Flippin' the Script

Okay chitlins, we’re all over the map today. Buckle up!

* Let’s start with this past weekend’s NFL divisional-round playoff games. Strong times to be had. Three out of the four of them weren’t really much to get all trumped up about. The Saints rolled the Cardinals, the Colts pulled away from Baltimore at the end and Minnesota basically embarrassed Dallas. But those fighting New York Football Jets just aren’t going anywhere right now. They battled, scrapped and beat the San Diego Chargers for their second straight road playoff victory, squeaking by 17-14, to get to the AFC Championship game for the first time since the ’98 season. Mark Sanchez continues to look way confident beyond his years (he’s only a rookie, by the Gods!) and that defense is straight-up frightening. Darrelle Revis, you are one talented man, and should have been the NFL Defensive MVP this season. Now we’ve got the Jets at Indianapolis (3 p.m.) and Minnesota at New Orleans (6:40 p.m.) on Sunday to determine who’s going to Super Bowl XLIV. I do know one thing – this seems to be the year of the indoor teams. Three of this past weekend’s four games were played in a dome, and both of this Sunday’s conference title games? Yep. At home in the dome. Noise plays a factor like nowhere else in these situations. Put it this way – when human voices, even if it is a LOT of them, can simulate the noise level of a commercial jet airliner … that’s frigging loud. I’d hate to be one of these opposing teams. Good luck to everyone. The Jets hysteria here in New York is catching on like hip-hugging jeans in the 80s, or Taco Bell’s new 89-cent, beefy five-layer burrito.

* Trying to get caught up on most of the Oscar buzz-worthy flicks before the Academy Awards next month. I’ve seen most of the usual suspects. Best picture seems to be quite wide open this year. ‘The Hurt Locker’ and ‘Up in the Air’ both seem like strong candidates. I’d love for ‘Precious’ to get serious consideration, but most people don’t have the stomach or constitution to fully invest emotionally in what it’s all about. It’s not easy, but if you make yourself get through it, you’ll see an amazing piece of cinema. ‘Up in the Air’ was quite strong, as it deals with subject matter that is very close to the core of what many people in our country are dealing with these days (unexpected job loss, a sense of alienation despite constantly being surrounded by people, pouring oneself into work while neglecting family out of a feeling of necessity to stay afloat, etc.). But above all else, it delves into the fact that relationships are the single most important piece of the puzzle for many of us, and how that dynamic affects everything else in our lives. Super relatable subject matter. Not difficult to imagine it striking a chord with the majority of voters. Whereas movies like ‘Precious’ and ‘The Hurt Locker’, although brilliant in their own right, explore worlds that are slightly more alien to many of us (unless you’re from the ghetto or have defused bombs in war-torn Iraq). Thusly, they lose some of that all-important relatability. Avatar is classic good vs. bad, with undercurrents of war and the environment, but it’s not all that well fleshed out in terms of its characters and plot once you get past all the visual eye candy and superstar CGI stuff. Tell you what might be the dark-horse candidate – Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges. Why? Because it’s about country music, redemption, and getting one last shot. And as the title would suggest, it appears to have ‘heart.’ This one will resonate with a whole lot of people.  I’d personally endorse the Coen Brothers’ ‘A Serious Man,’ but again, it’s going to go over a lot of peoples’ heads. Not only must you appreciate the Coen Brothers’ quirky, darkly hilarious brand of humor to get into it, but a keen awareness of the more subtle and, especially, chuckle-inducing aspects of Jewish culture are also an integral part of enjoying the experience.

* Jersey Shore is a trainwreck in progress. We all know this by now. One cast member (Angelina) got kicked out of the house for failing to show up to her shift working at the farking T-SHIRT SHOP ON THE BOARDWALK, and another (Nicole a.k.a. ‘Snooki’) has been punched in the face not once, but TWICE, during the show’s filming at Seaside Heights in New Jersey this past summer. Oh and one of those shots to the grill was landed by a guy. Now THAT’S hardcore. And of course then there’s Mike ‘The Situation’, who is considered to be so intolerable, even by his own equally intolerable housemates’ standards, that nobody in the house even cares for him much anymore as the show winds its way down to what will no doubt be a gripping, thought-provoking, climactic finale this Thursday (Jan. 21^st). Sadly, because we are in the ‘Reality TV’ age, each and every one of these jarheads is likely to get way more than 15 minutes of fame. And we can all blame ourselves for eating this shit up with a spoon. Oh and by the way, only one of these cast members, Sammi Sweetheart – ironically, the apparent gold-star winner in this classroom of special-needs kids – is originally from New Jersey (and she’s not even from Seaside Heights). The rest of them? Six are from New York, and one is from Rhode Island. I didn’t quite know how to react to this when I looked it up, nor do I know now. I think this sums up the current state of pop culture quite well, no?

I’m Not Here to Talk About the Past

In sports news, former St. Louis Cardinals slugger and likely Hall of Fame candidate Mark McGwire admitted in a teary confession this week to having used steroids during much of his playing career, a revelation that is about as shocking as learning that people view Kanye West as a bit of a ‘loudmouth’ or ‘jackass’ at times.


Essentially, McGwire came clean and confessed to something that anyone who has closely followed baseball, or even professional sports generally, for the past several years has already known for quite some time. He stonewalled everyone at the Congressional Hearings on steroid usage in baseball back in 2005, claiming that ‘he isn’t here to talk about the past.’ Sure, he didn’t technically lie. But this is and was a classic case of his silence, at the time, speaking louder than any words ever could.

And now that he has spoken, he has truly said an incredulously dumb thing. He claims that he only took steroids to ‘heal injuries’ and ‘keep his body healthy’ through what is always a long grind of a 162-game regular season (playoffs, of course, not included). True, we all know by now that steroids can be effective in that capacity. But when asked by Bob Costas if McGwire thinks he would have still belted every single home run in his career without the added benefit of steroids, he said he DOES believe this. Holy. Moly.

Now, he does raise a fair point by acknowledging that hitting a home run is a God-given gift (theological disputes aside for the second), and that the hand-eye coordination and timing involved in performing this feat isn’t something that can be improved by taking steroids.

You know what Big Mac? I’ll give that one to you.

But do NOT sit there and try to feed us this B.S. that steroids don’t also improve your strength, which thereby allows you to hit the ball faster, higher, harder, and ultimately, most importantly, farther. Anything that increases strength gives you a clear advantage over others not under the same influences.

You know what else? Screw this, I’m not about to launch into the whole ‘steroids in baseball’ business. We’ve all heard every angle of it about 1,000 times now anyway in the ‘24/7 media circus’ day and age with sports channels that never go dark and every fan from the Arctic Circle to the North Pole having the ability to blog, or call up a radio show, or post a status update on facebook, or post a ‘tweet’ on twitter. (Yep, I’m falling into at least 2 of those categories myself, thank you!). There’s not much left to be said. But I’m at the point now, like many, where I don’t even blame these guys so much anymore. We all should blame the sport and it’s overseers that never implemented any sort of anti-performance enhancing drug policies through all the years.

Another question. How strict are the policies that exist now? What baseball should really do is randomly test each and every player in the league at different times throughout the pre-season and regular season – you know, so that they don’t see it coming. Yeah I know – too expensive, logistical nightmare, difficult to pull off, easier to test all of them at one pre-determined time. Also, way easier for them to circumvent the test and beat the system when they know about it weeks ahead of time. Even still, some of these boneheads continue to get caught (I’m talking to you, Manny).

I’d like to be able to just enjoy baseball again without all the steroids stuff lurking underneath the surface, but it is difficult. It will always be there. Unfortunately, most of us are over it by now. We don’t really care anymore.

But I do find it funny to think back to about 11 years ago, when I was seemingly one of the few people skeptically raising an eyebrow when that reporter found Androstenedione in McGwire’s locker during the infamous summer of ’98. Andro, for those that don’t know or recall, was a substance banned in both the NFL and NBA at the time, but was allowed in baseball and the NHL. I even wrote a column in my college newspaper’s sports section questioning why nobody seemed to care about this.

But we were all falling in love with baseball all over again during this glorious post-strike-of-’94 era because of the Sosa/McGwire home run chase, so nobody wanted to rain on the parade. I never liked that it was just glossed over. And if you can actually find any video of 1998-era McGwire interviews on youtube or any other Web site where he was asked about it, it’s easy to see how uncomfortable, surly and under-the-surface angry he was – even back then (at least that’s how I remember it). Sure, some of these guys aren’t the sharpest knives in the kitchen, but even the dumbest among them knew (know?) the ethical ramifications of what they were (are?) doing.

If we only knew what was in store for us over the next decade. But hey, Big Mac’s cleared the air now – he can begin his stint as the Cardinals’ hitting coach in the 2010 season guilt-free! Of course, that’s what this confession was really all about. Oh and because he probably still wants to get into the Hall of Fame, and we all know the only way to do that is to ‘fess up to your character issues and admit what you did wrong (Hey, if Pete can do it, pretty much anybody can, right?).

Are you ready for some … football?

Okay playas – the opening weekend of the NFL playoffs has passed us by, and hot damn did we see some fun stuff. Well, unless you’re a Philadelphia Eagles fan (guilty, by the way).

For the second weekend in a row, the Birds flew into Dallas and left nothing but a big old pile of poop. Only this time, it was with everything on the line (not just the division and the No. 2 playoff seed). But more on that later.

We have the New York football Jets soaring into the second round of the postseason for the first time in five years, and those red-hot Dallas Cowboys have finally won a playoff game for the first time in 13 seasons. Throw in a healthy dose of Arizona and an impressive upset win for the Baltimore Ravens over the New England Patriots and you have a complete weekend of NFL mayhem. The second-round matchups are all set, so I’ll try to recap quickly … which is like trying to find a current hip hop release without that shitty auto-tune crap that everyone seems to be doing nowadays.

Congrats to the Jets, who won their first playoff game in five years with an impressive 24-14 road win over the Bengals in Cincinnati. Rex Ryan has that defense whipped into shape, and rookie QB Mark Sanchez played an uncharacteristically solid game. Cincy was a nice story this year, but the Jets definitely looked like they wanted this one more. By virtue of Baltimore’s 33-14 thrashing of the New England Patriots, New York is rewarded with a trip to San Diego to take on the Norv Turner-led Chargers next weekend, who are apparently a force to be reckoned with despite their inept coach.

Speaking of Baltimore, the Ravens used a hot start to jump on the Pats 14-0 early and cruise to the win in a game that never really looked to be in doubt. First play from scrimmage resulted in a nice long TD run for Ray Rice, and on New England’s first possession Tom Brady was picked off, setting up the second B’more TD. Pats just looked totally out of sync in this one. The dynasty is over, at least for now. Brady/Belichick doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of men as that duo once did, and neither does much of anyone else on this team. The Ravens looked downright frightening though. Indianapolis will have its hands full next week with that defense. Can’t wait to see how that turns out.

In the NFC, Arizona bested Green Bay in overtime, 51-45, in the highest-scoring postseason NFL game of all time. There was more scoring in this game than in the VIP area of Studio 54 the late 1970s. In fact, if defense were a life raft and I were in the middle of the ocean, I’d decline both of these teams and go it alone. Oh hey, did I mention that I can barely swim? Hey … guess how much scoring there was in this game? They had to switch scoreboards at halftime due to exhaustion. Okay okay, you get the idea. But seriously, pretty exciting to watch, that’s for sure. Ironically, it was ‘Zona’s defense that won the game in OT when GB quarterback Aaron Rodgers was hit by a defender as he was raising the ball to pass, causing a fumble that Karlos Dansby scooped up and returned 17 yards for the winning touchdown. This means the Cards head to New Awlins to take on the Saints in the next round. Holy fireworks Batman – that game is going to be a DANDY. Don’t turn your head for a second, you might miss, like, a bunch of touchdowns or something.

And finally, saving the worst for last, the Eagles apparently learned nothing of value from the beating they took in Dallas in week 17, because Saturday night’s game was like a nightmare instant replay as the Cowboys rolled to a 34-14 win. Now the ‘Boys head to Minnesota to play the Brett Favre-led Vikings. And by the way, for everyone out there throwing out all the reminders about Dallas not having won a playoff game since the ’96 season, and how the Eagles embarrassed the Cowboys in last year’s regular-season finale en route to the NFC East title, and how Philly has had by far a greater amount of postseason success in this past decade … I am fully aware of all of it.

But the past is the past, and this year the Birds looked as primed as any other to make a legitimate Super Bowl run ... until the last two weeks that is. There are no easy answers, other than to say that Dallas is playing great football right now and the Eagles played like cow dung on a stick and therefore deserve what happened to them. No excuses, no major injuries to key players (or at least none so major that the Birds couldn’t rack up an 11-5 regular season). Philly just took a collective dump at the worst possible time, and there’s no real defending it. It’s a combination of that fact, plus Dallas just playing way better than they have in a long time. Bad timing. Didn’t get it done.

And I don’t want to sound like every other troglodyte Philly ‘fan’ who calls for Andy Reid to be fired and for McNabb to be traded after every single season, but I have to admit that I’m starting to reach the end of my rope with this current incarnation of the Philadelphia Eagles. There’s something about Reid/McNabb that just won’t ever produce a championship for the city of Philadelphia, and I believe that now more strongly than ever. I hope they make me eat those words, because it doesn’t look like either one of them is going anywhere anytime soon, but we all know that the head coach and quarterback are two of the most integral aspects of any NFL organization. And in Philly’s case, both of those positions are too suspect and too inconsistent. The division titles and playoff appearances are nice, sure it’s better than not having them at all.

But isn’t there something to be said from learning through mistakes? If you’re not getting better, than what the hell are you doing? It’s the same story every year. McNabb will make good plays here and there, but at the most crucial of times, he’ll over/under throw his open receivers, and Reid will stare blankly or simply look like he can’t find where he set down his cheesesteak instead of ever showing even an ounce of emotion.

I realize Eagles fans can be over emotional, but it seems like the team is perhaps the complete opposite of that, even in the most dire of situations, and that’s not a good thing.

Hey, if you’re satisfied with the current regime, more power to you. But I think we all know what to expect if the personnel stays the same … a winning season in terms of won-loss record, a few playoff appearances here and there, but no parades down Broad Street. This team needs an injection of passion. I’m just not sure anybody on the current Eagles roster has that type of needle right now.

Good riddance to the 00’s (well, mostly)

Okay, hiatus is over chickadees. The playa is grabbing all the cheddar he can in the oh-10 nerds, so clear the red carpet and gimme back my pimp-stick.

But seriously, December was more or less an off month for me. And when I say ‘off,’ what I really mean is that I’ve been devoting the little spare time I’ve had lately to such leisurely and worthy pursuits as racketeering, jousting, the development of underprivileged third-world countries, pie-making (this one did not go so well), establishing a global network of like-minded individuals who also want to see the implementation of more strict requirements for individual fame, and finally, the massive watching of sports.

As you may or may not know, I only actually did one of those things. I leave it up to you, fair reader, to figure it out. I realize it might take some time. While you chew on that morsel of food for thought, I inundate you with my reflections on the decade that was. Since I’m only about the 57,213^th person to publicly review the past 10 years, allow me to be the 57,214^th person to reiterate how much this decade really just completely sucked ass.

Seriously, has there been an overall worse decade for most people than the double-ohs, or aughts, or whatever the hell we’re calling them now? Don’t get me completely wrong, there was some decent stuff that happened – mostly in the realm of entertainment. But in terms of what has gone down for most of us in the real world, goddamn it was not fun times for the majority.

Let’s just generate a list of some of the events that we would rather not have happened in the last 10 years: Y2K paranoia, 9/11, countless acts of other terrorism around the globe more or less stemming from 9/11, the Enron scandal, Hurricane Katrina virtually ruining, at least for a time, one of our country’s most beloved cities, a tsunami wiping out several hundred thousand lives in southeast Asia in 2004, the swine flu epidemic, turmoil in the Middle East having reached a peak none of us could have foreseen 10 years ago (not to mention the thousands of U.S. soldiers who have died because of this), one of the most wildly incompetent presidents to ever sit in the White House holding office as the leader of our country for 8 of the past 10 years, the housing-mortgage crisis, greed on Wall Street manifesting itself in the form of blatant thievery, the long-waged Health Care debate, the death of the ‘old’ music industry as we know it (making way for the ‘digital’ music age), the phasing out of newspapers/magazines as we used to know them (making way for the ‘online’ news-reporting age), and particularly in 2009, the deaths of many beloved celebrities – including Michael Jackson, the most iconic, recognizable pop super-duperstar of the past 25-30 years (regardless of how you may feel about his music or him personally). Oh and of course, right at the tail end of the decade, one of the most visible, admired athletes in the history of sports, one whose status virtually transcends competitive endeavors, was found to be a serial cheater, allegedly having bedded a bevy of women of all walks of life (cocktail waitresses, porn stars, nightclub hostesses, etc.), while his Swedish supermodel former-nanny wife watched over their two small children like a good little wife at home.

Did I cover it all? No way. I undoubtedly left out a lot of other ancillary shit-fests, but I think I hit all the major targets.

Of course, it’s not like nothing good happened. We will all forever recall our own individual highlights – such as those of us who got married, attended college, traveled, or perhaps purchased a home for the first time (one that WASN’T bought primarily through bank-lended ‘mortgage-backed securities’). And we all undoubtedly had many good times with our friends and family, and will continue to do so as long as we’re around.

But even in the world of entertainment, this decade was seemingly different than everything that came before it. Many would probably disagree, but it seems that overall, we had a larger amount of superior movies and cinema experiences in past decades. That’s not to say we weren’t graced with a lot of good films in the 00’s, but Hollywood just continues to become more stagnant through time, relying on sequels, remakes, and tried-and-true but crappy movie-making formulas that put asses in the seats but do little else to create thought-provoking art. It’s as though the bar is getting lower, but most of us are okay with that because we keep swallowing all the crap being spoon-fed to us. If movies like ‘Wild Hogs’ and ‘Bride Wars’ didn’t gross as many millions as they do, ideally filmmakers would cease to put out such garbage. But nowadays, you really have to seek out the good stuff, whereas it seems like it was always around years ago.

As for music, my God don’t get me started. Music always has been and always will be one of my great passions in life, but it simply doesn’t exist now in the same way that it once did. And the overall quality of it doesn’t seem to be what it once was – or if it is, then we just basically don’t have musicians coming out in this day and age that generate the same icon-like status that musicians once did. Everything is i-tunes and ring-tones. Countless record stores have gone out of business. The compact disc is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. And very few artists have come along in this decade that deserve ‘household name’ status. This list of popular musicians that have started in this decade that I can personally endorse strongly is VERY short (Kanye West, MF Doom, The Arctic Monkeys, Them Crooked Vultures, Amy Winehouse, and especially, The Strokes).

I’m sure there are others and I’m just unaware of their presence, but that, in and of itself, is a real problem. Go back 15 or 20 years or more, and good stuff couldn’t be missed or buried in the morass of mediocrity. Now – not so much the case.

There are 2 areas in which this decade, however, was especially strong. I’m talking about TV entertainment and sports.

Let’s start with TV. Quite simply, there has been some outstanding original entertainment programming in the 2000s, comedically (Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, 30 Rock, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Arrested Development, Chappelle’s Show), dramatically (The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Lost, Dexter), and even shows that blend comedy and drama effectively (Entourage, Big Love). This was, unfortunately, also the decade of Reality TV. But whatever – there are clearly enough people who love it.

On that note, this was also, unfortunately, the decade in which the requirements for being famous were little more than having a pulse, being semi-literate, and having a reason to be put on TV (in some cases, not even that last one is totally applicable). All one needed was to be related to a famous person in some way, or the direct offspring of someone who was hot for a minute in the 70s or 80s (or even 90s). Never has the word ‘celebrity’ been expanded to cover so many different types of people, very few of whom actually deserve the moniker. How about this – in the new decade can we please redefine the word ‘celebrity’ to refer only to individuals who have some sort of special talent? Talent, by the way, is something that not just anybody possesses. Let’s keep that in mind people. Being the niece or son/daughter of a famous person doesn’t make you a celebrity, and doesn’t entitle you to your own 30-minute show in which nothing really happens, besides some complaining and shopping.

Let’s get on that, you know, together.

As for sports, never have we had so many memorable moments (not all of them good) packed into one 10-year span. In baseball, we had the black cloud of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs, as well as the infamous Red Sox-Yankees ALCS in 2004, culminating with Boston’s first World Series win in 86 years, not to mention the Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies, two other long-suffering franchises, bringing home world championships to their respective cities (twice in a four-year span for Boston). In NFL football, we had the undefeated, 18-0, villainous New England Patriots lose the Super Bowl to the underdog, everyman-team NY Giants in fascinating fashion in February of 2008 when David Tyree’s miraculous helmet catch set up the winning score. We also saw the Pittsburgh Steelers cement their status as the league’s signature franchise with a fifth and sixth Super Bowl title, under different head coaches no less (first Bill Cowher, then Mike Tomlin). We saw the Patriots, in the first half of the decade, establish a legendary run of success by winning three championships in four years, largely due to the coaching genius of Bill Belichick and the steely nerves of quarterback Tom Brady, a two-time Super Bowl MVP who was born to win big games (and impregnate, then immediately dump, actresses). We saw a lot of other unbelievable events – I could spend a whole entry on that alone.

But it’s sufficient to say, sports is always fascinating, and always entertaining, no matter how shitty is the world around us. It’s one of the only experiences that isn’t scripted, that doesn’t have a pre-set destination when the journey begins. And if it does (i.e. biased/paid-off referees or conspiracies to ‘fix’ games), then please let us all remain ignorant to it. Let us have this. Come on. Let us live in blissful ignorance. And let the next decade be an improvement on the last one, by God. Almost anything would be.