Six Flick Picks Plus Mannix

The Independent -- Didn't even know this 2000 film existed, but this satire of indie movie-making stars Jerry Stiller as Morty Fineman, a washed-up director looking to finance one last film, and Janeane Garofalo as his estranged daughter. In spots it was laugh-out-loud funny, which has always been my personal favorite kind of funny. After all, why hold it in? Perhaps I'm dating myself in some strange way, but give me a movie with 90 minutes of Jerry Stiller over any amount of time with his son Ben Stiller (who makes a mercifully brief appearance in this movie) any day of the week and twice on Sunday. The best moments here come via a faux retrospective of Director Fineman's more tasteless works, movies with titles like Ms. Kevorkian and Bald Justice. The Independent at its best holds its own with mockumentaries like Waiting for Guffman and A Mighty Wind, if not as consistently brilliant, and effective cameos by the likes of Andy Dick, John Lydon and Fred Williamson help carry a film well worth checking out, especially if like me you can find it for free in your local public library, and let's face it public libraries are by far the best kind of library.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead -- Loved this movie on so many levels. Didn't even know it was by the legendary Sidney Lumet until I looked at the cover AFTER I had watched this terrific caper-gone-wrong movie. Lumet, of course, only made some of the great motion pictures of all time (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, 12 Angry Men). As in 2003's underrated Owning Mahowny, Philip Seymour Hoffman again plays a down-on-his-luck embezzler trying desperately to maintain his lifestyle and, more importantly, keep his young wife, played by George Costanza's fantasy woman Marisa Tomei. In fact, the first shot in the film is a real attention grabber: Tomei getting fucked up the ass by Hoffman. How European! How French New Wave circa 1968! Anyway, I imagine this is one case where Hoffman probably said to the director, "No need for the stunt double here, Sid baby; let me take a few whacks at this scene myself." After getting your attention carnally, the rest of the movie unfolds in effective but predictable ways, then this 2007 release gets all History of Violence on us as a desperate Phil Hoffman tries to shoot his way out of the mess he's gotten himself and little brother Ethan Hawke into. The mess involves a poorly planned and badly executed jewelry store heist, a half-assed cover-up and a no-turning-back-now denouement that leaves the by-now-all-too-familiar American cinematic backdraft of blood splashed across the screen serving as plot cleaner-upper.

A Shot in the Dark -- The 1964 movie that cemented the Inspector Clouseau franchise may be the funniest of the series. The Pink Panther itself was also released in 1964, before the concept was put on hold until being resurrected to perfection for the 1970s. More to the point, Shot in the Dark is vintage Peter Sellers, who quite simply cannot not be funny. 1964 was a pretty good year for Peter Sellers, seeing the release of these two Pink Panther films as well as a little movie called Dr. Strangelove. If you're not amused by Sellers' Clouseau, just turn in your Blockbuster card and your DVD remote.

Inspector Clouseau -- This 1968 take on the bumbling French detective does not feature Peter Sellers in the title role, nor is it directed by Blake Edwards. Instead, it's American actor Alan Arkin aping many of the same mannerisms and tics that Sellers employed, but unfortunately to little comedic effect. Somehow this movie should be funnier than it is, but the Alan Arkin of The In-Laws, Catch-22 and Simon -- some of my all-time favorite films -- is nowhere to be found.

The Big Clock -- This classic had until now somehow escaped me. No longer. Like most movies of the Film Noir genre, the plot involves a guy getting framed for a murder he didn't commit, but nobody believes his innocence, least of all the coppers, except maybe his dame, so he's forced to try to solve the crime himself and catch the crooks before the whole sticky web closes in on him. What helps to set this movie apart is the cast, the acting, and the script. Little things like that. Ray Milland is good as the newspaper writer trying to clear his name, but Charles Laughton steals scene after scene as an eccentric publisher making sure that doesn't happen.

Annie Hall -- Back in 1978 when Annie Hall came out, it was hailed as one of the first serious Woody Allen movies, and looking back it was indeed a transition from almost surreal comedies like Take the Money & Run, Sleepers and Bananas to the relationship-based Manhattan and Hannah & Her Sisters. My verdict 30 years later is that Time has not served the Woodman all that well. From Diane Keaton's iconic '70s wardrobe to the director's even-then-shopworn bag of cleverly presented neuroses, the film has its share of charming moments, even though the Allen character comes off as a repressed, shallow putz. His constant griping about Annie Hall having to smoke pot before sleeping with him comes off as just plain nagging. I mean, who can blame her if she needs a little self-medication before a sexual encounter with the Woodman. The very notion of a schlemiel like Woody Allen cast as a leading man in a romantic comedy is perhaps his lasting contribution to pop culture.

Mannix: Season One -- Anyone who like yours truly was born around 1960 has to remember Joe Mannix, a blue collar James Bond played like he was born for the role by Mike Connors. Tough guy Mannix punched out bad guys and foiled up-to-no-good spies over the course of 60 suspenseful minutes every week on TV. For some reason my local library has entire seasons of cop shows like Cannon, Jake & the Fat Man and Streets of San Francisco on DVD, but I liked Mannix far better than all of them, even though it's likely I haven't actually seen an episode since junior high school. Well, I pulled the 6-disc set off the shelf, and even though I had a week to return it, I barely made it through the first two shows. Unlike, say, classic Kojaks, Mannix has held up worse than an electric blue leisure suit and has stood the test of time worse than a broken Timex. It was dated and not in a good way like the first few years of The Odd Couple, which are emblematic of the period. The problem could be that in 1967, the show had yet to cast Gail Fisher as Peggy, Mannix's young, attractive and black assistant, but so much more. Not sure what year she came aboard the series, but she's nowhere to be found here in Season One. Mannix ran until 1974, so I'd be interested in the later seasons as an exercise in pure nostalgia, but even in 1967 the show had the catchy theme music and great opening sequence.

Bonus: Kojak Season One
I canceled my satellite dish a few years ago and never got cable so I don't know if this show is currently running anywhere on cable. But the picture quality on this show is unbelievable. Yes, there are no extras per se and no booklet or extra info included, but the teleplays themselves are the thing! Great plots, a lot goes by that you miss, so watching an episode a second time is not a waste of time. Season One was filmed entirely on location and so has great views of 1970s New York City. The character actors and guest stars are also first rate. All in all, an awesome package. Put me down for the second season. Watched about 12 or 13 of the episodes over the first 3 or 4 days I had the set. Being Greek-American, it gives me goosebumps when I hear Greek being spoken or references to his Greek heritage. Yasou! Again, great colors. Remember, this show was on in the early '70s, so before cable and digital. This is like watching the show all over again for the first time! Again, the best DVD purchase I ever made, even better than seeing The Twilight Zone on DVD. Season One highlights include a villainous James Woods and menacing Harvey Keitel foolishly butting heads with Theo Kojak.

See also:

Grizzly, man...

More Buscemi Please

Saluting Bruno

Desultory Row

Shoot 'Em Ups

Schadenfreund Friday

SO THIS IS HOW the once-promising NFL career of Plaxico Burress will officially end: with a bang AND a whimper -- the bang of his unlicensed Glock going off in a Manhattan nightclub, the whimper of the inevitable forthcoming plea bargain to stay out of jail...

...Looks like Burress will finally be getting the "street cred" that was so important to him...

...Then again, begging for mercy didn't exactly help O.J. Simpson get any time off at his sentencing today for his robbery/kidnapping conviction:

Before being sentenced an emotional Simpson apologized for his actions in a soft, hoarse voice and begged Clark County Judge Jackie Glass for leniency. "I didn't want to steal from anyone," said Simpson, whose lawyers sought the minimum sentence of 6-to-17 years. "I'm sorry, sorry." Glass was unmoved. The judge called the crime a "very violent event ... Guns were brought. At least one gun was drawn. The potential for harm to occur in that room was tremendous."

...In a near-perfect convergence of karmic retribution, the former football great received his verdict 13 years to the day he was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman in the so-called Trial of the Century. But that was the 20th century, this is the 21st, and "The Juice" can no longer outrun his accusers the way he once leaped over defenders in the NFL and then automobiles in those famous 1970s car rental commercials...

...Sports may no longer be the great escape from our everyday trials and tribulations that it used to be...

...But reveling in other people's misfortune and misery is still our true national pastime...

...The enterprising ones can still find new ways to sell it all back to us. Take The New York Post, which in one amazing Wednesday cover story seemed determined to, ahem, plumb new depths in trashy tabloid titillation, thank you very very much:
















Inside the notorious, conservative-leaning publication, spread across two pages, we learn more gory details of the murder as well as juicy inside S&M stuff, like what the comely Edythe Maa, a k a Mistress Jade, was into (and not into) while she plied the tools of her oft-trying trade: "The petite dominatrix specializes in tickle torture, nipple play and 'sissy slut training' as well as forced feminization, medical play and genital torture" -- but the former Ivy Leaguer draws the line at what the paper calls "age play, nudity, face-sitting or 'intimate activity of any sort' (or) anything that hurts animals" because, after all, a lady has to have some standards...

...Worst display of Holiday Spirit in sports: Coach Jeff Fisher, with his Titans leading 44-10 late over hapless Detroit, decides to challenge a 20-yard pass completion by the Lions. Then, getting booed by the few remaining Detroit faithful, he raises his arms and waves humorlessly at the stands. I mean, I've heard of focus, but have a heart, coach...

...With just 4 games remaining, it sure doesn't look like the 0-12 Lions are getting any breaks from the schedule makers. Not an easy game in sight, with 7-5 Minnesota, 8-4 Indianapolis, 6-6 New Orleans and Green Bay at 5-7...

...As someone who suffered through an 0-9 Pop Warner season as a member of the woeful I.C.Y.P. Giants while a mere lad of 13, I always had a soft spot for those woeful teams in danger of losing all their games. These teams become an easy butt of disdain and its evil cousin derision, all because a group of athletes for whatever reason just can't win a goddamn game. Just. One. Damn. Game...

...Baseball, basketball and hockey teams, because of the sheer number of games played in a season, are never faced with it, but I remember the Columbia University Lions(!) lost something like 44 straight over five seasons around 20 years ago. In the NFL, no one has pulled an 0-fer since the 1976 Tampa Bay Bucs. But that was over a 14-game schedule, so if the Lions lose out, they set an "unbeatable" record for true futility...


...If I had to pick one game for the Lions to get off the proverbial schneid, I'd go with the Packer game, because it seems like a division game is the logical place for a streak like this to end...

...In 1989, the Dallas Cowboys almost went winless in Jimmy Johnson's first year as coach, beating only the Washington Redskins in a 1-15 nightmare of a season that saw Troy Aikman go 0-11 before getting knocked out for the year. It was Steve Walsh, a supplemental first-round pick, who bailed out the Boys and saved them from an avalanche of scorn and its evil twin contempt...

...Dallas went from 1-15 in 1989 to 7-9 in '90 and then 11-5 and the playoffs in '91...

...Last year the Dolphins were as awful as their 1-15 would indicate. This year Miami is 7-5 and still in contention for a playoff spot as we head into the final quarter of the '08 season. Two big differences: Bill Parcels is now running things in the front office, and Chad Penington is behind center...

...Detroit is trying to dig it itself out of the mess that was the Matt Millen Era (31-84 record during his tenure). The first step was trading WR Roy Williams to Dallas for 1st and a 3rd round pick. It won't be the Herschel Walker Trade in terms of resurrecting the franchise, but it's a start in the right direction. Of course, next year's draft picks do nothing to help this year's talent-challenged team...

...Not only were we treated to a rare Vince Young sighting in the Turkey Day Titans-Lions game as he mopped up for Kerry Collins, but from the other sideline came a Drew Henson appearance, the NFL equivalent of seeing a unicorn. Henson, an ex-New York Yankee third baseman, threw his first NFL regular season pass in 4 years. Ironically, his last throw was also on Thanksgiving, in his only start as a Dallas Cowboy in 2004, versus the Bears. Against the Titans, under heavy pressure, Henson threw an absolute laser of a pass to a double-covered Calvin Johnson that could not have been placed any better if it was in a video game. Unfortunately, reality then rudely intruded, with Henson getting sacked and fumbling on subsequent plays. But the Lions are going back to Daunte Culpepper for the Viking game this Sunday, instead of finding out what Henson, still only 28 (or just two months older than Tony Romo), can do as a starter over the last four games...

...Romo and the 8-4 Cowboys are playing for their playoff lives over the next four games, and if they do get into the postseason tournament nobody will be able to say they backed into it. Not with games against the NFL's top 3-ranked defenses in consecutive weeks (Steelers, Giants, Ravens) before closing out on the road against Philadelphia, whose own blitzing style of defense may cause more problems than even those teams ranked ahead of them...

...At 103.2, Romo is the league's highest-ranked passer, after finishing the last two seasons as the 5th-ranked QB (97.4 in 2007, 95.1 in 2006). As a Cowboy fan, I have to believe that God didn't bestow Romo upon us out of nowhere only to have him fall short of a championship. After all, the same thoughtful deity who kindly bequeathed us St. Roger and St. Troy wouldn't be so cruelly wanton, would he? Time will tell, as it always does. That's the best thing about time, as well as the worst...

...If I had to guess, Burress does at least a year in stir, but is allowed to return in either 2010 or 2011. Just not to the Giants, obviously...

...Antonio Pierce, for his part in the incident, does no jail time but is looking at a 4-game or possibly 8-game suspension to send a message...

...As for the last Giant in the drama, RB Ahmad Bradshaw, depending on when and/or whether he knew Plax was packing, may have violated the terms of his probation as a convicted felon who must serve the remaining 30 days of a previous sentence immediately after the current NFL season ends...

....Where the season ends, we know: Tampa. Which teams will be left standing is a little cloudy at this point. And that's why we watch the games: in sports, we always need new heroes and villains...

My Favorite Jackson

JUST WHEN IT LOOKED like this was gonna be one of those weekends when money would be too tight to mention, I found a 20-dollar bill in the alley I cut through every day. It was amazing because at the very moment I espied the bill in question, I was engaged in bemoaning my sad state of financial affairs as I trudged along on my way to meeting my brother for a cup of coffee, tea in my case. At first I thought I was just imagining it, but no, it was real all right, the bill sort of folded in quarters so that I wasn't sure of the denomination until I picked it up. I was never so glad to see Andrew Jackson's stern face as I stuffed the 20 in my pocket. Of course, it would have been sweeter to see big Ben Franklin or my homeboy U.S. Grant staring back at me. But at least a man can do something with a 20 spot! Needless to say, the hot caffeinated beverages were on me this morning. I hope the person who lost it didn't miss it as much as I needed it. Either way, you're never too rich or poor not to appreciate finding money.

As I told my brother, we probably all lose or find about 100 dollars over the course of a lifetime. As of right now, I think I'm way ahead, because I don't remember losing nearly as much as I've found so far, which if my theory is correct means I'm due to lose about 60 bucks worth of currency before my final ledger is balanced. Just last year, for instance, I found 15 bucks in the bagel shop I go to all the time. (Oh, that was yours? Sorry, too late.) Suffice to say, this is now my favorite alleyway, just a little shortcut between 35th and 36th Streets if you're wondering. But just think of the timing needed between the loser and the finder of the money and you know why I feel blessed indeed that some higher power is looking out for me. Of course it's probably the same higher power that got me into this mess in the first place. So on second thought...

Then again, things could always be worse, as my dear mother used to say. How about the poor soul who was stomped to death at a Valley Stream, Long Island, shopping mall on Black Friday, run over by a stampede of crazed shoppers hell bent on holiday sales at a Wal-Mart.

"A police statement said shortly after 5 a.m., a throng of shoppers "physically broke down the doors, knocking (the worker) to the ground." Police also said a 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital for observation and three other shoppers suffered minor injuries and were also taken to hospitals."

Not one of Capitalism's finest moments, to be sure, or Humanity in general for that matter, but get used to it as money gets even scarcer and people get still meaner:

"Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like “savages.” Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled. “When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”

If there's a worse, more meaningless way to die, I hope I never discover it...

Face To Face

JUST GOT BACK from meeting my nephew and his girlfriend on the West Side. We walked up Amsterdam from 66th Street, up to about 80th, then I left them back down near 63rd Street. About 5 minutes after leaving them, around 2:00 pm, I had my first post-Thanksgiving celebrity spotting, if indeed that so-called Jungle Lady with the real bad plastic surgery qualifies as one. I was walking near 57th Street and 8th when I spotted her walking in my direction. The word that came to mind was "Sad!" She had a hood on and was understandably in the process of drawing it closer around her infamous visage. I know there are probably hundreds of rich women in that area walking around wearing the results of grotesque plastic surgery disasters, but trust me: this was the face that launched a thousand tabloid covers just a few years ago.

I just Wikipedia'd her case. Her name is apparently Jocelyn Wildenstein, she had the work done so her husband wouldn't leave her, which he did anyway, and the result is a Twilight Zone episode come to life. She spent like 4 mil on her new mug, then got tens of millions of dollars, give or take a buck, in the divorce proceedings, and then pawned another 10 mil in jewelry for some shopping money. Wikipedia confirmed that she still lives in New York. So that was her. Damn, maybe I should have chatted her up. It's not like I'm doing any better with the so-called normal, non-Lion Woman-looking female population in this kooky town.

Guilt-Free Thought Crimes

"And if my thought-dreams could be seen, They'd probably put my head in a guillotine, But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only."
-- Dylan

IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE to imagine a bigger waste of time, space and money than a live "Family Guy" musical? Of course you can't. But that's what took place at Carnegie Hall last night, billed as Family Guy Sings! -- an unedited live reading of two episodes from the (somehow) popular animated Fox series. Now, the show is not as bad as some critics make it out to be, but it's not The Simpsons. And it's certainly not worthy of this kind of elaborate treatment either. A 40-piece orchestra? C'mon! That's a good use of the family funds near the Holidays during a recession! Or perhaps just another sign of the apocalypse, as the kids used to say...

...Ironically, or maybe just tangentially, the only time I ever sat in hallowed Carnegie Hall was almost EXACTLY 30 years to the day. That august occasion was a David Bromberg show, which I attended with my high school sweetheart Debbie Ellen Epstein. I remember Bromberg making an announcement before the show to the effect of, "They said I should tell y'all that it's illegal to smoke grass here, but it's not like you have to listen to me." And of course we didn't. Or did...

...Man, I hadn't thought about that concert for several eons. Great show. Opening act was British folkie Ralph McTell of Streets of London fame. Saw Bromberg again a few years later at the Bottom Line, another long gone music venue that used to be in the West Village. I wanna say he played the epic "New Lee Highway Blues" both nights. Guess that's why this qualifies as a thought-dream. If I say it, I can believe it...

...Speaking of pop culture that wastes your time, I'm already sick of the Jim Carrey "Yes Man" trailer. I mean, what a tedious concept: a guy can only say yes to things. About as gripping as when he made the movie where he couldn't lie a few years ago. Just a lame excuse for Carrey to make those same stupid faces for 90 minutes that he's been doing since Ace Ventura. Talk about a one-trick pony...

...My rant continues apace with a shot at all the ink spilled and bandwidth wasted over a new Guns N Roses album. Apparently, it's a record that's been 17 years in the making, with Axl Rose endlessly tinkering and remixing the songs. It's the kind of thing a legend like Neil Young might do, the difference being that Young would continue to release other music during the same span, instead of boring everyone with changing release dates, etc...

....Now, it's my contention that GNR might be the most overhyped, overrated rock band in the history of the MTV generation, along with the likes of Van Halen and the Dave Matthews Band. I'm sure there are other groups vying for the same dubious mantel, but after naming the 3 songs by GNR that I can tolerate -- "Jungle," "Sweet Child" and "November Rain" -- I run out of any songs that made any kind of impact on the popular culture at large. Please don't bring up their wretched cover of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"; that's an atrocity better left unmentioned and disremembered...

...I could care less about this album, but the reviews are unavoidable. The Onion just ran a full-page Chuck Klosterman review, which at first I thought was actually an Onion satire, but as I read on, it apparently was the real Chuck Klosterman, a writer who is celebrated as some kind of pop music guru, but I see more charlatan than sage in this guy...

...The Klosterman piece is called "The Last Album" because (yawn) in the Digital Age people don't listen to whole albums from beginning to end anymore -- therefore according to Klosterman "it's the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file." Now, we've been hearing this notion for years, just like the paperless society. Didn't AC/DC just release an album exclusively at Wal-Mart a month ago and it was a huge seller? That was a physical object that you took home, held, etc. Plus, vinyl itself is making a comeback...

...Back to Chinese Democracy. The uber-dorky Klosterman voluntarily relates that he's been eagerly anticipating the record's release lo these many years, through all the delays and false alarms: "I've been thinking about this record for 15 years; during that span, I've thought about this record more than I've thought about China, and maybe as much as I've thought about the principles of democracy." This line, predictably, has been quoted all over the place, just as Klosterman knew it would. It's the kind of cultural period we live in, one where you can see things coming a mile or two away, whether it's the next line in a formulaic movie or the next lame joke in a TV sitcom. Klosterman is this generation's safe version of Lester Bangs, a true misfit who certainly would have knocked Klosterman's glasses off his face if he ever came across the writer of the fraudulent sentiments contained in "The Last Album." Unfortunately, the endearingly bombastic but always authentic Bangs left us way back in 1982, when Klosterman the future nerd was but 10 years old.

From what little I've heard, Chinese Democracy sounds like an overproduced nightmare, maybe a poor man's Pet Sounds, or perhaps a Spinal Tap album produced by late-crazy-period Phil Spector. Klosterman describes the album as "like Jeff Lynne tried to make Out of the Blue sound more like Fun House, except with jazz drumming and a girl singer from Motown." See, to me that sounds like a totally forced sentence, written only because he knows it's gonna draw attention to itself, but it comes across as phony -- like the reliably insipid Peter Travers writing a movie review while thinking of the inevitable blurb that will be chosen for the trade ad...

...The most cringe-inducing sentiment is saved by Klosterman for last. At the end of his over-the-top review, one that is literally littered with forced arcane pop culture references, he actually forms the words: "The final truth is this: Axl makes the best songs. They sound the way I want songs to sound." Let that sink in a second or three. BEST COMPARED TO WHAT? This is like saying Mickey Rourke makes the best movies, makes movies the way I want them to look. You wonder what the hell this guy Klosterman is smoking, and why anyone holds him in anything like esteem. But people do, because I've skimmed through his books at the library, and I saw where he just published his first novel. Color me very unimpressed...

...A few more things here while I have your attention. Did you see where the Vatican went out of its/their way to praise the Beatles? AP reported that L'Osservatore Romano marked the 40th anniversary of the White Album last week, stating that the album was notable for its creativity and contrasting the Beatles' work with the "standardized, stereotypical" songs being produced today. Wow, "Sexy Sadie" and "Helter Skelter" sure have come a long way since Charles Manson and Family blackened the meaning behind the song lyrics for a lot of listeners. Makes one wonder if anyone is going to be showering praise on Chinese Democracy 40 years down the line in 2048. I seriously doubt it...

...Not only did they come to praise dead Beatles, but the Vatican mouthpiece even seemed eager to absolve John Lennon of his "bigger than Jesus" commentary, chalking it up to mere youthful indescretion. Of course, it would have been appropriate for one of the John Paul popes to have some Beatles tunes on his Holy iPod. But the new guy Benedict XVI really doesn't seem like a Rocky Racoon kind of guy. Maybe he can change his name to Pope George Ringo. That would move some units, as we say in the music biz...

...Disturbing reports of planned terrorist attack of New York City subways. According to FBI reports, the plot was beyond the "aspirational planning" stage, which means the extremists have not stopped thinking of ways to "blow us up real good" just because we changed presidential parties here. The subway was probably always a dream target for the terrorists (talk about your "bang for the buck") and it was never taken off the "to do" list, is how I see it...

...The first few weeks after 9/11, dread of an impending subway attack is what had me riding my bicycle from my apartment in Astoria to my job on Wall Street. Fear, after all, is a man's best motivator. Take Noah, for example. First he gets hit with the whole ark-building project. Then he finds out he has to collect two of every specimen on earth. Without the wrath of an all-powerful deity on his case 24/7, no way the guy even starts such an undertaking.

Coming To Life

GOOD TO SEE the Cowboys cruise to an easy win for a change yesterday -- and by "see" I mean "monitor" the game on NFL.com, which gives incredibly detailed play by play coverage that truly is the next best thing to being there live or watching it live on TV or listening on radio... So it's actually the 4th best way to catch a game. But it was still enjoyable to "watch" Dallas roll off 29 straight points after San Fran scored the game's first 6 points on 2 field goals.

Yesterday also marked the Real Return of Romo, who went 23-39 for 341 yards and 3 TDs, and not un-coincidentally T.O.'s best game since leaving those very same 49ers way back in 2000. Owens racked up 213 yards on just 7 catches, the big strike a 75-yard catch and run that saw #81 bullying his way into the end zone for the last 10 yards. Romo's big day carried Dallas to a 35-22 win that sets them up nicely for a Thanksgiving home tilt versus a struggling Seattle team. There's no line yet in my local paper, but it's gotta be double digits in favor of the Pokes, probably 13-15 points if I had to, well, bet on it. But if Dallas can get past the Seahawks, they'd be sitting at 8-4 with 10 days off. Probably not enough time left to catch the Giants, sitting at 10-1, but considering they have tiebreakers with Washington (7-4) and Tampa Bay (8-3), Dallas would be right in the thick of the wild card race. Their last 4 games are home against the Giants and Ravens, at Pittsburgh and at Philly last game of the year.

Now, that last game obviously could be huge for playoff implications, and by that time one Kevin Kolb could be starting his 4th or 5th straight game for the Eagles. Yesterday saw Donovan McNabb benched for the second half following a putrid 8-18 for 59 yards and with his team losing 10-7 to the Ravens. Kolb wasn't a whole lot better, 10-23 73 yards, and like McNabb he also threw it twice to the other guys. Philly coach Andy Reid promised to announce a starter today, but with the Eagles (5-5-1) all but mathematically out of the postseason picture, why not see what the kid has for the last 5 games of the season.

We saw how long it took Romo to come back after breaking his pinky finger, which was why I was shocked that Cleveland would let Brady Quinn play with his broken finger. The result was an 8-18 day for 94 yards with 2 picks in a dismal home loss to the Texans. Derek Anderson picked right up where Quinn left off in relief, completing only 5 of 14 for just 51 yards and a pick for good measure. It's anyone's guess who's under center next week against the Colts. I'm sure Cleveland would like to see what it has invested in Quinn, but it's a fine line of not wanting to push the kid if he's not healthy with nothing left to play for at 4-7.

Now, there was some good QB play around the league. Chad Pennington threw for 341 yards in a loss to New England, and David Garrard also cracked the 300 barrier in Jacksonville's loss to Minny. And SF's Shaun Hill was surprisingly effective when given time, going 21-33 for 303 yards and a score. But the real story had to be Matt Cassel of the Pats, who cracked the 400 yard barrier for a second straight week with 415 yards on 30 for 43 passing. The odds of this guy throwing for two straight 300 yard games at any point in the season would have been astronomical based on his first few starts after Tom Brady went down in Week 1.

At 90.5, Cassel now sits as the 11th ranked passer in the league based on the complicated but I think fair system of rating QBs, ahead of bigger name guys like Peyton Manning (87.2), Jay Cutler (87.0) and Ben Roethlisberger (80.5). Caseel has completed 66.3% of his passes for 2,615 yards and 13 TDs against 8 INTs. Now, he does have high-quality wideouts in Randy Moss (3 TDs yesterday) and Wel Welker (80 catches on the season), but that's offset by perhaps the weakest set of starting RBs in the NFL (and maybe NCAA) in Kevin Faulk and Sammy Morris. I'll admit to being dead wrong about Cassel not being able to cut it in this league, but this is one the best jobs of coaching a player up in a long, long while.

There are in fact only 3 starting NFL QBs with passer ratings above 100. SD's Philip Rivers (23 TDs, 10 INTs) sits atop the league at 103.3, followed by Kurt Warner (21 and 8) at 102.4 and Romo (101.8), with his 18 TDs and 7 INTs. Two QBs with excellent numbers will play in the Monday Night game, with New Orleans' Drew Brees (3,251 yards through 10 games, a 95.4 rating) and Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers (15 TDs against only 6 INTs, a 94.5 rating). And let's not leave out the old guy, Brett Favre, completing over 70% of his passes and a relatively positive TD-INT ratio with 20 TDs versus 13 picks good enough for 94.1 on the QB scale.

BMUPs In The Road

SPOTTED A FEW amusing spelling gaffes in my travels recently. First I was in a drugstore looking for a birthday card for my sister last weekend. This act always takes me far longer than it should as I try to nail the perfect card at the right price. I'm known for my humorous cards in the family, although my brother may be under the delusion that in fact he is. Nevertheless, about a good 20 minutes into the second card store, I spot the ultimate proofreading nightmare, a card reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SISITER on its cover! Nobody caught it, and who knows how many cards are out there on store shelves at this very instant, just waiting to spoil some sister's hard-earned holiday. (I once got a birthday card from my Papou signed "Best Swishes" but at least he had the excuse of not knowing English until he came here from Greece as a young man.) In the end, my brother talked me out of picking that particular card to give to my sister, but I should have gone with my instinct and bought it for myself. In fact, I may go back there and get it just for posterity's sake.

The other one was a hand-written sign in a local deli here in Astoria, but it was so far off as to merit inclusion in any list of spelling mistakes: GIFT CITIFICATES AVAILABLE. I guess the guy just decided to go all phonetic at the last second, figuring that looking for a dictionary was just not worth the effort and it's the thought that counts.

The last one is a classic. That's what's known in the blog posting business as saving the best for last. There's a little corner food store up the block from where I live, what would be called a bodega in a Spanish neighborhood, only here these kinds of stores are run by Arab families, or perhaps Persians or Sikhs or Sunnis or what have you. The point I'm getting to is that the name of the store is featured prominently in two places on a bright yellow awning, and right there for all the world to see, or at least that part of the world that passes by 37th Street and 24th Avenue, is EXECTIVE DELICATESSEN. EXECTIVE! What the hell were they thinking? Nobody caught it at any point along the process! Maybe the store owner figured he'd save a little money on the two U's and pass the savings on to the customer. Maybe nobody cares about these things but me. That's the kind of un-proofed world we live in, and after all I'm only one solitary man fighting against the odds.

Unfit To Serve

"Colin Powell makes it official, endorses Obama"

"I have some concerns about the direction that the party has taken in recent years," Powell said. "It has moved more to the right than I would like to see it. But that's a choice the party makes."

Powell also expressed concern with the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as McCain's vice presidential nominee.

"She's a very distinguished woman and she's to be admired," Powell said, "but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Sen. McCain made."

T Minus 20 (Days)

GOING INTO TONIGHT's 3rd and final presidential debate at Hofstra University, I'll admit that John McCain has surprised me to the upside in his two previous encounters with Barry Obama...

...But this debate is devoted exclusively to economics in terms of subject matter, hardly McCain's strong suit...

...Of course these are not really debates in the strictest sense of the word, more like dueling verbal press releases, so there really can't be a winner in something where no one is judging or keeping score...

...One thing not in dispute is the viciousness of David Letterman's attacks on McCain since the senator canceled his appearance a few weeks ago...

...Last night's show was no exception: "But John McCain is an optimist who sees the glass as half full -- of his dentures"...

...At 72 McCain is 3 years older than Ronnie Raygun when he was elected in 1980, and like a lot of you I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now...

...Then again one man's stream of consciousness is another man's dementia...

...Speaking of which, Ned Ehrbar made a hostile reference to Hofstra U. in today's metro, a free daily here in NYC: "Tonight, John McCain and Barack OBama are following in the footsteps of countless young Long Island women whose grades suffered because of too many Zima benders: They're going to Hofstra University"...

...Not a bad line, but why single out women...

...After all, I am writing from the perspective of someone who attended that very same institution of higher learning, at least for one glorious year before moving on, so if I can't quite call Hofstra University my Alma Mater, let's say it was at least my Quarter Mater based on my completing two semesters out of a potential eight while residing in Dormitory Tower E and enduring one brutal season getting my butt kicked on a daily basis by Zelik Zegilbaum (real name) and others ahead of me on the depth chart in wrestling practice as a freshman trying to make the varsity team...

...The Hofstra teams were called the Flying Dutchmen back then, had a real cool logo of a ship, before the PC police drained the fun out of sports names...

...Now they're called the Hofstra Pride! Ever try to make a sports logo out of a personal attribute? Don't bother...
...Presidential debates historically have been hit or miss in terms of entertainment value...

...The last McCain-Obama showdown was called boring by many, but I found it fascinating watching McCain's weirdly tense body language as he paced around the stage...

...The Sarah Palin-"Joe" VP debate, on the other hand, was disappointing to me because I was really hoping for a series of bloops and blunders or at least some choice malapropisms on her part...

...Instead we got the spectacle of her delivering 20 well-scripted, well-rehearsed "answers" that sometimes did but mostly did not correspond to any question formulated by the debate moderator...

...Her head so stuffed with names and facts that the words came a-spillin' forth from her mouth like a burst water balloon, accompanied by a disturbing series of calculated smirks, winks and smiles...

...One debate I still regret not taping was the legendary 1st meeting between Bush and John Kerry in 2004...

...The Decider's mind that night shriveled up in prime time for an entire nation to see...

...Of course the thing about most candidates' debates is that you always think your guy (or gal) won...

...Perception is indeed reality, but not even Bush supporters dared go there after that shockingly clueless performance...

...Speaking of which, the key issue is the extent to which the electorate holds Republicans responsible for the economic mess, in effect saying: That last guy you-all "gave" us was a total disaster -- a reverse King Midas if you will; let's try one of the other guys now...

...Now that the Straight Talk Express has been derailed, driven off the rails by a sludge of negative messages, will McCain be looking to land a decisive knockout blow...

...Trailing by close to double digits on many scorecards, John "No Pain" McCain may he's feel behind enough to risk a few wild swings in the hope that one of them stuns Barack "The Lock" Obama...

...That always leaves a boxer open to a devastating counterpunch if the other guy is expecting a long roundhouse...

...All the nasty campaign rhetoric also leaves the ex-POW vulnerable to additional charges of negative campaigning, which accorinding to a major new study turns off more undecided viewers than it attracts to the "cause"...

...Palin was charged with breaking ethics laws and abuse of power in the sordid case of the Alaska state trooper who was terminated...

...This hasn't stopped her from telling crowds at campaign stops this week that she's relieved to have been "cleared of all wrongdoing"...

...It's behavior like that makes it easy to dismiss Palin as just another sleazy politician, hardly a maverick at all, but one who has mastered lying and distortion of facts that is almost congenital to her party...

...I hope there's a day and that day comes soon when the name Sarah Palin is the answer to a trivia question, an amusing footnote in U.S. political history like Dan Quayle or Lyndon LaRouche...

...Finally, speaking of long shots, have you heard the new right wing talking point about the faltering economy? According to at least two recent op-ed pieces in the cranky New York Post, it's tanking precisely because the markets are scared of the impending Obama presidency, and are reacting in kind to his proposed economic policies...

...That bit of fatuous frippery nicely encapsulates the urgent nature of the right's hapless desperation at this point...

...It's also the kind of smear that's impossible to disprove, but that doesn't mean such ludicrous charges are grounded in anything like a fact-based universe...

...Then again we are talking about The Post here, where reality rarely intersects with their biased opinion pages...

...Not like here at Warden's World, where we always shoot right down the middle!

Negative Attack Ads

That Was Then...

JOHN MCCAIN: "I just have to rely on the good judgment of the voters not to buy into these negative attack ads. Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future or you're not ready to articulate it." [The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 2/21/2000]

Palin Comparison

A Fool For Sister Sarah

WITH A SCANT FIVE WEEKS remaining until the election, the time has evidently come for the right wing to lose what's left of its collective mind. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the editorial pages of one of America's leading humor publications, The New York Post.

Vying for the title of most unhinged political column of 2008, last Saturday's edition featured an outlandish Ralph Peters defense of the Republican vice presidential candidate, Our Sister Sarah Palin's Anti-Elitist Charm, whose purpose apparently was to elevate her to something resembling sainthood. Like some avenging knight, and armed with a quiver full of hackneyed half-truths, sweeping generalizations and outright falsehoods, an aggrieved Peters sets out to defend Palin from the hordes of ungrateful citizens who dare to commit the unpardonable sin of questioning the candidate's credentials for the high office she aspires to.

"I KNOW Sarah Palin, and so does my wife. Neither of us ever actually met the governor of Alaska, but we grew up with her -- in the small-town America despised by the leftwing elite.

One gal-pal classmate of my wife's has even traveled from New York's Finger Lakes to Alaska to hunt moose with her husband. (Got one, too.) And no, Ms. Streisand, she isn't a redneck missing half her teeth - she's a lawyer.

The sneering elites and their mediacrat fellow travelers just don't get it: How on earth could anyone vote for someone who didn't attend an Ivy League school? And having more than 1.7 children marks any woman as a rube. (If Palin had any taste, her teenage daughter would've had a quiet abortion in a discreet facility.)

And what kind of retro-Barbie would stay happily married to her high-school sweetheart? Ugh. She even kills animals and eats them. (The meat and fish served in the upscale bistros patronized by Obama supporters appears by magic - it didn't really come from living things.)"

It's glaringly obvious from the beginning of this affront to fact-based reality that when it comes to writing about the so-called culture wars, Peters' moronically simplistic take makes blowhard Bill O'Reilly's bloviating seem positively nuanced in comparison.

"Palin has that hick accent, too. And that busy-mom beehive 'do. Double ugh! Bet she hasn't even read Ian McEwan's latest novel and can't explain Frank Gehry's vision for a new architecture. She and her blue-collar (triple ugh!) husband don't even own a McMansion, let alone an inherited family compound on the Cape.

And she wants to be vice president. The opinion-maker elites see Sarah Palin clearly every time they look up from another sneering article in The New Yorker: She's a country-bumpkin chumpette from a hick state with low latte availability. She's not one of them and never will be. That's the real disqualifier in this race."

This selective championing of the common man has been a hallmark of the New York Post since it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch, himself a typical commoner in every way and in no way part of the media elite despite owning something like half the newspapers published in the Western Hemisphere. The right wing and their cheerleaders in this election cannot hope to win by running on the issues, so you get this shameless brand of Bizarro World class warfare, which can only work on a populace as ill-informed and dense as the average Post reader.

"Now let me tell you what those postmodern bigots with their multiple vacation homes and their disappointing trust-fund kids don't see: Sarah Palin's one of us. She actually represents the American people."

Hey Peters, have the guts to come right out and say it: she looks like one of us too, not like that skinny colored fellow with the funny name. Just how the hell is it anything less than blatant racism to suggest that she represents the American people more than Barack Obama does?

"When The New York Times, CNN, the NBC basket of basket cases and all the barking blog dogs insult Palin, they're insulting us. When they smear her, they're smearing every American who actually works for a living, who doesn't expect a handout, who doesn't have a full-time accountant to parse the family taxes, who believes in the Pledge of Allegiance and who thinks a church is more than just a tedious stop on daughter Emily's 100K wedding day."

So much lunacy crammed into just one short paragraph that it stands as a model of cheapshot liberal bashing: the anti-welfare insinuation, the phony populism, the obligatory outrage at the blogosphere, the appropriation of flag and God for one side of the political spectrum.

"Go ahead, faux feminists and Hollywood deep thinkers: Snicker at Sarah America's degree from the University of Idaho, but remember that most Americans didn't attend Harvard or Princeton as a legacy after daddy donated enough to buy his kid's way in.

Go ahead, campaign strategists: Mock Americans who go to church and actually pray. But you might want to run the Census numbers first.

And go right ahead: Dismiss all of us who remember how, on the first day of deer season, our high school classrooms were half empty (not a problem at Andover or Exeter)."

And they say the Internet is full of grudge-harboring, conspiracy-minded kooks. This last sentiment about hunting season is my favorite. I mean, you're writing for the New York Post here, not the Butte Creek Gazzette, so whose high school classrooms are you talking about here? And more importantly, who were those commie wimps who thought learning was a better way to spend a school day than slaughtering defenseless animals? I hope you reported their names to the proper authorities, Peters. The only thing kids at my public school knew about hunting we learned from the "duck season/rabbit season" episode of Bugs Bunny.

"That rube accent of Palin's? It's a howler. But she sounds a lot more like the rest of us than a Harvard man or a Smithie ever will. Why does Sarah Palin energize all of us who don't belong to the gilded leftwing circle? Because she's us. We sat beside her in class. We hung out afterschool (might've even shared a backseat combat zone on prom night). And now she lives next door, raising her kids."

More loaded code words here by Peters ("sounds a lot more like the rest of us, she's us," etc.). I have no idea what a Smithie is and I'm quite sure I've never run into one. And get real here, Peters, the "gilded leftwing circle" is a total fantasy of yours. If the left is so well off, then wouldn't they be more likely to vote Republican, to be calling for even more tax cuts for the super-wealthy? And why are progressives the only ones calling for a minimum wage increase to help the poorest of the working poor out? Just wondering how that squares with charges of elitism, especially when it's the Bible that seems to put a focus on Christians caring for the sick, poor and hungry? I guess only if they happen to live in that shining small town on a hill that hypocrites like Ronald Reagan made a career out of mythologizing.

"For the first time since Ronald Reagan, our last great president, we, the people, see a chance that one of us might have a voice in governing our country. Speaking of Reagan (Eureka College, Illinois), every chief executive we've had since the Gipper snapped his final salute as president has had the imprimatur of an Ivy League university. And we've gone from bad to worse:

* George Herbert Walker Bush: Yale.

* William Jefferson Clinton: Georgetown, Oxford, Yale Law.

* George W. Bush: Yale and Harvard Business School.

The first lacked the sense to finish the job in Desert Storm; the second lacked the guts to go after al Qaeda when it was just a startup - and the third, well, let's just say he disappointed our low expectations."

Ralph, that's an awful big city sounding word (imprimatur) you used there, almost Ivy League itself in its pretension. See how it works: only others' education is a form of elitism, only wealth in the hands of people who don't support McCain or agree with Peters is to be mocked. Peters has no problem with economic elitism, great wealth concentrated in the hands of the super-rich, because only the political right's experience is authentic, only their side has arrived at its positions and viewpoints genuinely. Unlike those liberal progressives, who hate small towns, Wal-Mart and decency.

It doesn't matter that your father was a factory worker and your mother a secretary: if you vote a certain way, you're a part of the sneering, flag-disdaining elite, and as such you're part of the problem. Worse still, you're one of them, not one of us. Got it? Good. Feel yourself getting stupider as you read the New York Post, well, that's the point. Insulting the intelligence and dumbing things down to this depth is no accidental premise in their case.

Peters himself graduated from Penn State University and then a series of military colleges, where he must have majored in low level propaganda. More like low class judging by the following low blow:

"Now we have the Ivy League elite's "he's not only like us but he's a minority and we're so wonderful to support him" candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (Columbia and Harvard Law). Our country can't afford another one of these clowns. Harvard isn't the answer - Harvard's the problem.

So here's the message Palin is sending on behalf of the rest of us (the down-market masses Dems love at election time and ignore once the voting's done): The rule of the snobs is over. It's time to give one of us a chance to lead. Sen. John McCain's one of us, too. He raised hell at Annapolis (quadruple ugh: military!), and he'll raise the right kind of hell in Washington."

Uh, raising hell by voting 9 times out of 10 with the party in power during the Bush years? Yeah, McCain being one of the Keating Five was a real howler! That influence-peddling scandal cost the taxpayers billions of dollars, and that bailout, like this latest one, was a direct result of excess deregulation forced through Congress by the ungilded, ungreedy right wing.

"McCain's so dumb he really loves his country. Sarah Palin's dumb that way, too. How terribly unfashionable."

Didn't we just try the folksy, supposedly down to earth guy for two terms? How'd that work out? We're still paying the price for that and will be for generations. Eight misguided years we'll never get back, thousands and thousands of lives never to return to this mortal coil as a direct consequence of a war that never needed to happen.

You're right, Peters, it would be downright silly to search for solutions to our complex financial problems in our leading universities; better to look for some uncultured hayseed whose manly gut instinct would be free from the unpure taint of effete intellectualism. Ugh! Thinking bad, make head hurt.

But as far as dumb, no one is saying Palin's as ignorant as, say, George W. Bush. Left and right alike now agree that there's no there there. What is becoming clearer about Palin's mock candidacy is that it's one of the most egregious cases of resume padding in the history of the sport. For instance, the former beauty pagaent queen knows as much about foreign policy as Miss Teen South Carolina knows about world geography. If that be sneering, Peters, then by all means make the most of it.

Peters is a retired Lt. Colonel and fashions himself quite the military expert. In fact, you might say he puts the moron in the oxymoron "military intelligence." I know this may shock you, but according to Wikipedia "Peters was a strong supporter of the 2003 invasion and ongoing war in Iraq." By the looks of it, the man has never met a war he couldn't revel in from a distance. He's written novels with fascistic-sounding titles like "The Perfect Soldier" and "Twilight of the Heroes" as well as neoconning nonfiction books like "Never Quit the Fight" and "New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy."

A front-page New York Post editorial in 2007 had Peters trumpeting his charge that anyone opposing the Iraq surge is guilty of treason. Peters really makes no secret of his vision of American supremacy in the Middle East, no matter the cost in American lives. Some might even call it a form of sneering when he blames "the Arab genius for screwing things up" for our trouble in Iraq and declares "it appears that the cynics were right: Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it."

See, Peters is a regular on Fox News, CNN and the like, even PBS, where he espouses racist, jingoistic garbage like this. But of course that in no way makes him a mediacrat or part of the media opinion-making class. How can he even write this stuff with a straight face? More to the point, the future world Peters envisions for the human race is one where, according to this deranged little Dr. Strangelove,

"There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing."

Ultimately, it's clear that Peters is an alarming exemplar of the warped war groupie so prevalent in the present Republican landscape. He undoubtedly sees Sister Sarah Palin as a kind of stalking horse his War Party can slap some lipstick on and then ride to unlimited defense budgets and an endgame of enduring and unending war, one where his dreamy Perfect Soldier can carry out all the glorious carnage in the name of Pax Americana. And while the bullets fly in faroff lands, the well-connected war profiteers back home are free to get rich off the fat government contracts awarded to firms like Halliburton, Blackwater and KBR. It's in this context that Democrats are portrayed as defeatist appeasers, while Republicans claim the high ground as heroic supporters of the troops. In 2008 America, unquestioning patriotism is the always the first refuge of red-baiting scoundrels like Peters.

Somehow, thinking about a depraved war pig like Ralph Peters brings to mind the closing stanza of another old protest song, one that has never been more relevant.

"And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead"

See also:

Still Horrible

Plenty Smart

Thinking makes it so

Post partisan

Rejecting Rudy...

..As You Should

Repugnant Convention

T - 20...

No Reason

Memory's Wrecking Ball

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...as in just 3 games left at Yankee Stadium. After this series against the Birds of Baltimore, it's off to the wholly unnecessary new Stadium being built just a Ruthian blast away from the current cathedral of American sports, set to be demolished next spring after every last seat, section post and light fixture has been cataloged, indexed and sold off to the proverbial highest bidder.

Ironically, the Yankees are making a big show of warning fans attending this Sunday's game against helping themselves to any impromptu souvenirs on their way out. See, it's still big money, the memorabilia game, what with suckers still being born in this dying consumer republic at the alarming rate of one per minute. As proof, pairs of Shea Stadium seats were going for $869 -- get it: 1969 and 1986 were the Mets' two championships, so they made the price 8 + 69. Just what the hell you do with rusting stadium seats once you've overpaid for them and actually brought them home is another relevant question. Of course, telling you not to do something works very much like a call to arms for some New Yorkers -- or is it "New Yorkians" now as Brett Favre actually put it the other day? They should take away Favre's key to the city for that one.

My own Stadium memories go back so far, they almost seem to be among my earliest memories period, all the more rich because they remain intertwined with recollections of my dad taking me to games. Funny the Yanks are closing out with Baltimore this weekend, because the first game I have concrete memories of is actually a doubleheader loss to those same Orioles. Back then, the late 1960s, Baltimore was a powerhouse and the Yankees, well, the Yankees were something less than that. The glory days were in the rear view mirror, with Mickey Mantle on his last legs literally as well as figuratively. The product taking the field every night was subpar to put it kindly, with decent players like Bobby Murcer and, my favorite, Roy White, surrounded by so-so players like Horace Clarke, Jerry Kenny and Gene Michael.

The Orioles, on the other hand, were fielding some of the greatest players not only of their era, but any period in baseball history. The pitching was so good, with Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar and Dave McNally, that they would have four 20-game winners in one season. And with Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson and Boog Powell providing the power, there were a lot of nights like the one I suffered through that night: a discouraging 13-0 shutout loss in the opener, followed by another defeat in the nightcap.

Bat days at Yankee Stadium for this reason were something of a crapshoot. Like most young Yankee fans, you hoped you got a good bat -- in my case, one with a Bobby Murcer or Roy White signature, and not a Jake Gibbs or Tom Tresh model. Shea Stadium had to eliminate their own bat day giveaways at this time because of fan violence. When Yankee fans are the well behaved ones, you know you got a story.

They didn't call it the Bronx Zoo in those days for nothing. The half-filled stadium reflected the team's popularity in the City, as the rising Mets were beginning to capture New York at this time, with exciting young players like Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Cleon Jones, with the Mets turning from lovable losers to something like perennial contenders, and for that glorious year of 1969, even I got caught up a little in the fever, surreptitiously scrawling Tommie Agee in the palm of my glove in black marker after they won the World Series against the heavily favored Orioles.

Back at Yankee Stadium the next year, this time for Cap Day -- god how we lived for those giveaway days! -- I had one of the more traumatic experiences. After proudly wearing my new hat all day at the game -- that deep navy blue with, yes, the interlocking N/Y above the bill -- to my horror it was snatched off my head, never to be seen or worn again, as the heartless thief made his way down the exit ramp in a New York second. My mom made me write a letter to the team and, sure enough, a few weeks later a new cap came in the mail with a letter of apology from the team president of those pre-Steinbrenner New York Yankees, and I was a happy kid again.

For two years, 1974 and '75, the Yankees actually played their home games at Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was being refurbished. That's right, they shared a park with the Mets, so every day Shea had a baseball game featuring one of the New York teams. I haven't heard anyone talking about how some of the Yankees memories at least technically will also be lost when the wrecking ball is let loose on Shea.

The old Yankee Stadium, pre-renovation, had a feature that was eliminated in the new one: a kind of Yankee Hall of Fame that you could pass through on your way to Monument Park. It was really little more than some old uniforms in a glass case, but there was also a bank of phones where you could "talk to" Yankee greats. You picked up the receiver in, say, Mantle's booth and you heard a recorded message from Mickey. I never got tired of that.

One year, me and a friend went to a game along with my older brother and his friend Jimmy Kelly, who was known as a little crazy around the neighborhood. Now of course he's a New York City cop, so you see how things work out sometimes in the long run. Anyway, the Monuments were on the field in those days, just part of the cavernous centerfield, right in front of the 463-foot marker. I still find that hard to believe and yet I am sure that, yes, the players had to deal with all that while fielding a long blast to straightaway centerfield. I'm pretty sure I'm not embellishing this, but I can see how someone would be skeptical.

Anyway, you could also see the bullpen from Monument Park, and on this day reliever Lindy McDaniel was getting some work in. Lindy was one of the better players on the team in the early '70s, a trusty middle reliever and a reliable spot starter. So we started calling his name, once, twice, but no reaction, so finally, really loud, Jimmy yells: "Hey Lindy McDaniel you fucking faggot!" That got his attention, and sent us running back through the tunnel toward our seats. Ah, good times...

The late 1970s, of course, the Yankees started winning. Steinbrenner had taken over the team and was sparing no expense in upgrading the roster, dipping early and often into the free agent pool for top-notch talent like Catfish Hunter and later Reggie Jackson. It paid off to the tune of three straight World Series appearances from 1976-78, with championships the last two years against the L.A. Dodgers.

Summer of '78 found me working as a camp counselor at the Police Fresh Air Fund in upstate New York near Hunter Mountain, almost totally cut off from what was happening in New York for two months. Whenever I did manage to get hold of a paper, I saw the bad news getting progressively worse. Not only were the Yankees not going to defend their first World Series win in 15 years, they were so far behind the Red Sox that the AL East division itself was almost hopelessly out of reach. The lead ballooned to 14 games in July. Only a fool would think the season wasn't lost.

Then the Yankees reeled off a 35 of 49 stretch while Boston floundered at 25-24, pulling New York within a handful of games. Up next came the legendary 4-game series at Fenway early September, with the Yankees positively bludgeoning Boston by a composite 42-9 in what came to be known as the second "Boston Massacre." The next week Boston came to town for a 3-game series, and I was there for the finale, watching Yankee CF Paul Blair slap a bases-loaded single through a drawn-in infield for the 5-4 win in the bottom of the 9th, with a delirium ensuing that can only be termed seismic.

The Red Sox had given up their entire 14-game lead, and then some, only to show some guts of their own in coming back to tie for the division lead by season's end, prompting the historical one-game showdown at Fenway. I will never forget watching it along with Debbie Ellen Epstein, who happened to be the world's biggest Bucky Dent fan. And it was a good day to be a Bucky Dent fan on that day as he hit the go-ahead HR.

My only World Series moment comes from Game One, 1981, Yanks-Dodgers yet again in baseball's version of Groundhog Day. My friend Roger had waited on line for tickets the day before, not great seats, but then again we only paid $20 apiece! A younger, simpler time on pro sports. Singer Pearl Bailey blew the crowd away before a single pitch was thrown with a stirring version of the National Anthem, and then a Bob Watson 3-run bomb in the 1st inning had the Yanks well on their way to a 4-1 opening game victory. Yankees won the second game too, but then things spiraled out of control with the Series shifting out West.

See, we were up 2-0, and Roger also had tix for Game 6. But there wouldn't be a Game 6 unless the Dodgers could win a couple of games. So Roger did what I specifically asked him not to do: root for L.A. to win two games at Dodger Stadium and thus send it back to Yankee Stadium for at least one more game. Well, you know the baseball gods have a screwy sense of humor, and sure enough the jinx was enough to propel the Dodgers winning not just 2 but then all 3 games at home, and back in New York it was all over in 6 games. It was Dave Winfield's futility in this postseason that earned him the harsh sobriquet Mr. May. Who knew then it would be the last season that would end in the Series for another 15 years! Not me, not when a young lad name of Donald Arthur Mattingly showed up in the Bronx a few years later with a sweet swing and a commanding presence at 1st base.

But alas, the Winfield-Mattingly Era would also be bereft of postseason glory, always a sore spot for those of us who appreciated Donnie Baseball all those years. The early Joe Torre years seem like a blur now, almost running together in a haze of great playoff moments. The best games those years were the spontaneous ones we would attend, a select few of us at The Wall Street Transcript casually bolting from the office at noon of a workday, shooting uptown on the 6-train, arriving at our seats in time for 1:05 first pitch and ordering a well-deserved cold one after a long morning at work: the green, green grass of the field winking back at me reassuringly: relax... where else would you possibly rather be?

Those glory days it seemed like the year wasn't over until the parade was held downtown through the Canyon of Heroes. Now the Yankee team is forced into the uncomfortable role of postseason spectators. Both fans and players hope they don't have to get used to it when the new Stadium begins making its own history.