Letting The Past Out

And now, through the modern miracle of digital scanning, I present a few more old pics from the battered red suitcase I keep the past in. November has really been the month of old photos, has it not? I'm just asking...

The first two are of my grandfather, my Papou, George Eleftheriou. I don't know what he was thinking there in the first one, fixin' to be the first Greek gaucho, I reckon. I would guess both of these were taken during at Coney Island but at different times; perhaps one in the mid-1930s and the other in the early to mid-1940s. He became a big New York Mets fan later on, would get me and my brother tickets to the games, including free passes to the Shea Stadium's hallowed Diamond Club. I know He worked in a restaurant in Newark, New Jersey, so I guess he had some kind of connection. I remember him sitting in the kitchen of his small apartment in Astoria drinking Rheingold beer and listening to the Mets games on the radio. Once he owned a big house with a yard on 37th street where the entire extended family lived -- aunts, uncles -- then just sold it for the incredibly low amount of $15,000, according to family legend.

The second two photos are of my dad, Don. That first shot with the tiny little shamrock taped to the photo is from 1951. A southpaw and probably a middleweight at that time, he was a boxer in the Navy & Golden Gloves & had a few professional fights. He liked to tell us he was on the mob payroll by age 15 & used to spar with Jack Dempsey, who he did know by the way and who we met a few times at his restaurant off Times Square. My dad was always giving us boxing lessons, even my sister, telling us we needed to know how to defend ourselves. My mother would cringe and hope nobody got hurt.

The picture of my father at the cash register dates from when he worked at a supermarket in Spanish Harlem in the late 1950s. That's what he always called it: Spanish Harlem. Later on he would work at the Coca-Cola factory on 34th Street in Manhattan and suffer two pretty bad accidents on the shop floor. I remember him taking me to visit the plant a few times, and while I was always happy for the free soda, I still can remember how deafeningly loud the place was.

The Internet Cafe here at the Ditmars Boulevard train station charges a mere 2 bucks to scan any 4 items, so look for more kodachromatic blasts of nostalgia coming to WardensWorld in December.

A Sorry Bunch Of Michaels

***Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Michaels *** "And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him Bill or George! Anything but Mike!" *** Michael still a strong second on list of most popular baby names -- for now *** Post-meltdown mea culpas all around ***























First Lenny Bruce wannabe Michael "Kramer" Richards goes off on a tasteless racist rant at a comedy club, then tries to atone with apologies to anyone and everyone he encounters for the next two weeks...

Next, leading anthropologist Michael "The Greek" Irvin tries to explain the athleticism of a white quarterback by humorously postulating he must have had some black blood somewhere back in his family tree, then becomes contrite when he realizes how offensive his remarks were to blacks and whites alike.

Then left-handed QB Michael "Dirty Bird" Vick, showing admirable ambidexterity, uses both hands to flip the time-tested one-finger salute to a heckling fan on Sunday, then -- you guessed it -- apologizes to fans the next day and pledges to never again resort to the ever-popular obscene hand gesture...

And now New York City Mayor Michael "The Millionaire" Bloomberg is forced to take responsibility for the "gangland-style slaying" his police force apparently committed, with officers accused of executing a groom-to-be in Queens on the day of his wedding.

A tough couple of weeks for anyone named Michael. A tough couple of weeks for race relations in this country. But don't worry, beneath the ugly exterior is an even uglier reality: we still can't just all get along, even at this late date...

(Now comes word that the Dallas Cowboys, the hottest team in the NFL and a possible Super Bowl contender, have just cut ties with their slumping kicker, whose full name is ... Michael Vanderjagt. You can't make this stuff up!)

Michael Richards is hoping he will wake up from his nightmare and it will turn out to have been a bad lost Seinfeld episode...

The actions of Michael Irvin sometimes make it hard to admit you're a Cowboy fan. Irvin is now just thanking his lucky stars he's not an old white guy (see Jimmy Snyder, Al Campanis) or he too would find himself out of a job...

Michael Vick is probably happy the spotlight is off his underwhelming passing numbers and his underachieving Atlanta Falcons football team, as well as his infamous herpes moment from a few years back. It's no wonder Vick felt the need to use a non-Mike-related alias (would you believe Ron Mexico?)...

And Mayor Michael Bloomberg is perhaps eager to show the black community that he's no Rudy Giuliani, he of the volcanic temper who never met a case of police excess or brutality where he wasn't willing to blindly support the cops' version of events, so he stood side by side with Al Sharpton and other prominent black leaders yesterday...

We have become accustomed to an all-too-familiar ritual when celebrities are ensnared in some egregious personal scandal or embarrassing imbroglio. First the accused offers sincere, heartfelt penance; then he or she will appear publicly remorseful; followed shortly by a showy penitential for the media, whereupon it's customary to blame the whole thing on an addiction to alcohol or painkillers or a long-abeyant incident of child abuse...

The American public loves to build up its celebrity superstars, then delights in their subsequent downfalls and transgressions, yet ultimately is only too willing to offer exoneration and absolution when the accused ultimately begs for forgiveness. The whole cycle of expiation and atonement has a distinctly religious ring to it, although it's hard to miss the smoky odor of hypocrisy and falsity that is attached to the unseemly, unholy ceremony. We're still escaping the chafing bonds of Puritanism lo these many years later, and it's usually not a pretty sight. After all, the name Michael itself means: Who is like God? Judging from the events of the last few weeks, not very many of us, not very many of us at all. Especially those with that formerly saintly but now suddenly cursed given name Michael.

*** One Giant Collapse *** Mighty Bears Declawed *** Continuing Romo-Mania *** It's Official: God Is A Dallas Cowboy Fan ***

Well, if you're a Cowboys fans who has been holding out before plopping down the 50 or 60 bucks for that new Tony Romo jersey, waiting to be sure your new starting QB is for real and not a fluke, you might wanna head down to the local sporting goods store this morning before the stock clerk raises the price on that #9. Now it's only a question of white home, road blue or the throwback uniform the Cowboys wore on Thanksgiving Day.

Living here in the NYC area, I can tell you that Jets and Giants fans are officially in panic mode, calling up WFAN and ESPN-Radio and hoping the talk show hosts will agree that Romo has to be a flash in the pan, that he will come crashing back down to earth, that it can't be as easy as the kid is making it look, but they can't find anyone to agree with them. One disturbed Jets fan called up and tried to make the point that Romo hasn't faced any good defenses, that the Colts were ripe for the picking, that Romo looked terrible in the Redskins game, his only loss; this is what is known as grasping at straws. For the record, against the Redskins Romo was 24-36 for 284 yards, 2 TDs and no INTs, for a QB rating of 109. But keep in mind that this was the game where a wide-open Terrell Owens dropped a perfect pass from Romo that would have gone for a 74-yard TD, and that even with the drop, Romo had his team in position to kick an easy game-winning field goal from 35 yards out (it was blocked). And of course, his own coach tried to downplay the accolades flying all around his new star, warning everyone to put away the anointing oil. All to no avail, because The Kid is now almost a lock to make the NFC Pro Bowl squad.

Romo-mania continues unabated. As I said to my brother as we looked at magazines in the smoke shop on Saturday, Romo's gotta be on the cover of Sports Illustrated any day now. And sure enough we cracked the latest issue open and there's a cool feature article on Romo leading the Cowboys over the Colts inside. The Romo Revue continued Sunday: an interview with the grinning QB on the CBS pregame show, then another during the NBC Sunday Night halftime -- ending the way all his interviews seem to these days: with a question about the Jessica Simpson rumors.

A 300-yard, five-touchdown, no interception performance on a national stage will do much to increase your profile and bring the spotlight bearing down on you. A 110.8 QB rating will warrant some attention, as will a sparkling 9.20 yards per pass attempt number, and completing almost 70 percent of your passes (69.4) is also a sure-fire way to make a name for yourself. Romo is on his way to shattering several long-standing single-season Cowboy passing records, such as passer rating (104.5) and yards per attempt (8.91), that the great Roger Staubach has held for 35 years. Hall of Famer Troy Aikman completed 69.1 percent of his passes in the 1993 Super Bowl season; Tony Romo is over 70 percent in the five games he's started.

The numbers don't lie. You can have a lucky game or two and fool 'em for a while, but 29-31 over the last 3 second halves? C'mon, get on board the Romo bandwagon!

In 2005, then starting QB Drew Bledsoe confided to Aikman that he hope he never gets hurt at any point in the season, because he'd "never get his job back" if Tony Romo came in. And that was a year ago. Like playing with a great point guard, everyone runs a little harder on the fast break because they know if you're open he'll find you. Same thing with Romo. He spreads the ball around with such infectious enthusiasm, yet he's in control like Steve Nash dashing down the lane before he throws a no-look pass in traffic. Romo might already be the most accurate passer in the entire league when rolling out.

What we might have here, ladies & Cowboy fans, is a young, circa 1993 vintage Brett Favre model, a potential league MVP -- but one under the leash of a control freak like Bill Parcells to rein him in, thus governing the gunslinger's propensity to shoot from the hip.

Dallas is now 7-4 and sits alone atop the NFC East, with the 6-5 Giants playing for their season next week when they host the suddenly resurgent Cowboys next Sunday. Fresh off one of the most monumental losses in the long history of the franchise, the Giants will be as hard-pressed to stop the Ro-mentum at the Meadowlands as I am to stop all the Tony Romo-related puns.

Perhaps lost in the Ro-mania of the last five weeks is the way the Cowboys, one of the youngest teams in the league, have blossomed and come together. The defense is now fourth in the NFL in yards allowed, at 279 per game; and the offense is also fourth, averaging over 376 yards per game. And Dallas is also fourth in point differential (scoring 309 points, giving up 198), perhaps the most reliable metric of overall strength, trailing only 9-2 San Diego, 9-2 Chicago and 8-3 New England.

Individually, Roy Williams has 5 interceptions and 2 forced fumbles and leads the league in takeaways with 7 -- not bad, considering all the abuse he has taken for his supposed lack of coverage skills. And there's not a more feared player on defense in the entire league when it comes to monster hits on opposing skill players.

Don't look now, but Terrell Owens has put together a very good season; after a slow start adjusting to a new team's offense, his 61 catches are good enough to tie for fourth in the NFC, and his 8 TD catches lead the league.

Backup RB Marion Barber has 11 touchdowns (9 rushing, 2 receiving) -- good enough for fourth highest in the league and trailing only established stars like LaDainian Tomlinson, Larry Johnson and Willie Parker. Barber has 492 rushing yards to go along with starter Julius Jones' 892, and the solid-all-around second-year back from Minnesota could probably start for more than a few teams in the league, if it weren't for the presence of the equally promising Jones.

Also encouraging is the continued improvement of third WR Patrick Crayton, giving the offense another legitimate weapon to go along with Owens, WR Terry Glenn and TE Jason Witten. He has become a favorite third-down target of Tony Romo, and his 28 catches for 437 yards and 3 TDs take pressure off the starters in the passing game.

LB DeMarcus "Every" Ware has put together his two best games of the year following the loss of DE Greg Ellis to a season-ending injury. He can attack from either side of the line, and his drops back into coverage can also disrupt the passing game, as evidenced by his clutch play against the Colts on their final drive.

And P Mat McBriar continues to lead the league with his 48.8 per punt average, giving the Cowboys a potential field position advantage in every game they play.

Now comes the most important stretch of the season, beginning with the battle this Sunday at 4:15. Giants TE/loudmouth brat Jeremy Shockey has already guaranteed a win versus Dallas for his beleaguered squad. When Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells got wind of Shockey's quote, he reportedly told a team PR guy he wanted to see the tape immediately -- no doubt planning to use it for bulletin board material to fire his first-place team up.

The Giants no doubt lead the league in talking, what with Jeremy Shockey, Plaxico Burress, and nonstop chatterbox Tiki Barber, as well as the weekly unprofessional/unhinged sideline antics/histrionics of their head coach, Tom Coughlin. Apparently Shockey gave no such assurances of victory against the Tennessee Titans, and after Eli Manning and rest of the team's monumental collapse in the fourth quarter, they finally get their chance to let their play do the talking for a change against a Dallas team that Troy Aikman said "has no real weak spots."

As long as Giants DE Michael Strahan doesn't come limping out of the locker room and pull a Willis Reed, Dallas should not lose that game and will probably lose no more than one game the rest of the year, probably at Atlanta. Three of their last four games are at the friendly confines of Texas Stadium. They have a good chance for the second overall NFC seed, with an outside shot of catching the Bears for best overall conference record after Chicago's tough road loss to New England yesterday.

All I know is, after seeing Tony Romo back-slapping Bill Parcells on the Dallas sideline week after week, the Cowboys are gonna be all right. During one of his interviews yesterday, Romo was asked about the upcoming Giants game. Now, you would expect a virtual rookie to look into the camera and mouth all the usual cliches about how he's just glad to be here and how tough the Giants have been. Instead, he apologized to Cowboy fans over how lousy he played in the first Giants game, and then solemnly pledged he was gonna be ready for that game coming up on Sunday. Hey, after all he has shown me this year, I'm not gonna start doubting him now. Looks like the New York football Giants and their big-mouth fans and players may be in for some more unspeakable misery. Couldn't happen to a nicer franchise.

Punk President, eat up the FBI w/ yr big mouth

50th Anniversary of Howl

For what it's worth, I saw Allen Ginsberg read as they say in the poetry business at St. Mark's Church back on May 9, 1979. He called his brand of poetry spontaneous bop prosody or something along those lines. He did a lot of improvising that night, and I still have the notes I made, just a couple pages in a small notebook I kept. Here are some of the highlights I jotted down:

"Performance became an although

All haikus are about frogs

The beautiful city lacks wood

A glass wallet
Smoky currency
New York on fire"

... I guess you had to be there...

...I know I was...

Afterward people gathered around the legendary, bespectacled beatnik, and he obliged the young hipsters of the time by signing autographs and good-naturedly chatting, very down to earth ... Someone proferred a cigarette pack and Ginsberg signed his name on it. I always thought autographs were a waste of time, but looking back I should have had him sign something. I could have scanned it onto this post and who knows it could have changed the world in some small way. I did have the Irish poet Paul Muldoon sign the back of that very same notebook when I saw him read at Hofstra a short while later. Muldoon later went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Coincidence? That's not for me to decide.

The PUNK ROCK YOUR MY BIG CRYBABY poem is clipped from the Village Voice from around the same time. I may or may not have purloined it from Jack Mello, the guy from Boston who turned me onto punk in the first place, while we lived on the same dorm floor at Hofstra University. I used to help myself to a lot of stuff back then if I wanted it bad enough. Sorry Jack, but as you see at least I put it to good use after all these years hanging on to it.

The Mystery Painting

This is a painting I inherited from my mom, who got it from my dad, who bought it from his mom, who was an antiques dealer. It now hangs nightly above the headboard of my bed. The signature is fuzzy, looks like Jeffers or Jeffords or even Jaspers, but the ink is quite faded. The number next just below the name is 29, and I assume that means the year 1929. That's all I know about the provenance of the painting, as they say on Antiques Roadshow. I can tell you that the oil paint is quite clumpy in some spots. Who knows, maybe the painting is of my grandmother herself, who was from Ohio and whose first name is escaping me at the present time ... Isca, Emma ... something old-sounding like that.

I would love to know who painted it, who the subject is, how much it's worth, etc. I would never sell for less than $100,000. Seriously. I mean, $10,000 is not nearly enough; that doesn't even pay the rent for a full year. Now, $100,000 is substantial. So know that before you start bidding on this Blue Boy-like masterpiece.

My grandparents lived in Flushing, I still remember the address even though it's been years and years, try 30 of them, since we last visited them. It was 42-08 Utopia Parkway, and visiting them was like taking a trip to the country in those days. We didn't even own a car, so my grandfather would pick us up on a Sunday morning in his Cadillac -- driving like a Cowboy, as my mom would put it after we were safely back home later that night.

Grandma was dying at the time from arthritis, but right up until the end she still used her basement as an antiques shop, covering every available space, including the pool table, with cut crystal, Chinese figurines, porcelain dolls, you name it. But it was this painting that always caught my eye, and I talked my parents into buying it one day, persuading them in my naivety that it was worth millions. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't... I'd like to find out either way.

Tuesday Is This Week's New Friday

People, people, people. Can we please stop all the madness about NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg running for higher office, specifically President of these United States? The man literally bought the mayor's office, has basically been little more than a front for real estate interests, and has not had one signature moment or idea after five years in office, unless you count his ill-fated plan to build a football stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. On top of that, Mayor Mike stands knee-high to a circus midget and has a whining, grating voice like a Jewish grandmother with a bad case of PMS. Other than that, he'd make a fine national candidate...

...Unfortunately, Michael Bloomberg isn't the only delusional NYC pol who seems ready to launch a national campaign. One of the creepier people in the history of public life in this nation not only has designs on an office he has no real qualifications for, but Rudy Giuliani has one of the worst temperaments you could draw up for a statesman this side of George Allen. The public record is rife with examples of Giuliani's bullying, loudmouth, undiplomatic histrionics toward anyone who disagreed with him -- and that doesn't even take into consideration his continuing, disgraceful exploitation of the September 11th terrorist attacks. He's a rare example of a politician who seems to be equally detested by liberals and conservatives alike, and a strange case where people who weren't "privileged" to live in NYC during his autocratic, overbearing time in office have a much higher opinion of Rudy than those who did. That's no accident, because reviving tourism at all costs and concentrating on petty quality of life concerns were the lifeblood of his blustery reign. As my friend Theo Kojak used to say, Get him out of here and spray the room...

By now I'm sure you've all read about that nonpartisan/bipartisan Iraq Study Group led by Jim/James Baker that is entrusted with bailing out President Bush's sorry ass from the fiasco/folly that is our war in Iraq. But did you happen to catch some of the names of these ersatz diplomats? If you've been wondering what former Attorney General Ed Meese has been up to, you'd be correct in guessing the porker has to be around 300 pounds now, living among his peers on a remote bacon farm. But it turns out these Iran-Contra guys never actually go away, and old Ed, who once famously proclaimed ketchup a vegetable, has taken his place at the Iraq roundtable -- eager to dispense more of his storied wisdom...

Equally frightening/disheartening is the presence of Alan K. Simpson, the former Senator from Wyoming or Montana or one of those far-flung, unpopulated states that nobody can be certain actually exists. This panel is supposed to represent innovative, fresh, bold thinking, so of course the average age of someone on the Iraq Study Group is around 107 years old, which perfectly matches the intransigent, antediluvian nature of these timeworn lifetime politicians...

I read the other week where human fossil Gerald Ford just became the longest living former president of all time, passing primordial Ronald Reagan. Ford is one of only four ex-presidents to live past 90 years old, so it's just a matter of time now before the superannuated 93-year-old is tapped to join those other bright-eyed fresh faces on the "new" Bush Team...

I've been getting the New York Times delivered on weekends for the last couple of months, although I've yet to send them a single payment. Also subscribing to Newsweek for around the same time, likewise still on the cuff. I've always found Newsweek's political coverage well-balanced and top-notch, but their post-election issue a few weeks ago was superb. I'm always here to help...

Speaking of The Times, one recent headline -- "Beguiling Youth in an L.I. White" -- really baffled me with its cryptic syntax, before my eyes finally drifted down the page and I realized I was on the wine page and the story dealt with this year's Beaujolais Nouveau crop. I thought it was a crime story about a cunning con artist disguising himself on Long Island. Hey, it could happen...

After seeing the trailer for the new movie (based on the book) Fast Food Nation and reading some of the reviews, consider me scared straight. I hereby vow from hereon out to never frequent Mickey D's or similar chains again. The disgusting part about cow intestines and their waste-laden contents being ground up and ultimately making it into your Big Mac was what ruined all future Happy Meals for me. I went years and years without even venturing under the Golden Arches before I started working in the healthy-food-choice-depleted area of Hells Kitchen, but I hope this will kick-start a new phase for me. Stay tuned...

The new definition of "total fucking loser" has to go to those uber-nerds waiting in line to buy the new PlayStation. When I saw the news footage of pathetic people camped out in the cold and rain to get a shot at plopping down good money for an overpriced product, or at least spending what they've managed to save up from their weekly allowances, I assumed that this phenomenon was confined to the thriving dork populace of Manhattan, widely considered the natural spawning ground for nerdy, life-challenged wimps. But apparently this is a nationwide, even global situation. Japan, for one, apparently has a homegrown citizenry that can match America dork for dork and nerd for nerd ... News footage highlighted cops pushing and even beating onrushing shoppers as they ran toward the opening doors of electronics stores. This is one instance where police brutality is wholly justified, and can think of no better use of a nightstick or billy club than smacking these clueless geeks upside their pointy little heads. In fact, upon entering the store, these video-gamers should be immediately signed up for a long tour of duty in Afghanistan or Iraq, since they like shooting at things & blowing stuff up so much. Time for these kids to grow up...

Looking The Part

Thirty-five years ago, in the middle of a season, a legendary old school football coach finally had seen enough of his erratic, lumbering, strong-armed starting passer, making the move to an unproven mobile quarterback who just seemed to have that special something all the great ones had -- from Otto Graham to Johnny U. to Bart Starr to Joe Willie. In 1971, it was the great Tom Landry sitting down Craig Morton and rolling the dice on Roger the Dodger. Last month it was Bill Parcells going with his hunches and inserting untested Antonio Ramiro Romo in place of struggling Drew Bledsoe. And after yesterday's stirring, signature 21-14 victory over the previously unbeaten Indianapolis Colts, who's to say history isn't in the course of repeating itself -- to the giddy delight of legions of Dallas Cowboys fans eager to embrace their newest star.

On a late April day in 2003, Tony Romo, like hundreds of other college football prospects, was hoping to be drafted by one of the 32 NFL teams. After all, he was a three time Ohio Valley Conference player of the year at Eastern Illinois, as well as winner of the Walter Payton Award for top Division 1-AA player of the year. But a funny thing happened on draft day. Romo, usually sure handed on the football field, dropped his only cellphone that morning and was unable to field calls the entire day. So when teams tried to contact him in the later rounds to relay their interest in drafting him, he was literally left incommunicado. By the time he got a new phone the next morning, he had 29 new messages. The history of the NFL is rife with such incidents, often changing a team's course and, sometimes, even a league's destiny.

Roger Staubach himself was a 10th round pick in 1964, so any team with the patience to wait for the Midshipman to complete his Naval service could have drafted the rights to the player. Brett Favre was a second round pick by Atlanta in 1991, then traded the next year to Green Bay. Joe Montana was a third round pick, the 82nd player taken in 1979, and of course Dan Marino lasted until the late first round in 1983. So sometimes in sports all the scouting and preparation in the world takes a back seat to good luck and fortunate timing.

Tony Romo (100.0) now finds himself in heady territory, sitting in a virtual tie with Peyton Manning (100.5) atop the league leader board in overall Passer Rating, but more telling is the shot in the arm he has given a coach, a franchise, and a city. Against the Colts' quick defense, he threw only four incompletions all day, hitting 19-23 passes for 226 yards, with only one interception marring what was otherwise a surgeon's precision in the pocket.
As we've seen the unlikely ascent of Tony Romo chronicled the last few weeks, the interesting stories and anecdotes have grown in number. In addition to the broken phone incident, there were rumors that the Jets, Saints and Packers were all interested in trading for Romo this past offseason, and it seems the Cardinals made an offer on draft day before "settling" for Matt Leinart. Now you couldn't pry Tony Romo from Bill Parcells' and Jerry Jones' hands for less than a resurrected Johnny U. himself -- allegedly the Tuna's favorite all-time favorite signal caller.

But to beat an undefeated team this late in the season takes a balanced, team effort, and yesterday Dallas put together its best overall game certainly of the year and in all likelihood it was the most complete Cowboys victory in the four-year Bill Parcells era. Playing without leading pass rusher LB Greg Ellis, the defense stepped it up and put constant pressure on all-world QB Peyton Manning, sacking him twice, hitting and rushing him often, and picking him off twice. DE DeMarcus "Every" Ware played his most dominant game of the season, refusing to be blocked and seemingly never lining up in the same spot two plays in a row. Roy Williams was a terror in the secondary, leveling Colts WRs all day, and intercepted Manning on the goal line as the Colts were going in for an apparent score. The inspired play of LBs Brady James and Akin Ayodele (8 solo tackles) set the tone, assuring the Colts got no easy yards. But it was second-year LB Kevin Burnett that gave the team its biggest spark of the day at a most crucial time, returning a deflected Manning pass 39 yards to tie the score early in the second half.

The Cowboys' running game was effective if not spectacular, with RBs Julius Jones (22-79) and Marion Barber (9-35, 2 TDs) spearheading a ground game that gained enough tough yards all day to take pressure off Romo and the passing game. The offensive line had trouble with the Colts' underrated front seven in the running game, but were able to keep Romo relatively free in the pocket (only 1 sack), with OT Flozell Adams shutting down the Colts' All-Pro DE Dwight Freeney for the most part.

The spectacular win gives the Cowboys (6-4) much needed momentum for the stretch run, with 3-7 Tampa Bay coming to Texas Stadium this Thursday for a Thanksgiving Day matchup that should be a very winnable game. A Giants loss tonight in Jacksonville would result in Dallas sharing first place in the NFC East, and with the Eagles losing QB Donovan McNabb for the year due to a severe knee injury against Tennessee, the Cowboys have to like their playoff chances heading into the December 3rd game against the beat-up, reeling Giants.

After pulling off the upset yesterday against the 9-0 Colts , Tony Romo's team now has a lot to play for in 2006 and beyond, and much of it can be traced to an old school coach having the nerve to pull the trigger on an energetic, talented newcomer. Funny how it all worked out, proving that in sports, it's sometimes just as important to be lucky as it is good. Just ask the starting quarterback for the suddenly resurgent Dallas Cowboys. If you can get him to stop beaming with one of the widest grins in the sporting world, Tony Romo will probably be happy to tell you all about it.

In Mode

This was looking like another one of those weeks when I was only gonna be able to squeeze out four days of work, which wouldn't be so bad until you remember that next week is already gonna be a short work week because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Late Wednesday, my supervisor at LT told me I wouldn't be needed the next day, Thursday, but I should come back Friday; and then next week would be a short week -- Monday, Tuesday and then probably only a half day on Wednesday.

Like clockwork, every Wednesday I shoot downtown after working at LT to A., my freelance agency on West 20th to pick up my weekly paycheck. A. is in a cool art deco building that is right next to the church that was/is/used to be the Limelight club we used to go to in our post-punk days -- who can keep up anymore. Ironically, the other day I was telling A. , who works the front desk, that I would really love to get a few more clients in the fold to go along with the three steady ones I have cultivated so that I could always fill in the blanks. No sooner had I gotten home at about 6 then my cellphone rang and it was K. from A. asking if I was available Thursday & Friday. I figured it was either S.Comm or CB inquiring about my services, but it turned out to be a new client: V magazine. I told Kate I could only commit to Thursday as I was due back at LT Friday. She told me she would check back with V, then called back a little later telling me it was a go for Thursday.

That really buoyed my spirit, and so I was all set to report to 4 Times Square, the famous Conde Nast building, for a full day of work going over the new V Website. So, feeling a little nervous as is natural with a new assignment, I got my visitors pass from the unfriendly woman behind the security desk, and I was on my way to the 12th floor to meet Christina and begin my assignment, should I choose to accept it.

Now, my regular/loyal readers will remember my description of the work atmosphere here at the LT offices on West 49th: a veritable bevy of young cute creative female types, where the fairer sex outnumbers their male counterparts by at least a healthy 2-1 ratio. Well, my friends, let me go on record as saying that the workplace at V. is everything you would imagine; the number of hot women roaming the halls and "manning" the desks is simply staggering -- making the workforce at LT resemble a rundown old auto body shop in comparison. Simply put, many of the women who work at V could pass for fucking models. Okay, there, I said it. So sue me... It was all I could do to concentrate on my work as these fashionably dressed beauties continuously strolled by my desk. It was probably my animal magnetism that drew them so close; after all, it's not every day they see so much testosterone on display in such close proximity -- like a male prison guard at a women's prison, if you will. I mean, I think about sex all day anyway, not only because I'm not getting enuf of it (who is?), at least from somewhere other than at my own hands (pun intended), but I think if we're honest with ourselves we're all thinking about it nonstop all the time.

The tragedy here is that the few guys who do work at V. are probably happily gay or of the homosexual class -- thus it's a complete waste of opportunity, like a bulimic waitress at a good Italian restaurant.

(Oh fuck, I just got a whole bunch of stuff to go over here at LT, a bunch of one-sheet ads that are final proofs. Gotta pick this story up later...)

Where were we... oh yeah, at V. My job was to work through their Brands website, which has ads for all the companies who advertise in the magazine. I had to scroll through all the ads and in addition to looking for misspellings and stylistic inconsistencies in the text (such as making sure it was always spelled eau de parfum -- no 'e' mind you -- missing dollar signs, etc.), I was told to click on all the company sites and look for broken or non-working links; then using something called Test Director 8.0, which was like a spreadsheet, I would describe the problems succinctly, paste the exact Web address, and then send it to the appropriate project manager.

At first I was a little intimidated because it seemed complicated and I wasn't all that used to working on a laptop, but I got the hang of it right quickly and I breezed through most of the sites. Of course, it was mostly high-end advertisers like Dior, Lauren and Donna Karan, as well as Gap and Dillard, but one product caught my eye because of the sheer madness it represented: an $18,000 Ralph Lauren Dog Carrier. I still don't believe it, even though I wrote it down yesterday. Some people have money to burn and a twisted system of values to match...

One girl sitting nearby spent most of her day booking models for various magazine-related events. She would call an agency and say something like, we need three girls tomorrow for an in-store event in Boca Raton, 5-foot-9 and taller, American-looking; or 5-foot-9 and ethnic looking, or African-American, depending on what was needed. I heard the rate of 500 bucks being discussed, not a bad day's work if you can get it.

Encouragingly, at the end of the day, I got a lot of very positive feedback from the two girls who were overseeing the project. They both told me I was doing a great job, finding things that other proofers never found -- which, I'll be honest, I get at every place I've worked at as a proofreader this year. So that gave me a nice buzz, with the odds of returning there in the future for freelance work looking good, and who knows, maybe I made enuf of an impression to warrant some sort of permanent position if the opportunity arises. I know I would work there for free, if truth be told, because there's something else that was a-rising the whole day & it wasn't just my temperature. Now that's something you really can't put a monetary price on, if you catch my not-so-subtle drift. Suffice to say that V. has now moved to the top of my list of dream places to work. Hey, a guy's gotta dream. Give me just two weeks in a place like that and I'd have more dates than I can afford to go on. That's just a fact, so deal with it, boy-eee -- and remember, don't hate a player...because the rhymes I say, sharp as a nail, witty as can be and not for sale, always funky fresh, could NEVER be stale...

Whispers In Time

Because we are messengers of memory, just whispers in time...