Luis Sojo, Jim Leyritz, Tim Raines, Chili Davis, Mike Stanton - all players who were part of those Yankee teams of the late 90’s that was so successful.

Since 2001 the Yankees have signed the following players as free agents: Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, Steve Karsay, Chris Hammond, Felix Heredia, Gary Sheffield, Carl Pavano, Tony Womack, Jared Wright, Kyle Farnsworth and if you talk about the trades like the ones they made for Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez and others sending away El Duque, Alfonso Soriano just to name a few should make any Yankee fan sick.

Today the entire Yankee season rest on the arm of Jared Wright and if I was a Yankee fan I would be worried. To add to the irony of the game, the pitcher the Yankees will be facing plays for Detroit because of the Yankees! Check this out:

July 5, 2002

As part of a 3-team trade, traded Ted Lilly, John-Ford Griffin, and Jason Arnold (minors) to the Oakland Athletics. Received Jeff Weaver from the Detroit Tigers. In addition, the Oakland Athletics sent a player to be named later, Carlos Pena, and Franklyn German to the Detroit Tigers and the Detroit Tigers sent cash to the Oakland Athletics. The Oakland Athletics sent Jeremy Bonderman (August 22, 2002) to the Detroit Tigers to complete the trade.

Yes, today‘s starting pitcher Jeremy Bonderman was part of the trade the Yankees made to get Jeff Weaver a guy they just had to have! Jeff Weaver turned into Kevin Brown - whereupon Weaver went on to win 27 games over the next two seasons for the Dodgers. Brown, well I think Yankee fans remember Brown more for his back than for his pitching.

Let’s just say this though - if the Yankees lose today it should be one of the most interesting off-seasons for the Yankees in a long time. Hopefully, they’ll stop going out and buying the biggest ticket free-agent and go back to building a team like they did before.

Wait, what am I saying?!?! Let ’em keep doing what they’re doing, why spoil the fun.

Cat facts.

Some things I’ve noticed in regard to the cat...

• My cat is so comfortable with me, I can hold her head while sticking my finger into the corner of her eye to get at the crusted up sleep schmutz that accumulates there. Not only does she let me do this (which sounds somewhat disgusting) but, she will purr through the whole process acknowledging I am doing something for her own good!


• If I could take the cat to work with me, I would. Not only that, I would most likely enjoy my days a lot more and wouldn’t mind being at work those long hours because I had her company.


• While she seems incredible smart, she can still seem incredibly stupid at times or maybe it’s just plain willfulness! (Kitty missed the litter box!?!?)


• Crazy time (cat owners recognize this as those moments when the cat suddenly starts darting around the house for no explainable reason) seems to coincide with the advent of a good dump. Perhaps meaning it is kitty’s way of celebrating her regularity or just feeling a bit of energy because she is lighter.


• Cats will do just about anything for a small dollop of whip cream.


• Once they get used to the infrequent dollop of whip cream they will always greet your arrival at the refrigerator door with an expectant look if they are in the general vicinity.


• As the weather gets colder, laps become more and more attractive to cats.


• Kitty knows when it is bedtime and will announce the fact by coming over and letting you know - waiting for you to get up and go down to bed whereupon she will be sure to join you in a warm communal nap.

So much to say,

So little time to say it - just far too busy working my way down the ever changing list and trying to keep afloat doing the homework for Japanese class.

What better way to start the week?

Than with a little humor. Enjoy an episode of Robot Chicken via YouTube:

Color me totally unconcerned.

This little news item caught my eye:

Ohio car dealership blasted for jihad ad, Sun Sep 24, 5:51 AM ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A car dealership’s planned radio advertisement that declared “a jihad on the automotive market” has drawn sharp criticism for its content but will not be changed, the business said Saturday.

Several stations rejected the Dennis Mitsubishi spot, which says sales representatives wearing “burqas” — head-to-toe traditional dress for Islamic women — will sell vehicles that can “comfortably seat 12 jihadists in the back.”

“Our prices are lower than the evildoers’ every day. Just ask the pope!” the ad says. “Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber swords for the kiddies.” A fatwa is a religious edict...

...The Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations decried the ad as disrespectful.

“Using that as a promotional pitch when so many are dying from the criminal activity of suicide bombers, that’s not funny,” chapter president Asma Mobin-Uddin said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate when it causes real pain. It exploits or promotes misunderstanding in terms already misunderstood or misused.”

Hey, f*ckhead, LISTEN UP!

If guys are dying and suffering from being suicide bombers there’s an easy way to correct it. STOP BLOWING YOURSELVES THE F*CK UP!

Disrespectful Asma?

Well, considering I see and endless stream of images of my nation’s flag being burned and trounced on, I see effigies of my faith’s temporal leader being burned, I witness my faith’s houses of worship being torched and destroyed throughout the Islamic world and a litany of other instances of insensitivity and disregard for the beliefs and tenets I and others adhere to... well, you’ll just have to pardon me if I don’t share your dismay.

Yes, it’s righteous indignation by the very same people who burned down embassies over a bunch of cartoons.

Before we blame our own government.

There has a lot of Sturm und Drang over our foreign policy of the last several years. The ‘War on Terrorism’ (which should be referred to as WOT?) has us in both Afghanistan and Iraq. There was a lot of opposition to us entering Iraq (not so much as I remember with Afghanistan). Lately, we’ve been hearing drumbeats about Iran - the country the would be the meat in our veritable sh*t sandwich.

I’m of two minds on this.

First off, I recognize that there is a flourishing young population of Iranians who are not entirely connected to their governments’ policies. These are people I wish we could find a way to reach out to, sincerely because I do not bear them malice and I don’t feel in any way that these are people who would be our enemies.

Second, I cannot deny the regime which runs the nation of Iran is not necessarily a stabilizing force in the Southwestern Asia and ultimately we are going to have to deal with the issue of this conservative government whether we like to or not.

In the last several weeks, I was surprised when the topic of Iran came up during the course of casual conversation, the people I was discussing the topic with were convinced the current administration would take some form of overt action to resolve the current issue of nuclear technology and possible weapons development in the Iranian nation. The most common view espoused was the administration would at some point deal with the issue by bombing or taking some other covert action to destroy those facilities within Iran necessary for the nation to realize its goals.

To say there are many our own country who would find this solution totally unacceptable is an understatement. We as a nation are not built for the long haul. We have the attention and commitment of fruit flies at times and the media f our land is proof in this in the way news shows are packaged to bring forth the crisis du-jour in order to generate excitement and ratings. I really wish it were different but, it’s what our nation has become.

We are media babies, weaned on reality tv, daytime fare like Jerry Springer, Oprah or the People’s Court. Sucked into things more for the spectacle than anything else. Our political races have become the modern day equivalent of beauty contests as witnessed by the telegenic factor of our candidates (I really couldn’t imagine a Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon or Dwight D Eisenhower being elected today as they were all so unflatteringly unpleasing in visage).

So, before our backs get up over what we may do, I bring to your attention this latest column by Nat Hentoff. Hentoff could hardly be called a fan of the administration but, take the time out to read about the people which our leaders would have us stand in opposition to and ask yourself if by continuing to turn a blind eye we are not enabling such transgressions?

June 29, 2006, a court in the Islamic Republic of Iran sentenced Malak Ghorbany, a 34-year-old mother of two, to a brutal death by stoning after finding her guilty of adultery… Two men who were found guilty of murder in the same court were only given jail sentences of six years… The size of the stones used during the execution are required to be…. not so large that they would kill a woman too quickly, nor so small that they would fail to cause serious injury or pain .

The Way Forward that’s a tremendous step back.

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s NY Post.

It’s interesting in as much as the Post would easily be considered the most conservative of New York’s newspapers in its editorial outlook. Staunchly conservative, pro-Republican, pro-business - just another part of Rupert Murdock’s enormous media empire that includes other conservative media outlets like Fox.

So then, what are we to make of the following article about changes going on at the nation’s second largest automaker?

I always have adhered to the premise our nation’s political climate is akin to a pendulum swinging between the two poles of the liberal and conservative agenda. When the it appears our nation is moving inexorably towards one extreme, the gravity that is the will of the people exerts itself to pull it back towards its opposite. I think our history bears this theory out as well. Witnessing the last decade and a half as the forces of globalization and a pro management environment I have waited patiently for the people of our nation to sit up and take notice.

The old saw is, “Everybody complains about the weather but, nobody does anything about it.” Everybody complains about their jobs these days, about work and the demands on people’s lives but, nothing in our society is changing. If anything a lot of folks would say it has changed, just for the worse.

My parents and grandparents were of a generation where people looked for a good job and expected to stay in one place for their career or a good portion thereof. Medical benefits were part of the package and the cost of those benefits was shouldered by the employer. Hell, people even had these radical things called pensions! Something that would supplement their income during their ultimate retirement. These days, it’s questionable if there will even be a Social Security system by the time I get to retirement age and even if it is there, it is increasingly doubtful it will be enough to survive on.

So again, what are we to make of it when the city’s most conservative paper runs the following article? Is it the beginning of the pendulum swinging back the other way?

FORD TO WORKER: JOB NONE
-Christopher Byron

...That is the context in which last week’s announcement from Ford should be seen. Ford is in trouble for the same reason General Motors is: Neither company has been able to design and build cars that consumers actually want to buy...

...Yet instead of addressing that core problem, the top managements of both companies have spent years and even decades blaming anyone but themselves - the environmentalists, the Japanese, the Europeans and most of all the unions - for failures that are ultimately management’s alone...

...In January, the company unfurled its so-called “Way Forward” program. Its goal: to trim 30,000 blue-collar workers from Ford’s North American payroll by 2012 through a combination of attrition, firings and a kind of tin parachute buyout program...

...Last week Mulally gave his hearty endorsement to a plan, said to be in the works for months at the company, to outdo even GM and pull forward the cost-cutting goals from 2012 to 2008 instead...

...The tactic to achieve this? A veiled threat from the company to fire every blue-collar worker in the U.S. who didn’t quit first...

...The company said last week that it now plans to cut $5 billion in operating costs from its consolidated worldwide income statement over the next two years by offering go-away buyouts of up to $140,000 per person to all 75,000 unionized workers in the U.S. who are willing to quit the company and leave behind their retiree health plans on their way out the door...

...But they’re missing the big picture, for this is the 21st century, not the 20th, and though Ford’s corporate charter may remain in Delaware, and its headquarters in Dearborn, the heart and soul of this company has now joined those of other companies like it, destined to wander the earth forever, in search of any place to call home where the most workers can be hired for the least.

This is an abridged version of the article, if you want to read it in its entirety, click on it but if you find your having problems just look at the comments for this entry.

The Wolfe on the prowl.

Man, I tell you that cropping a photo can be a good thing sometimes. This is Ed the Wolfeman up on a sunny day in the park:

Get your representative to sign.

If you can.

There is a campaign by the people of the Sunlight Network, in essence it’s an attempt to make the people we elect to represent us in Washington accountable to us the very same way we all are accountable in our daily jobs. This is definitely a good thing, we as citizens need to know the kind of job our elected officials are doing. The taxpayers of our nation, the voters are the ones who have put these people in place to represent their best interest. It’s important for us to be able to keep tabs on a legislators’ movements and meetings if we can properly assess their job performace. It’s exactly what the Punch Clock Agreement was meant to do and it’s exactly why you should download a copy and send it via registered mail to the office of your electde officials to make sure they get, sign it and do it!

Starting with the next Congress, I promise to publish my daily official work schedule on the Internet, within 24 hours of the end of every work day. I will include all matters relating to my role as a Member of Congress. I will include all meetings with constituents, other Members, and lobbyists, listed by name. (In rare cases I will withhold the names of constituents whose privacy must be protected.) I will also include all fundraising events. Events will be listed whether Congress is in session or not, and whether I am in Washington, traveling, or in my district.

Who knew Pittsburgh was so important.

The last several years Pirates fans have suffered, oh how they have suffered. Even though they got a new stadium and hosted and All-Star game, they suffered now through many, many seasons of lackluster performance by their hometown heroes.

This year is different though - not so much because the Pirates are a great team - today their record is 61 wins and 86 losses and they are way, way back in their division. Still even with that record the Pirates have a lot to say about what happens at the end of the season this year. Not so much for their own fate but, for the fate of others.

Between now and the end of the season, a mere two weeks away, many of the teams who aspire to get to the post season will have the Pirates as an obstacle to get there. Should be a piece of cake, no? Well, at this point in September the Pirates have a record of 8 wins and 6 losses for the month. The Mets, Dodgers, San Diego Padres, Astros and Cincinnati all play the Pirates between now and the end of the season. While it’s a foregone conclusion for the Mets at this point, San Diego and the Dodgers are in a dog fight for the Western Division lead. Both teams have a fallback in the wildcard but, the Pirates playing tough could alter that in a big way. Cincinnati is a long shot in the wild card as well but, if either the Dodgers or the Padres go on a prolong losing streak (or Cincinnati gets hot) they have as much chance over the next two weeks as these other teams do.

So, let‘s hear it for the Pirates - doormat of the central they may have been for the last few years but, this year they can play the role of spoiler quite well!

Friday cat blogging.

A tradition which I have been terribly remiss in. This week Anna shows why ordering books from Amazon.com can have ancillary benefits for the kitty of the house. Nothing is so perfect a size for her tiny little form than her new kitty fortress.

I’m leaving on a jet plane.

Or how the flying ban after September 11th turned out as a way to fight the flu.

During the first five flu seasons, flu deaths peaked on or around February 17. But in 2002 the peak was delayed by two weeks, until March 2. In the years that followed, the peak moved back to February, they wrote in the online journal Public Library of Science-Medicine.

And during the 2001-2002 flu season, it took 53 days for flu to spread across the United States, 60 percent longer than the average time of 33 days.

Seems like researchers have found a new weapon to control the spread of disease but, can you imagine the outcry if they actually attempted to use it?

Anybody else notice?

How the weather today is a mirror image of the kind of day it was five years ago?

Unity Walk - sounds like a nice way to commemorate the anniversary.

Can’t say if there’s an agenda one way or the other but, I thought I would pass this along for those who were interested:

Religions for Peace-USA has agreed to join partners in Washington, DC for a Unity Walk to honor the significance of this day in American history. Save the evening of Monday September 11th. The New York Unity Walk begins at 5:00 PM at the Gandhi Memorial in Union Square Park.

RFP-USA will be working with New York City partner agencies to sponsor the walk from Union Square’s Gandhi memorial to the World Trade Center Site to Pier 40 for a Floating Lantern Ceremony. The effort is to promote interfaith appreciation and understanding. Please contact Katherine Clark, office: 212-338-9140

Somehow, I think an event based on the premise of greater understanding and acceptance of each other’s faith, on the anniversary of something rooted in intolerance, is the proper way and intelligent way to combat those forces and insure another a similar tragedy won’t take place.

...and sometimes live just goes along swimmingly.

I haven’t been writing or taking pictures lately. It’s a mix of the good and the bad. Good because I have just found myself far too busy over the last few weeks. Plenty of writing going on, just not necessarily up on the blog. There also have been a few times when I have labored away at very long winded posts only to have the application lock up because I’ve got ten windows and over 100 tabs open in Safari. As much as OSX vaunted stability is a major selling point of the operating system, you still are exposed to application lockups and failures.

Life has been settling into a bit of a routine and a nice one at that. The mysterious ‘STUFF’ is getting done and that’s a good thing indeed!

The fastest road to 1000.

I have posted oh so many photos on Flickr over the last few months. Some I am very proud of, some not so much but, they are all my children so I love them equally. However, I can see what people look at and what they don’t. Female photographers get more traffic than male photographers, particularly if they use themselves as a model, even more so if they flash skin. There is an army of men out there (and I unfortunately am among them), wandering the electronic byways. All of them looking for pretty things to look at. So, it comes as now surprise to me, I have set a new record for myself, quickest views to 1000. Just posted last week, another one of the NetMichelle series has taken off as people are compelled to look even when what they are looking at is the merest of flashes of skin.

I had to pass this along.

I was looking for a movie quote for something I was writing and I was checking out Kevin Smith’s movies because I’m pretty sure the quote in question comes from one of his flicks. I ran across this little jewel which had me laugh hysterically:

One time my cousin Walter got this cat stuck in his ass. True story. He bought it at the local mall, so the whole fiasco wound up on the news. It was embarrassing for my relatives and all. But the next week, he did it again. Different cat, same results, complete with a trip to the emergency room. Then, last week, I saw him in the pet store. He was buying another cat. I said, “Walt, what the hell are you doing, you know you’re just gonna get this cat stuck up your ass too, why don't you knock it off?” And he says to me, “Brodie, how the hell else am I supposed to get the gerbil out?” My cousin was a weird guy.

More proof you’re getting screwed.

No, it’s not your imagination. Contrary to whatever crap you’ve been fed, wages are not keeping up with inflation.

After factoring for inflation, Americans’ median hourly wages have declined 2 percent since 2003, while productivity, the amount an average worker produces in an hour, continues to rise.

Workers’ pay now makes up the lowest share of GDP since the government began recording the data in 1947. In the meantime, corporate profits are at their highest share since the ’60s.

Wild card predicitions.

I’ve refrained from commenting on baseball, choosing instead to just bask in the glory that is this year’s Mets season. The national league though is interesting if only in that there are quite a few teams jockeying for a wild-card berth as the season winds down in the next five weeks.

This is the breakdown of the standings as they are today for the NL wildcard:

Team	Wins	Losses	Games behind	Games remaining
San Diego	68	65	—	29
Philadelphia	67	66	1.0	29
Cincinnati	67	67	1.5	28
San Francisco	66	68	2.5	28
Houston	66	68	2.5	28
Florida	65	68	3.0	29
Arizona	64	69	4.0	29
Atlanta	63	69	4.5	30

Last month, Florida ran off a streak where they went 9 wins and 1 loss against some decent teams. They just dropped two in St. Louis but are going into Milwaukee for a weekend series. If they manage to sweep or take two of three from the Brewers, watch out. Philadelphia, the team in front of them plays them 9 TIMES between now and the end of the season. They also play Cincinnati 3 more times and the Mets 7 more times. Out of 29 remaining games, they will be playing those teams ahead of them 19 times. Florida manages to run off another 9 and 1 streak between now and the end of the year, they will be the surprise wild card winner.

Make your vote count!

Interesting tidbit via the MonsterBlog where they are having a contest allowing people to vote on the worst summer job from among five candidates. Worth the time to take a look and vote, as exhibited by part of the story below:

About halfway through the summer, I got promoted to work the end gate at the Safari. My responsibilities were laid out by my manager. He dropped me off at the end gate of the Safari and asked Jose to show me the ropes — or the bat, that is.

You see, the end gate was a passage to the real world for the monkeys and baboons. The inner fence was controlled electronically as cars drove up to it to exit the final portion of the safari. About 30 yards after that gate was my new post. The gate remained open until the safari closed. Here, Jose showed me how the baboons and monkeys would try to make a break for it by riding atop a car, under a truck or just plain rush my gate. I was trained on how to use the Baboon Beater — a three-foot-long, six-inch-round bat — to dissuade our fuzzy friends from exiting.

As if there weren’t better things to get incensed over...

Whatever floats your boat. If you find yourself up in arm over the recent decision there are only 8 planets in the solar system then, this is for you:

“We as planetary scientists and astronomers do not agree with the IAU’s definition of a planet, nor will we use it. A better definition is needed,” says the protest, placed on the Web at (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/planetprotest).

The petition organiser, Mark Sykes, who is director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said the IAU definition of a planet “does not meet fundamental scientific standards and should be set aside.”

A word to the wise.

I always thought about the problems inherent in selling an old cell phone, this article just proves my concerns were well-founded:

“People are just not aware how much they’re exposing themselves,” Schmidt said. “This is more than something you pick up and talk on. This is your identity. There are people really looking to exploit this.”

Executives at Trust Digital agreed to review with AP the information extracted from the used phones on the condition AP would not identify the sellers or their employers. They also showed AP receipts from the Internet auctions in which they bought the 10 phones over the summer for prices between $192 and $400 each.

The new Bush initiative:

At last we finally get a sense of the direction the president wants to take the country in!

“Make no mistake: It will take patience and sacrifice,” Bush said. “But such drastic measures could lead to a better tomorrow for all of us, especially for your commander in chief.”

Bush then closed his speech by exhaling sharply, tightly closing his eyes, and massaging his temples. “I just—Christ, I just need a goddamn minute, you know?” he said.

Another reason not to be crazy about big SUVs:

Is the stupid behavior of the people who drive them.

“I heard his tires,” he said. “Then I heard a couple of thuds. I looked out and saw a couple of people lying in the middle of the street. They were just pedestrians walking.”

As bystanders began gathering around the victims, the SUV came back around, swerving and knocking over newspaper boxes on the sidewalk, Fulford said.

“Everybody started freaking out, getting out of the street,” he said. “That car was like a weapon. He could have come right at us.”

Makes you just shake your head.

Your kid commits suicide.

The kid has been the target of bullies to the point where you are in the process of transferring him to another school and before that happens he takes his own life. To add insult to injury, you are prosecuted (and convicted) because as a single mom raising two kids you don’t keep a clean house. Sounds like a story you’d have to make up, unfortunately no:

Scruggs said she was shocked when authorities charged her. She said her apartment was cluttered, but not filthy.

“I miss him every day,” Scruggs said. “The pain is always there.”

Prosecutors said the boy was miserable because his schoolmates ridiculed his body odor and bad breath, caused by Scruggs’ filthy home and her lack of attention to the boy’s hygiene. His mother said that the bullying drove her son to take his life.

Legal experts said it was thought to be the first time a parent had been convicted over a child’s suicide.

House rule number 8!

Friday cat blogging on a rainy Monday.

Alluded to last week – the incredible kitty haircut with before and after pics!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Without all that hair, there’s hardly a kitty there!

A most wonderful day.


Unplanned to say the least but, a wonderful treat nonetheless. Today as I was flipping channels I came upon this unbidden, something which I had caught snippets of before but which I still find gripping and watchable.

Since the weather for the last few and next few days is overcast and miserable, I wound up leaving the television on and what a treat:

Grant plays Admiral Matt Sherman, Commander of the submarine U.S.S. Seat Tiger, which is stationed in the Philippines at the beginning of World War II. Joining him is Nick Holden (Tony Curtis), as his conniving junior officer. The story is narrated by Grant, reading selected logs to us from the U.S.S. Sea Tiger captain's journal, a gimmick that was later used in the TV series, Star Trek.

Then, one of my all time favorites:

A surprise Academy Award® winner for Best Original Screenplay copped by Sidney Sheldon (yes, that Sidney Sheldon, the future best selling author at the beginning of his 50 year plus career), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) delighted audiences who lined up to see it again and again during its enormously successful post Oscar® re-issue.

Followed by something I can easily identify with:

The trials and tribulations of home ownership portrayed in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House resonated with a public living in the post-war housing boom. The premise was reworked later for a radio series in 1949, starring Grant and his future wife Betsy Drake, who also wrote some of the scripts. And over the years, the plot has been reincarnated countless times, most notable in 1986’s Money Pit, starring Tom Hanks.

Finally, if you find yourself up later this evening - these two are some of the most watchable films ever made:

North by Northwest came into existence when Hitchcock and writer Ernest Lehman hit a brick wall while working on the nautical thriller, The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959). They messed around for a few weeks while telling the studio the project was going great until one day Lehman thought of creating a pure Hitchcock film.

...and for the night owl:

The film’s ending differs from the ending of the Frances Iles (a pseudonym for author James Hilton) novel on which it was based. In the novel, the character of “Johnnie” kills his wife “Lina” by poisoning her with a glass of milk. In a 1941 New York Herald Tribune interview, director Alfred Hitchcock stated that this ending was unacceptable because the studio feared that an unhappy ending would result in commercial failure and because the Production Code Administration mandated that all screen murderers must be punished.

Two things occur to me today:

First, Cary Grant was a singular movie presence the likes of which we will never see again. The nearest actor today who could even come close to being in Grant’s league would have to be Sean Connery.

Second, I have to admit to thinking of Madame X and Betty, neither of whom wouldn’t have been happier than to make a day of something like this and throw in a little baking (cookies?) as well.

Create a cover blurb contest!

Okay the cover below was posted on Steve Gerber’s blog and I have to give him kudos and link love for it.



Now I am betting the person who passed it along to him did some nifty Photoshop work and blacked out a caption that was on the cover to the left of Superman (the viewer’s left). Also, I am fairly positive the blurb in question was such that it downplayed whatever inference readers could draw from looking at the cover alone. Still since it was blacked out, let’s have a little fun. Post your suggestions for a cover blurb for this cover in the comments section. Without it, well they say a picture is worth a thousand words. All I know is the thing had me laughing hysterically!

Shhhh... be wery quiet, I’m hunting wabbits!

I love doing the Flickr thing. In large part because it manages to allow me to make connections with people all over the world. It is a bit more successful in that than the blog has been unfortunately. Then again, I haven’t really managed to put together the right package to promote the blog either so, there’s a whole ‘tree falls in the forest’ aspect to the thing.

Nonetheless, the Flickr stream manages to generate tons of hits. The shots I took more by accident of the Law and Order CI shoot bought out the legions of women in love with Vincent D’Onofrio. Little did I know Vinny boy was the hearthrob of so many women. Once again, the rules of attraction escape me.

So, Vinny boy bought all those female viewers to the stream but of course, naked (or nearly naked) women is what bought a helluva lot more male eyes to the stream. Guys just never tire I guess of looking at the ladies, especially if they’re done up like this:

Advanced cheating man search.

One of the thing that raises my hackles often is the way men are portrayed. I should qualify that perhaps, it’s not the way men are portrayed all the time but, the way they are portrayed by angry women. I often read stories about what equates to as very impolite and rude behavior being attributed to a person’s gender. The behavior in question directed at women and then used by women as an example of how all members of my gender embrace said behavior.

I really hate that.

Anyway, I was reading this RKB’s blog and she had written a column about this website which I thought to pass along.

The entire tone of the site assumes some sort of moral superiority on the part of women, one that seems to play into the idea of women as watchdogs and men as horndogs, and it's these sorts of assumptions (that all men are likely to cheat) that further the age-old “battle of the sexes” mentality. Because while their blog claims to be “revolutionizing the way women date,” all it’s really doing is providing an outlet for scorned, angry women. I’m not going to go so far as to suggest one can spot a cheater a mile away (I certainly know better), but if the first thing you do after you return from your date is scour their database, you’re in trouble.

I am sure a website like this will find a large audience - goodness knows they are probably the same people who are compelled to watch the Jerry Springer show day in and day out.

Look for yourself, Don’t date him girl dotcom. The site comes complete with a podcast (which I cannot bring myself to listen to) and even a useful tool in the form of the Advanced cheating men search.

It’s never been a question of remembering...


...more a question of trying to forget.

Last week, The History Channel was given over to programming focusing on the events in and around September 11th, 2001. It’s was their 9/11 week as they billed it and each night’s primetime schedule was led with shows bearing titles such as Countdown to Ground Zero - The Miracle of Stairway B - The Man Who Predicted 9/11 - The World Trade Center: Rise and Fall - Grounded on 9/11.

Also this week, New York Magazine’s cover contained the blurb:

What If 9/11 Never Happened?


In the issue a series of articles speculated on how life would be if the events New Yorkers experienced on that tragic day hadn’t taken place.

There is a very good article by John Homans titled The Long Funeral which opens with the lines: “Anyone who lived or worked in downtown Manhattan on 9/11 has no need to see the new Oliver Stone movie, powerful as it’s said to be. An anniversary isn’t necessary to remember that day. It comes back easily, in infinite detail. We remember, moment by moment, where we were, where our friends were, what we saw and heard and said as we came to awareness about what was happening...

It‘s worth reading and I suggest you check it out.

The thing I agreed with wholeheartedly is, yes, I do not need to see the Oliver Stone movie. I do not need to see the TV shows on the History Channel. I do not have to read or watch anything else about that day. I remember it very clearly and very vividly. I don’t think I will ever be able to forget it. I won’t validate the point by sharing my own experiences of that day or the weeks afterward. If anything, it would just be counter purposes to what I am trying to say here.

Each year now, coming up on five years, we have stopped and focused on what happened that day. I am all for being respectful of the memory of what happened and the loss of life that occurred but, when do we pass respectful reflection and move into the area of self indulgent scab picking? If a wound is to heal doesn't going back and picking at the scab prevent the wound from ever fully healing.

Unlike a lot of people, I avoided that part of town for a long time after what happened. I did it on purpose. I always want to remember what the area was like before that fateful day and I am looking forward to a day in the future when something new will be there and those few blocks become a part of the city once more.

When I look at the skyline now, it seems empty. I never knew how much I could miss those buildings until they were gone and every time I look at the city from a distance and see the strange skyline which I still cannot get used to I cannot help but remember that day.

I can’t wait for them to finish building a new tower, a new memorial and just finish building that whole complex back up so it can become a part of the city again. When that day comes it will put us a long way along the road to moving forward. People point to September 11th as the day the war on terror began but, really when you think about it the day the war on terror began was back in 1983 when Marines were attacked in Lebanon or even before that when the embassy was taken over in Tehran.

It was just in those cases, it seemed so very far away.

If we were going to measure it by an attack on American soil, then it still wouldn’t have been September 11th. Instead it would be the first World Trade Center attack when Ramzi Yousef and others blew up a truck bomb in the basement of the complex back in 1993.

Five years have passed and while I mean no disrespect to those who lost family and loved ones, I think it is time for us to move on. While we will never forget can we stop trying so hard to remember?

Another reason to make sure you don’t piss off the kitty!

A pair of cats really have owned an apartment, in New York City, in the 21st century. “It presented an odd set of circumstances,” remembers Brian Tormey of TitleVest, the title-insurance agency that handled the transaction, with a laugh. He’s willing to tell the story, though out of respect for his client’s privacy, he won’t name names.

I always enjoyed watching him.

You may remember him from the following movies...

Donnie Brasco (1997) Nicky / City Slickers (1991) Ed Furillo / The Freshman (1990) Victor Ray, Carmine's Nephew / When Harry Met Sally... (1989) Jess / Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) 2nd Lt. Steven Hauk / Tin Men (1987) Mouse / Birdy (1984) Renaldi / The Godfather: Part II (1974) Young Clemenza (Peter)

I think you may have even wound up confusing him with Peter Arquette because of a similarity in style and demeanor. Somehow though 57 seems way to young.

Adventures in Dickdom.

So, I got this email today and it is a sparkling example of how we get f*cked in this country on a regular basis:

Effective August 14, 2006, Verizon Online will stop charging the FUSF (Federal Universal Service Fund) recovery fee. We will stop being assessed the fee by our DSL network suppliers. Therefore, we will no longer be recovering this fee from our customers. The impact of the FUSF fee is as follows: for customers of Verizon Online with service up to 768Kbps, the fee eliminated is $1.25 a month; for customers of Verizon Online with service up to 1.5 Mbps or 3Mbps, the fee eliminated is $2.83 a month (based on current FUSF surcharge amounts). On your bill that includes charges for August 14, 2006 you will see either a partial FUSF Recovery Fee or no FUSF line item at all, depending on your bill cycle.

Starting August 26, 2006, Verizon Online will begin charging a Supplier Surcharge for all new DSL customers, existing customers with a DSL monthly or bundle package, and existing DSL annual plan customers at the time their current annual plan expires. This surcharge is not a government imposed fee or a tax; however, it is intended to help offset costs we incur from our network supplier in providing Verizon Online DSL service. The Supplier Surcharge will initially be set at $1.20 a month for Verizon Online DSL customers with service up to 768Kbps and $2.70 per month for customers with DSL service at higher speeds.

Summarized, the government has stopped charging a tax but, Verizon feels rather than lowering your bill (even if it’s a little bit) you won’t miss the money anyway since you’ve been paying it and they’ll just tack a surcharge onto your bill to improve their bottom line. Does it mean they’ll invest in the infrastructure? Probably not but, again it’s not like you haven’t been paying it up until now so why not just let them stick their hand in your pocket and take the money for themselves. What a**holes!

IT IS DONE!

...and now there is a much skinnier kitty, drunkenly careening about the bathroom where she is ensconced to avoid injuring herself. While she wasn’t doped up dramatically this time, she still seems to have suffered enough of the effects of sedation to go bottom over top should she negotiate a jump. While funny to witness, I certainly don’t want her to injure herself as she is very much my precious little treasure.

Pictures to come.

Teaser for tomorrow’s Friday Cat Blogging.

Although she doesn’t know it yet, tomorrow will be that most dreaded of days in a cat’s life, for tomorrow it will be time for:



As much as I love the furry beast, her hair takes on a life of its own and we are at the point where it is about to take us both over so, it’s time for the dreaded trip! I’m thinking of before and after photos but she looks so pitifully skinny after the fact and I feel so bad for her although within a few days she seems very happy and is running around the house with abandon.

From the archives.

I started going through the drafts of entries I have (which is alarmingly long) and determined I wanted to at least clean out some of the unfinished snippets. I’ve found myself burning out on the internet in recent months. Specifically the whole i-porn thing has just reached the point where it seems pointless. A lot of guys I know look at i-porn, they talk about it with other guys but not their spouses or girlfriends. Men really never grow tired of looking and while I haven’t tired of looking at women I certainly have tired of doing it online.

Anyway, the guys I’m talking about are peers. These are people in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Thing is there is a whole generation out there of people who are growing up with this. I read this article back in 2003 and was going to post a link to it. It’s still an interesting read and I don’t think it’s lost its relevance:

Every once in awhile, there‘s a reminder to me of how dramatically different it is to grow up today...

Like many other guys his age, Rick, who has never rented an X-rated video and considers strip clubs “a little gross,” discovered Internet porn in high school, and he’ll tell you about it with all the whimsy of a high-school football star waxing nostalgic about his early years on the JV squad. “I remember it clear as day. It just dawned on me: I can type in Pamela Anderson, and naked pictures of her will come up from Playboy!”

Goldmember was on this past weekend.



...and everytime I see the guy above or hear the name, I can’t help but think of this one particular person.

Remembering how good certain music is.

I’ve been really enjoying the discovery of iTunes these days, slowly loading only my favorites from the myriad cds I have into my library. I was listening to one ELO song which I know is phrasing from a Beatles song. The ELO song is called “Mister Kingdom” and I’m pretty sure it was the phrase it was paying homage to was “Across the Universe.” Anyway, I went looking for lyrics to satisfy my curiosity (like I shouldn’t be doing better things with my time) and as I was looking through the lyrics of different Beatles songs I came upon an old favorite of mine. Favorite just because I always thought the lyrics were so wonderful and reading them reminded me of someone from awhile back...

I Will (Lennon/McCartney)

Who knows how long I’ve loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely lifetime
If you want me to—I will.

For if I ever saw you
I didn’t catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same.

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we’re together
Love you when we’re apart.

And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you to me
You know I will
I will.

What can I say, I’m a big mush.

A passing mention.

In the Mike Douglas entry below you will see a couple of images embedded, clicking on them will take you to some rather interesting video.

Futility and you.

I have been blogging now for close to three and a half years.

It’s almost the same amount of time a person spends in high school, imagine that! So, over three and a half years there have been a lot of changes in life. Blogging is good if only because I find as I get older, time speeds up and I have increasing difficulty in placing when things happened in life in the greater context of the scheme of things.

One thing I notice though is there are a lot of us writing these days.

This is a good thing.

I had recently read or seen something somewhere about community and the formation of communities. It was interesting in they talked about how the definition of community was changing and this was largely due to the internet. You might not know your neighbors, the people on your block, the people on your floor but, you would at the same time have made friends with people in other parts of the world who you wouldn’t have connected with but who share your interests.

What made me think about this, was reading a post up on the New York Hack blog. It wasn’t anything surprising, it’s just about people behaving badly, rudely and truthfully it’s nothing new. People might like to believe it is but, it isn’t.

It has so far generated 200 plus comments and what is interesting is the way the conversation has developed through those comments. Some of the things that have been touched upon are violence towards women by men, attitudes towards police, life in big cities just to name a few. People bring all kinds of different perspectives to the discussion. Each person has their own unique take on the events detailed in the post.

Life is like that in you can superimpose whatever framework you want over events. If you look through the posts, you can see places where people took it upon themselves to get all involved. The shame is the same people who exert so much effort in this fashion would be better served just taking all that energy and focusing on the things around them in the real world - myself included.

What do the following people all have in common?

Joy Adamson • Edie Adams • Anna Maria Alberghetti • Alan Alda • Marty Allen • Peter Allen • Steve Allen • Muhammad Ali • America • Morey Amsterdam • Willie Aames • Loni Anderson • Paul Anka • Dana Andrews • The Animals • Louis Armstrong • Lucie Arnaz • Eddy Arnold • Arthur Ashe • Fred Astaire • Chet Atkins • Richard Attenborough • Frankie Avalon • The Babys • Jim Backus • Jim Bacon • Pearl Bailey • F. Lee Bailey • Lucille Ball • Kaye Ballard • Shirley Bassey • Meredith Baxter • The Bay City Rollers • The Beach Boys • The Bee Gees • Harry Belafonte • Joan Bennett • Tony Bennett • George Benson • Robby Benson • Brook Benton • Candice Bergen • Edgar Bergen • Milton Berle • Shelley Berman • Chuck Berry • Joey Bishop • Richard Blackwell • Eubie Blake...


Blondie • Blood, Sweat & Tears • Ann Blyth • The Boomtown Rats • Danny Bonaduce • Sonny Bono • Victor Borge • Ernest Borgnine • The Box Tops • Boyce and Hart • Terry Bradshaw • The Brady Bunch Kids • David Brenner • Jimmy Breslin • Beau Bridges • James Brolin • Mel Brooks • Joyce Brothers • James Brown • Dave Brubeck • Anita Bryant • Rose Bucher, wife of USS Pueblo captain Lloyd Bucher • Victor Buono • Buffalo Bob Smith • Carol Burnett • George Burns • Ellen Burstyn • Ruth Buzzi • John Byner • Charlie Byrd • Sebastian Cabot • Sid Caesar • Sammy Cahn • Dyan Cannon • Frank Capra • Captain & Tennille • George Carlin • Eric Carmen • Art Carney • Vikki Carr • Diahann Carroll • Lynda Carter • Rubin Carter • Johnny Cash • June Carter Cash • Shaun Cassidy • Oleg Cassini • Dick Cavett • Wilt Chamberlain • Harry Chapin • Ray Charles • Charo • Cher • CHIC • Petula Clark • Roy Clark • James Coburn • Joe Cocker • James Coco • Natalie Cole • Gary Coleman • The Commodores • Sean Connery • Mike Connors • Robert Conrad • Peter Cook • Sam Cooke • Jackie Cooper • Pat Cooper • David Copperfield • Chick Corea • Bill Cosby • Howard Cosell • The Cowsills • Bob Crane • Christina Crawford • Joan Crawford • Bing Crosby • Norm Crosby • Scatman Crothers • Billy Crystal • Robert Culp • Tony Curtis • Dagmar • Arlene Dahl • Bill Daily • Rodney Dangerfield • James Darren • Bobby Darin • John Davidson • Bette Davis • Sammy Davis Jr. • Richard Deacon • Jimmy Dean • Yvonne De Carlo • The DeFranco Family • Gloria DeHaven • The Delfonics • Dom DeLuise • Jackie DeShannon • Susan Dey • Neil Diamond • Angie Dickinson • Phyllis Diller • Tamara Dobson • Micky Dolenz • Fats Domino • Troy Donahue • Michael Douglas • Hugh Downs • Patrick Duffy • Patty Duke • Electric Light Orchestra • Duke Ellington • Cass Elliot • Dale Evans • Chad Everett • Bob Eubanks • Nanette Fabray • Lola Falana • Jamie Farr • Farrah Fawcett • Barbara Feldon • José Feliciano • Lou Ferrigno • Sally Field • Totie Fields • The Fifth Dimension • Carrie Fisher • Roberta Flack • Fannie Flagg • Peggy Fleming • Henry Fonda • Jane Fonda • Peter Fonda • Harrison Ford • Gerald Ford • Tennessee Ernie Ford • Glenn Ford • The Four Tops • Redd Foxx • Peter Frampton • Sergio Franchi • Connie Francis...


Aretha Franklin • Joe Frazier • Robert Frost • Annette Funicello • Eva Gabor • Zsa Zsa Gabor • Judy Garland • Teri Garr • Leif Garrett • Steve Garvey • Marvin Gaye • Gloria Gaynor • Will Geer • Genesis • Stan Getz • Andy Gibb • Henry Gibson • Astrud Gilberto • Nick Gilder • Frank Gifford • Arthur Godfrey • Ruth Gordon • Lesley Gore • Frank Gorshin • Elliot Gould • Robert Goulet • Kathryn Grant • Moby Grape • Teresa Graves • Rocky Graziano • Jose Greco • Lorne Greene • Shecky Greene • Bud Greenspan • Joel Grey • Merv Griffin • Andy Griffith • Tammy Grimes • Gucci • Buddy Hackett • Gene Hackman • Jack Haley • Monty Hall • Mark Hamill • Marvin Hamlisch • Lionel Hampton • Herbie Hancock • Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes • Valerie Harper • Richard Harris • Edith Head • Margaux Hemingway • Florence Henderson • Marilu Henner • Jim Henson • Hildegarde • Harriet Hilliard • Gregory Hines • Alfred Hitchcock • Don Ho • Dustin Hoffman • Anthony Hopkins • Sterling Holloway • Celeste Holm • Larry Holmes • Bob Hope • Dennis Hopper • Edward Everett Horton • Moe Howard • Ron Howard • Hubert H. Humphrey • John Huston • Tab Hunter • Lauren Hutton • Janis Ian • Marty Ingels • The Ink Spots • Glenda Jackson • Kate Jackson • Reggie Jackson • The Jackson 5 • Sonny James • George Jessel • Billy Joel • Elton John • Arte Johnson • Van Johnson • Allan Jones • Anissa Jones • Davy Jones • Jack Jones • James Earl Jones • Shirley Jones • KC & the Sunshine Band • Pauline Kael • Garson Kanin • Gabe Kaplan • Donna Karan...


Andy Kaufman • Howard Keel • Gene Kelly • Grace Kelly • Rose Kennedy • Tom Kennedy • Chaka Khan • Alan King • Billie Jean King • The Kinks • Durward Kirby • KISS • Eartha Kitt • Calvin Klein • Robert Klein • Jack Klugman • Gladys Knight • Ted Knight • Kool & the Gang • Bernie Kopell • Cheryl Ladd • Frankie Laine • Dorothy Lamour • Fernando Lamas • Michael Landon • Jessica Lange • Abbe Lane • Louise Lasser • Lassie • Carol Lawrence • Peter Lawford • Janet Leigh • Jack Lemmon • John Lennon • The Lennon Sisters • Jack E. Leonard • Sheldon Leonard...


David Letterman • The Lettermen • Sam Levenson • Jerry Lewis • Shari Lewis • Liberace • Hal Linden • Art Linkletter • Rich Little • June Lockhart • Anita Loos • Jack Lord • Susan Lucci • Allen Ludden • Lorna Luft • Paul Lynde • Loretta Lynn • Cheryl Lynn • Ali MacGraw • Gavin MacLeod • Gisele MacKenzie • Fred MacMurray • Meredith MacRae • Miriam Makeba • Barbara Mandrell • Barry Manilow • Mickey Mantle • Marcel Marceau • Penny Marshall • Martha Reeves & the Vandellas • Dick Martin • Steve Martin • Lee Marvin • Johnny Mathis • Walter Matthau • James Mason • Peter Max • Curtis Mayfield • Willie Mays • Andrea McArdle • David McCallum • Doug McClure • Van McCoy • Spanky McFarland • Darren McGavin • Phyllis McGuire • Don McLean • Kristy McNichol • Margaret Mead • Jayne Meadows • Anne Meara • Melanie • Sergio Mendes • Burgess Meredith • Don Meredith • Dina Merrill • Robert Merrill • James Michener • Bette Midler • Ann Miller • Mitch Miller • Hayley Mills • Stephanie Mills • Yvette Mimieux • Liza Minnelli • Ricardo Montalban • Dudley Moore • Mary Tyler Moore • Garry Moore • Roger Moore • Agnes Moorehead • Erin Moran • Jaye P. Morgan • Robert Morse • Mother Teresa • Bess Myerson • Ralph Nader • Joe Namath • Clarence Nash • Ozzie Nelson • Ricky Nelson • The New Seekers • Wayne Newton • Olivia Newton-John • Jack Nicholson • Maxine Nightingale • Leonard Nimoy • Agnes Nixon...


Richard Nixon • Chuck Norris • The Oak Ridge Boys • Carroll O'Connor • Hugh O'Brian • The O'Jays • Yoko Ono • Jerry Orbach • Tony Orlando • Donny Osmond • Marie Osmond • Buck Owens • Janis Paige • Jim Palmer • Hermes Pan • Barbara Parkins • Dolly Parton • Billy Paul • Jane Pauley • Minnie Pearl • Teddy Pendergrass • Penn & Teller • Bernadette Peters • Michelle Phillips • Wilson Pickett • Sidney Poitier • Jane Powell • Otto Preminger • Charley Pride • Louis Prima • Freddie Prinze • Prince Albert of Monaco • Prince Rainier III • Princess Caroline of Monaco • Juliet Prowse • Richard Pryor • Gary Puckett & The Union Gap • John Raitt • Tony Randall • Boots Randolph • The Raspberries • Lou Rawls • Lynn Redgrave • Jerry Reed • Rex Reed • Robert Reed • Della Reese • Rob Reiner • Burt Reynolds • Debbie Reynolds • Buddy Rich • Little Richard • Ian Richardson • Don Rickles • Bobby Riggs • Chita Rivera • Joan Rivers • Oral Roberts • Dale Robertson • Cliff Robertson • Smokey Robinson & the Miracles • Jimmie Rodgers • Ginger Rogers • Kenny Rogers • Roy Rogers • Wayne Rogers • The Rolling Stones • Cesar Romero • Linda Ronstadt • Mickey Rooney • Rose Marie • Pete Rose • Dan Rowan • Rose Royce • Rufus • Bobby Rydell • Eva Marie Saint • Buffy Sainte-Marie • Soupy Sales • Telly Savalas • Gale Sayers • Tobias Schneebaum • Charles Schulz • Arnold Schwarzenegger • Rick Schroeder • Martin Scorsese • George C. Scott • Lizabeth Scott • Neil Sedaka • George Segal • Doc Severinsen...


William Shatner • Artie Shaw • Sidney Sheldon • Brooke Shields • Talia Shire • Beverly Sills • Silver Convention • Paul Simon • Red Skelton • Patti Smith • Jaclyn Smith • Liz Smith • The Smothers Brothers • Elke Sommer • Stephen Sondheim • Sonny & Cher • The Spinners • Mark Spitz • Benjamin Spock • Robert Stack • Sylvester Stallone • The Staples Singers • Jean Stapleton • Ringo Starr • Rod Steiger • David Steinberg • Connie Stevens • Ray Stevens • Jerry Stiller • Ben Stiller • Amy Stiller • Sly & the Family Stone • Barbra Streisand • Sally Struthers • Jule Styne • Donna Summer • The Supremes • Jacqueline Susann • David Susskind • Gloria Swanson • Tavares • James Taylor • Rip Taylor • The Temptations • B.J. Thomas • Danny Thomas • Marlo Thomas • Shirley Temple • Cheryl Tiegs • Mel Tillis • Lily Tomlin • John Travolta • Lee Trevino • Tina Turner • The Turtles • Twiggy • Cicely Tyson • Leslie Uggams • Liv Ullman • Peter Ustinov • Jerry Vale • Valentino • Rudy Vallee • Frankie Valli • Vivian Vance • Gloria Vanderbilt • Vanilla Fudge • Sarah Vaughan • Gwen Verdon • Ben Vereen • Bobby Vinton • Diana Vreeland • Jon Voight • Lindsay Wagner • Robert Wagner • Tom Waits • Jimmie Walker • George C. Wallace • Eli Wallach • Grover Washington, Jr. • John Wayne • Carl Weathers • Lawrence Welk • Dottie West • Betty White • Margaret Whiting • Gene Wilder • Andy Williams • Anson Williams • Cindy Williams • Esther Williams • Roger Williams • Flip Wilson • Nancy Wilson • Paul Winchell • Henry Winkler • Edgar Winter • Jonathan Winters • Shelley Winters • Stevie Wonder...


Tiger Woods • James Woods • Tammy Wynette • Michael York • Gig Young • Henny Youngman • Frank Zappa • Prince (artist)

Well, if you were a kid like me growing up during the 60’s and the 70’s, chances are you got a chance to see them on The Mike Douglas Show. The Mike Douglas show was on in the afternoon at a time when there wasn’t really a lot to watch on TV. If it was a crappy day out and there weren’t any good cartoons on, chances are more than likely you’d stop and watch a bit of the show. At the time, the ancient days bc (before cable) there were only 7 channels here in New York (2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13) not a lot for a kid to choose from. No VCR and DVDs either, no video games, computer or internet. Looking back, it’s amazing we all survived those misbegotten archaic times but, somehow we managed.

Mike Douglas was a big part of that era.

“It was really a music show, with a whole lot of talk and laughter in between numbers.”

Douglas did about 6,000 shows, most 90 minutes long, and estimated that at its peak the syndicated show was seen in about 230 cities.

“Even when America was getting kind of angry in the 1960s and 1970s, his show was sort of an oasis of politeness,” Brooks said. “It got you away from some of the turmoil in life.”

I remember the sets vaguely resembled The Dating Game sets, they were distinctly of the era. It was hokey, it was trite and it was very much a part of its time. I know I enjoyed watching the show from time to time although it seems like so very long ago. Still, I couldn’t help but remember the show today when I heard of Mike Douglas’ passing. The name means nothing to anyone under the age of 40 but, to if you’re over 40 I’m sure you remember the name well.

The return of Friday Cat Blogging.



So, this is position two. Ballet has all these different numbered positions and kitty does a bit of a dance during each day. Like the feline version of Star Trek her job is to seek out and explore strange new places to nap. I was thinking of doing a series of photos just showing how many places in the house she has claimed as her own.

Can we get more impersonal?

A company has defended its decision to sack one of its staff by text message, claiming it was keeping in touch with youth culture. Katy Tanner, a 21-year-old sales assistant, received the message while she was off work with a migraine, the South Wales Echo newspaper said Friday. The text message said: “We will not require your services anymore...Thank you for your time with us.”

In case you think the world is going to sh*t!

Validation of your opinion via Doodie.com.

Not without.

It’s not that I am without much to say, actually if anything quite the opposite is true in that I have plenty to say but little time to say it.

The evil dictator.

Today I was looking through some photos on Flickr from different people I have marked as contacts. One photo very pointedly showed a father and child demonstrating against the action of the Israelis in Lebanon.

Then there were a bunch of comments from various people regarding the photo which eventually digressed into an assignment of blame in regard to which side held the moral high ground. I started to write my own comment but, thought better of it and then thought I would be better off addressing it here anyway.

Did I miss something? Is war a f**king board game that nations play with rules? How clueless are people?

Better still, I like someone stating at one point (and I’m paraphrasing), ‘I’m with you on the whole Bush is an evil dictator but, this is different.’

Talk about overstatement.

I may not like our current administration but, evil dictator? People, ummmm - isn’t that a bit much? I’ll go you one better, people want to talk about the US invasion of Iraq but, hello! The US is not out there urging Shiite to go after Sunni and vice a versa. People, they’re doing that on their own. I actually think the administration would be more than happy if a lot of that stuff stopped to tell you the truth. All allusions to being a super-power aside, we really don’t have that kind of control over the world.

Then, isn’t it interesting? I mean when the US does take an action (like they did in Iraq) it was wrong, wrong, wrong but, when all this crap jumped off in Lebanon every one and their brother is talking about how the US should do something, how we should get involved. As if? What are we supposed to do - land troops in southern Lebanon to act as a buffer between the two sides? Hey, I’ve got an idea, let the Chinese do that, or maybe the Russians, or how about the French - or maybe about a dozen plus other nations who go running around the UN vilifying every move our country makes.

I’m not saying we make the right move every time because we sure as hell don’t - it’s just that I would like to see some citizens from these other countries who have lots to say put their people on the ground. Let them paint a target on their backs. You know, I wish our world was a more peaceful place. I hope we’re moving towards that, I really do.

Just spare me some of that hypocrisy if you will.

Lord of the Rings via BME.

Usually I’ll get the random spam joke email passed along and be somewhat annoyed but, this one was really funny and worth watching. Don’t know how they got Jack Black and Sarah Michelle Gellar to work on it though or where it is from:

A traffic jam on the information superhighway.

So, the Flickr stream has far outpaced the traffic of the poor neglected blog, alas, alas, poor, poor blog. Aside from the fetish photo which generated an incredible volume of hits in a relatively short period of time (well over 1k on it’s own) - the most recent traffic generator is a set of photos taken almost as an afterthought. Wandering around downtown last week I happened on a shoot and took a couple of innocuous shots in and around the location. Amazingly enough the set has generated almost 2k in hits in just a few short days - it’s been linked to by a few other sites but, considering I have little experience with traffic of any kind I have to confess to a bit of smug self satisfaction of the increase. Now, if only I could find a way to make it pay!

LIke the man said...

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired - so while there appears to be a lot going on in the world and plenty to write about I find my vision somewhat narrowed and just am compelled to get busy.

Oops.

It’s cold at the poles.

We’ve been having this big heat-wave lately. Everybody knows it, everybody sweats their way through it. Beautiful days where you have that nice clean feeling after a shower and there comes a point where you are just a sticky mess. What better time to think about cold weather. All the talk about global warming makes one think about the extremes, the poles. Funny thing is what I want to speak to today is not the north and south pole but the tenets of opposites.

The reason I bring it up is because once again I find I am hearing much dialog being based in and around the extreme edges of political viewpoints. I was bought up with the old saw ‘everything in moderation’ drummed into me. I can’t help but think how continued political dialog in our country focuses more on what our differences are rather than our commonalities.

What does this imply? Are we becoming a nation of people who just have to be right at the sacrifice of everything else? How does embracing that attitude make us more like the people we vilify in this world?

Reminds me of this old Steve Martin bit:

...And I believe in equality, equality for everyone, no matter how stupid they are, or how much better I am than they are...

Consider it something to give you pause. I think it’s a great thing for people to be passionate about their political views and all that. I just can’t say I appreciate anyone who dismisses or denigrates the arguments of people who have an opposing viewpoint.

What it would take.

The records as they stand today are:

NY Mets - 57 W / 38 L
Atlanta - 45 W / 50 L

Over the next 22 games for the two teams to be tied for the lead - if the Mets played 2 games below .500 going 10 and 12, the Braves would have to go 22 and 0. It’s not over, it’s far from over and as a Mets fan I just want to see them keep adding to the lead.

Again, just because I like it!

I’VE GOT A FANG!

Redecorating.

I’ve been trying to go through and update/edit the links sidebar. I got some stuff done but, they’ll be more to come.

One of the new links is for New York Hack, a blog written by a female yellow cab driver here in New York City. I wrestled the yellow beast for a few years back in my 20’s. There weren’t many female cab drivers when I was driving (one or two) so, it’s an interesting read for me at times.

People always seemed to make a lot out of being a cab driver. At the time (while I was doing this to earn money), it actually got to the point where people would introduce me to others with it. It was, ‘This is my friend Phil from New York. He drove a cab!’

It always grated on me.

It was like being introduced, ‘This is my friend Dave from Cleveland. He’s a proctologist!’ I use the analogy here because as a cab driver you spent the majority of your day surrounded by or dealing with assholes.

Cab driving was never fun.

Let me clarify that... cab driving... WAS... NEVER... FUN.

More along the lines of it being a really horrible job. Cab drivers are the butt of jokes. Everybody has their bad cab driver story. Blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah. What the job works out to is long, long hours with quite a bit of frustration.

As a cab driver in New York, everyone was (is) out to get you: trucks making deliveries and double parking are in your way, buses are lumbering down the street like the traffic equivalent of sperm whales, other cab drivers looking for fares are like are like hungry animals competing with you for food, the cops look down upon you, the TLC looks upon you as a revenue stream, pedestrians daring you to hit them, out of state drivers riding along doing the grand tour, black cars double parking all over the place blocking up streets, the owners looks upon you as a necessary evil and the fares... well that’s another one of the great things about New York.

The fares are just unbelievable.

Rich people get in a cab thinking that you’re their chaffuer du jour. Poor people get in the cab thinking somehow you’re part of the public transportaion system.

Let me clear up something: Yellow cabs are not public transporation - people may think they’re public transportation but, they’re not:

Cabs are not subsidized by the government.
Cab drivers are not city or state employees with the wealth of benefits that come along with the job.
There is no sick pay for cab drivers.
There is no holiday pay.
You can see a billboard or a bumper sticker with a number to call when a cop is shot but, if a taxi driver is killed during a robbery it usually is amazing if it makes it into the first ten pages of the paper. It is a thankless job.

Cab drivers spend anywhere from 8 to 12 (to more) hours driving the streets of the city.

Umm, have any of you driven around the city? Try getting your kidneys bounced around for that long and see how you feel afterward. We’re not talking about the world’s most well maintained roadways here in New York. Plus, you think the owners are putting the best equipment out there for the comfort of the drivers and the riding public? Think again.

Still, all in all, it’s the cab drivers fault: it’s the cab drivers fault when you want to go to the theater district at 8pm when every other idiot is trying to make curtain, it’s the cab drivers fault when you’re looking to go back home to Brooklyn after drinking to much after work on a Thursday or a Friday around 11pm or midnight when every other drunking fool is trying to go home to Brooklyn, it’s the cab drivers fault when the stupid street fair or parade or presidential visit is going on and traffic is crawling. Are we getting a better picture of things?

No, it’s not a fun job, never was.

Beyond that, people have this overly romantic view of what a taxi driver’s life is like. They’ve watched too many reruns of Taxi or seen Taxi Driver one too many times. It always used to make me laugh, just how stupidly naïve people would be. Every time someone would get into a conversation in the cab, they would ask, ‘So, what else do you do? Are you an actor?’

Ummmm... no, I am doing this because I neeed to eat.

So, after living a couple of years and noticing there were far too many people around me who were really something else but worked a day job as part of their secret identity, I one day just gave it up.

Cold turkey.

I could have kept doing it but, if I did I would have never done anything else and the thought of getting to the age I’m at now just driving a cab seemed like a horrible prospect. Not that the jobs I have had have been anything to write home about, it’s more along the lines of having something to compare them to.

Very few things could make me like Junior.

However, I have to admit to enjoying this glimpse into his plain speaking about the current crisis:

Welcome back to the fold.

He’s back! HE’S BACK! One of my most favorite Met players ever:

Mets sign Alfonzo to minor league deal July 15, 2006

CHICAGO (AP) — The New York Mets signed infielder Edgardo Alfonzo, a star on their 2000 World Series team, to a minor league contract Saturday and assigned him to Triple-A Norfolk.

Alfonzo, 32, began the season with the Los Angeles Angels and batted .100 in 18 games before he was released on May 21. He then signed a minor league contract with Toronto. He played 12 games with the Blue Jays after being called up, batted just .162, and was released June 12.

Alfonzo played last season with the San Francisco Giants, batting .277 with two homers and 43 RBIs in 109 games.

Alfonzo played for the Mets from 1995-2002 and is third on the team’s career hits list with 1,136, seventh on the home run list with 120 and fifth on the RBIs list with 538. He batted .324 with 25 homers and 94 RBIs in 2000 when the Mets made the World Series and lost to the Yankees. He also made the NL All-Star team that season.

The man who should have never left. The only player I know of who left New York (reluctantly) as a free agent and actually took out ads thanking the fans for supporting him. He’s not hitting this year, I know but he was always a good guy! I hope home cooking can provide Fonzie with what he need to regain his form.

Sometimes...

You ever get the feeling we’re like right on the precipice of WW3?

There’s the North Korea thing jumping off with Japan, South Korea and China all buzzing like a nest of angry hornets.

Then, there’s this stuff going on between India and Pakistan.

There’s the whole Iran thing.

Let’s not forget about Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, there’s the stuff going on in Lebanon with Israel.

A whole bunch of those countries are either members of the nuclear club, will be soon or could be shortly.

Oh, and in case you’ve forgotten - there’s stuff conflict in Chechnya... oh, and Sudan... and wait a sec, let’s not forget Somalia jsut in case you were keeping a scorecard. No, they’re not nuclear powers but, doesn’t it seem like there’s a lot happening at the moment?

I had to write a thank you.

I had this t-shirt, it was a gift from someone a long time ago.



I had the thing almost a decade.

I hadn’t worn it much over the last few years because the thing was just falling apart. I’m not looking particularly great in a t-shirt anyway these days so there wasn’t any kind of a big loss on that front.

Still, I liked the cartoon on it and it reminded of the person who gave it to me so, I kept it around for a lot longer than I should have. I liked it so much I even looked around to see if I could find a place that still sold them because I would have bought a replacement - I liked the thing that much!

Turns out, you can’t get them anymore. The guy who drew it is back making cartoons but, even though some t-shirts with cartoons of his are offered up on a site this particular one isn’t one of them. Too bad really because I always thought this was very cool. Thinking about it, it occured to me how this really small, almost passing gesture by someone really stuck. It wasn’t a big deal when I got it or anything like that, just one of those kind of, “Oh, this is for you. I saw this t-shirt and I thought you would like it.”

Boy did I.

Did the person who got the shirt nail that one right on the head. It just made me think how sometimes we can do something small, something not big on our own radar that goes on to impact another person’s life in a big way. My only hope is to have the same effect on others.

Just because I like it...


I’m spending a lot of time these days loading all kinds of music into iTunes. I’m rapidly becoming a convert and finally understanding why it’s such a hit. I imagine I’ll get an iPod eventually too. Anyway, one of the things I pulled off a cd was this tune and I came across this live performance of the song which is very well directed as well (usuually a rarity for televised performances). Enjoy:

Fiona Apple - Fast As You Can

I wonder who will get the last laugh?

Will it be the landlords who wind up with fat pockets, or will it wind up being tenants who pay what would have been paid by long time residents had the property not moved out of rent stabilization.

It may be that the very ordinariness of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village allayed the suspicions of normally alert housing advocates that the owners would take these developments out of rent stabilization. These may be excellent moderate-income projects, but they are far from elegant. A young lawyer, Eric Lipman, who moved into Peter Cooper Village last March, says, “They’re advertising luxury apartments when there’s nothing luxurious about them. No doorman. No gym. No amenities. They put in new fixtures, but nothing super-fancy. Just GE - works fine, but that's it.”

Getting more exposure.

If you go to the Central Park website, and look under the latest photos you’ll see some pictures I took up in the park last month as well as one which I fooled around with in Photoshop.

Now, the truth can be told!

Our government has been keeping a secret from the American people for quite some time now. I kept expecting the truth to come out on its own but, as the years pass - I can no longer abide what is happening and stand by a silent witness to it. Even the supporters of our incursion into Iraq are tiring of our presence in that forlorn country. Little do the citizens of the world know in reality, this is all part of an elaborate plot hatched long ago in the corridors of power both here in Washington and London. A plot by the great Anglo/American alliance to extend their hegemony over the middle east and to prolong their subjugation of the peoples there - the photo evidence is undeniable and today I give you proof of the true identity of the man heretofore known as the butcher of Baghdad who in reality is a singer whose career had long since eclipsed and who was looking for ways to bring himself back into the public eye. Below the indisputable truth revealed at last that the identity of the man we know as Saddam Hussein is really a sham and before you his true identity stands revealed:



The man the world knows as Saddam Hussein!


a man who in the 70’s the world knew by another name:


The man the world knew as Englebert Humperdink!

Coincidence?!?! I think not!

(if you don’t know satire when you read it, just for those among you needing to be hit over the head - this is a joke. Two separate people, Engelbert having nothing to do with Saddam. But there will always be conspiracy theorists.)

I witnessed a robbery!



Actually just an interesting project I am beginning to explore through my Flickr stream which is more about gesture and composition than anything else. I’m exploring how much is conveyed through the visual language expressed by our bodies. What we say without even knowing it.

Friday cat blogging.

I came across this by way of Elayne’s blog (see link in sidebar). Language was no barrier in my enjoyment of it however. It’s one of those things any cat-lover will find compelling to watch:

More cat movies.

Moving away from the grossness of the previous film, here we have an example that not only are cats computer users but, that they prefer Macs to Windows boxes:

Something I’ve always wanted to be able to get my cat to do.

This would remove possibly the only drawback to my lovely, little furry companion. I would feel as if I could achieve anything if I could get her to do it but, I have to admit I don’t know if it would be worth the rather ungraceful finish. Seems like all that hard work at the expense of the cat.



No more litter both smell but, what good is it if the cat doesn’t flush? Must be a male cat?

A happy fourth!

Gerry sent me this beautiful drawing he made attached to an email from today and couldn’t resist posting it. It’s so a well done - click through for larger size:

Still missed.

Over the last weekend, I came to realize a year had passed - we haven’t had a card game since.

Sitting in his hospital room and over the subsequent days after Bob’s passing I came to realize the measure of life’s wealth and simply put it is in the lives we touch. As the fates would have it, Bob turned out to be one of the wealthiest men I have ever had the privelege to know and he will be sorely missed.

Rush Limbaugh exposed as a limp dick - finally!

So it is somewhat surprising to hear of Rush Limbaugh’s latest run in with the law over prescription meds. Surprising because Limbaugh has been known as something of a stiff for years. His need for help in that department comes as something of a shock - in many quarters Limbaugh is often described as a bit of a walking erection.

You would think the Republican in me would be dismayed over this run in with the law for the poster boy of the conservative media.

Not really.

See, I have little taste for those among us who follow the tract of ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ While Limbaugh may turn his cyclopean gaze onto political figures in this country based upon their party affiliation - I think he is part of the problem in our country today and he has been for a very long time. His response on his radio show today to the incident, is another example of the incredible hypocrisy he lives his life by:

Limbaugh joked about the search on his radio show Tuesday, saying Customs officials didn't believe him when he said he got the pills at the Clinton Library and he was told they were blue M&Ms.

Limbaugh appeals to a certain segment of the population - he does it by painting the world into very black and white tones and casting the people who are in opposition to his views as ‘the bad guys.’ It’s this kind of rhetoric I hate the most. Mainly because it is so divisive to the body politic of our country. There are of course things we will disagree on but, for any kind of progress to be made in our country, compromise ultimately will be a part of it. Positioning the opposing viewpoint in such an extreme fashion makes it so much harder for that compromise to happen. It impedes progress, it hampers change and growth.

We always hear about wars we are fighting, ideological wars which threaten the fabric of our society. Oddly enough, it is hard to find a difference between the very terrorists we are ‘fighting’ and those who would try and take arguments over opposing views into the same extreme territory Muslim fundamentalists would. Now, before you start reacting, hear me out: I’m not saying these people are the same in all ways, they are not advocating violence the way a group such as Al Qaeda would but, they are very similar in their zero sum approach to the discussion. There is no room for opposing views in their argument and that’s a big problem.

Truth is we have some very big problems to solve in this country at the moment, problems that will only get bigger over time and if we are to do the hard work of confronting those problems and making our nation a better place, we had better realize it is necessary for us to work together to overcome those problems.

Just some food for thought.

Still, you would think Rush would be a lot smarter than that wouldn’t you. Such a lapse of judgement on his part has got to have his fans thinking (one would hope).