the wallstreet falcon

yeah, bad pun on the dashiell hammett novel and john huston screenplay depicting the excess of human greed over even the most worthless of things, but let me just say "wilmer cook" and "fabrice tourre" in the same sentence, and see if you can catch my meaning.

first off, let me say that, in my qualified and experienced opinion, (i guess for which you would have to take my word), goldman sachs is NOT guilty of any crime by betting against a market for things (whether or not created by "fab" fabrice tourre) that they knew to be worthless. big investment banks HAVE TO bet against each and every position they take (it's called "hedging") if they are to remain solvent for very long--it's what they do--and the existence of bets against tourre's losing instruments means nothing. there will be hedges against everything, even the winners in their portfolio. it's conclusive proof of NOTHING.

whether or not they are actually innocent is an entirely different question--they most definitely are not--but that's my point. there has been massive fraud perpetrated by the investment bank goldman sachs, (and if you think they are alone in such things, you are an even greater fool), but, just like humphrey bogart's sam spade and sidney greenstreet's casper gutman conspired to throw elisha cook jr's wilmer cook over to the cops as a fall guy for their part in plots of murder and duplicity, we have goldman sachs releasing private personal emails (idiotically sent using a company computer, but nobody said fabrice was ever all that smart about such things) by an employee to baldly hold him up as the scapegoat so that senior executives can skate, scot-free. it's so mercenary that it's almost beautiful--except if you should happen to be fabrice tourre, or any member of the shafted public who was both screwed by the recent financial system collapse, and on the hook to be screwed for the foreseeable future via paying the tax bill on the massive (socialist) bailout for the banks that caused the recent financial system collapse. (and dubya designed and implemented the socialist bailout for the banks--obama merely kepts dubya's boys on at the treasury and the fed in order to continue the travesty--so don't try to play partisan politics with this clusterfuck--it's on the whole of the government, and on us for having elected 'em).

anyway, the passage from fabrice's emails that caught my eye today is this one:

"when I think that I had some input into the creation of this product (which by the way is a product of pure intellectual masturbation, the type of thing which you invent telling yourself: "well, what if we created a "thing," which has no purpose, which is absolutely conceptual and highly theoretical and which nobody knows how to price?") it sickens the heart to see it shot down in mid-flight... it's a little like frankenstein turning against his own inventor ;)"

here's a guy who was hired and paid to do exactly what he did--intellectually masturbate and concoct a financial product so obscure and worthless that nobody would be able to understand it--so that his company could build a market for it, (hedging against it as they always do with such things), and then profit no matter which way the market headed. IT'S WHAT GOLDMAN DOES!!! sometimes they do it by writing the IPO for a new company that may or may not even be solvent. sometimes they do it dreaming up derivatives over cash flow streams from home mortgages. it's all the same shell game: 1. bribe the legislators from both parties (check out which company has contributed most to barney frank's campaign coffers, in case you think it's just republicans who are in the tank for these criminals) so that they appoint and maintain overseeing bodies that rubber stamp the whole criminal enterprise. 2. package and sell your financial snake oil to the unsuspecting public. 3. offer up scapegoats for prosecution in case the PR gets too bad.

it's a great business. now write your congressman and tell 'em that you're in favor of all the new proposed regulations, AND MORE, because, if you're not, you're a fool. this is organized crime of a magnitude that a person can't even imagine, and fab tourre is most definitely NOT the problem.

i almost forgot...

this little tasty morsel came from thursday's sun. it wasn't lisa redmond, but keep an eye on chris camire! (and props to robert mills for breaking this on his blog, co-bylining the article, and keeping us up to date on all the developments)

it would appear that a 34 year old einstein, while visiting the lowell PD HQ to "make an inquiry about his driver's license" (no idea why you have to go to a PD to ask about your license and not the registry, and i'm thinking that lisa would have been able to squeeze in enough info to explain things, but who cares when the rest of the story is this good) was observed stuffing a jimmy fund donation canister from the station's front desk (yep, the front desk) down the front of his pants.

needless to say, said perp was detained and searched and promptly placed under arrest.

but wait! it gets better!

a few hours after the pinhead's arrest, a man walked into the police station and identified himself as a family member. here's the beauty shot from chris and bob:

"the man held up two $20 bills, and said 'this is his bail money' before placing both bills into the jimmy fund collection canister. the family member told police they were welcome to let [the perp] know where his bail money had gone".

the lowell sun--best entertainment value in the greater merrimack valley

"than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"

one of my favorite aphorisms is the old one that it is "better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt".

yesterday rielle hunter went on oprah in what can only be described as one of the more amusing examples of self-public-relations-immolation we've seen since gordon brown last week used a hot mic to call "bigot" on an elderly pensioner for the temerity to ask him about jobs. rielle wants us all to know that she didn't ruin anyone else's marriage, (she just said "you're so hot" in a bar, and he "practically jumped into my arms"), and that after four hour-long phone conversations she "fell in love". but, wait, it's gets better: she also said johnny boy edwards was "very gracious" when she told him she was pregnant, only that it "happened at the wrong time". --wait for it-- the couple wasn't using birth control.

yep, that's right. a woman came onto a married man in a bar, decided she was in love after chatting him up on the phone four times, and then proceeded to have unprotected sex with him until she got pregnant. AND, she wanted us all to know all about it on OPRAH. (just so we wouldn't miss a word).

yep, we absolutely have a winner.

i don't care a damn thing about the scandal, but i should hope that it goes without saying that idiocy like this (as in, having anything to do with idiots like this) is best kept far, far away from the white house, for starters, and for sure. can't say i've had the best of personal marital track records, but at the very least i know better than to go on oprah to tell you all about it.

too funny.

windmill, baby, windmill

i need no further proof of the base mendacity of major party politics than previous vociferous and vehement objections from the (wealthy) left about the now newly-approved cape wind project. well over 2/3's of the entire cape's electricity needs will be accommodated in just a few years by clean (i.e. no oil to spill) offshore power generation, and these supremely hypocritical horses asses fought it every step of the way.

for what? a so-called "national treasure"???

i've boated on nantucket sound. it's a veritable superhighway of tankers, ferries and container ships, and there's nothing to treasure about it, other than to marvel at how ridiculously full of themselves the waterfront property owners have to be about the whole thing to sputter that there shouldn't be intelligent use made of the ubiquitous wind and tides.

i'll never forget my first descent into malaga in southern spain, and the majestic sweep of the very modern wind farm topping the andalusian mountains, above one of the most historic and scenic vistas in europe. it was breathtaking. beautiful. so sublimely sensible and affirming of the beauty of this earth. i marveled at the local peoples' foresight, and ingenuity, and commitment to preserving their heritage and their environment together. it recalled to me the iconic images of the windmills of holland, and how the folk and fine art of the american farm is part and parcel with a house, a barn, a silo, and, yes, virginia, a windmill--like peas in a pod.

i am appalled to imagine the destruction of lives and livelihoods the deepwater horizon disaster is in the process of causing. it's a catastrophe of a very human form, and we won't even need to see the dead and dying shore boards and shellfish stocks to know that this is and will forever be a bad one. i like to imagine, replacing those offshore drilling platforms, we will soon see more wind farms such as are being built off the cape. and then, as t. boone pickens has suggested we plan it, crossing our great and fruited plains. stately and majestic rows of our affirmation to ourselves and our children and our planet that we will always be here--stewards of all.

until then, palin and steele and kennedy and kerry alike, you can all kiss my green-powered ass.

spill baby spill

i've been scouring the net today, looking for fresh quotes from michael steele and sarah palin on the deepwater horizon situation, but so far i haven't turned up anything. if anybody happens to find one, i'd be ever so grateful for the link. i'm quite sure these are gonna be good.

drill baby drill

the exxon valdez spilled 11,000 gallons of oil into prince william sound. the accidental (we assume) explosion and sinking of the deepwater horizon drilling rig 50 miles off the coast of louisiana is estimated to have the potential to let loose over 100,000 gallons of oil in the gulf of mexico before a relief well can be drilled to offset the pressure. (kinda tough to cap something that far under water). that means 9 times the oil spilled across an area uncounted-times more populated and economically vulnerable. (we don't even have to worry about the shore birds to see the potential for catastrophe with this one--lets talk about entire fishing and shellfish industries and all related livelihoods wiped out just for starters).

we require somewhere around 20M barrels of oil per day here in the US to feed our habit, and we end up importing well over half that amount because we can't possibly produce enough here to satisfy all that demand. that imbalance is the bedrock foundation of our burgeoning trade and currency imbalance, pursuant national debt crisis, and our security/terrorism nightmare in the middle east that's now coming home to roost.

so--you tell me: do we drill, baby drill, as has been suggested, to reduce our deficit consumption of crude oil from over 12M barrels a day to, say, 10M barrels a day? does that fundamentally change the math when it comes to us becoming terrorist-targeted indentured servants to oil producing nations living in a toxic wasteland of energy-related mishaps like this rig sinking?

t boone pickens has a plan. expecting immediate knee-jerk resistance from anyone and everyone who hates even the whiff of anything remotely in agreement with anything al gore has ever said, i offer to you that pickens is also a red state poster boy (e.g. he backed the swift boat veterans against john kerry right to the end), and put $250K of his own money (the federal maximum) into geo dubya bush's last candidacy, among many other right-defining good ole boy american things. (apologies to anyone who dislikes the term, but this-a here boy has earned it from where i'm standing). pickens has stated squarely that we must change our energy production and consumption infrastructure, and CAN change our energy production and consumption infrastructure fairly easily by harnessing things like the winds that regularly blow across our american plains. the best part? the stimulus effect of funding all the infrastructure work (power generation and transmission facilities, etc.) happens squarely in the economic regions of this country that need it most, while satisfying the energy needs of the areas of this country that use it best. win win. (and win because it reduces our vulnerability to terrorism, too).

so why are we ALL not talking more about this???

the pickens plan is one of the most patriotic manifestos i believe i have ever read, and i'm proud to be a supporter. read it. think about it. and put aside red and blue, because this is one of those things that is brightly red white and blue.

kids these days

the song title motif for this one would be "baba o'riley" (you know--"teenage wasteland").

i was raised in a time where kids were raised on "no". perhaps not as draconian a time as when our parents were raised, which might be best characterized by the word "never", but pretty conservative when it came to most things nonetheless. and so we bided our time, planning our first beers and our first smokes and our first joy rides in the anticipation of finally living free and being able to enjoy life to its fullest. show a kid from my old neighborhood some white water, and just see how fast something would be cobbled out of the closet/basement/garage to navigate it.

so when i said, "hey, let's go white water rafting" the other day, i was at least expecting a head nod to go with the "whatever", hiding some sort of eagerness for the opportunity...

kids these days.

"isn't that dangerous, dad?"

HUH???

YES, IT'S DANGEROUS!!! THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT!!!

it's also thrilling and exhilarating and life-affirming in a way that video games will never be.

so what's with the "isn't that dangerous, dad"???

it's been rankling me that i might (do) have some blame to bear for it all, it being my own child giving me the "let's be careful" speech, but i'm coming to peace with the truth that our world raises many of our kids (the ones not shooting each other for drugs) to be cautious. after all, their priests are molesters, their politicians often equally preposterously hypocritical and morally vile, and their parents never gave them as much of a wall to push back against. all our faults...

i'm thinking all i can do is continue taking them rafting and skiing and rock and rolling (the lineup for the summer concerts down at boardinghouse park this year is awesome) and all the things i had to fight to do, (LOVED it last night during one of the breaks in the bruins game when the PA was blasting the beastie boys' "you gotta fight"), so that they'll have a broad palette of experiences from which to paint the rest of their lives. it won't disappoint me if they don't choose the same way i have, but it will disappoint me if they keep up the "isn't that dangerous" (or "against the rules" or whatever) excuses.

gotta go for it. that much i've learned. let's see if there's time left to teach them.

i feel the earth... move... under my feet

last night my world was rockin' (and a-rollin') and it all started with a serendipitous opportunity to bag B's playoff tickets 15 rows directly behind the goal where boston shoots twice (and scores three times--go bruins!) and immediately on the aisle next to the exit next to the beer concession, where during the tv timeouts one could hop up, snag a couple of beers, and be back in ones seat before the next puck dropped. (if you ever need tickets for anything anywhere, i have your connection--just ask me and i'll give you his number). the b's rewarded my good fortune by coming out hitting, putting pucks into nets, and killing penalties like you see once in a blue hockey moon. (buffalo did not score a single powerplay goal during the entire series). this is all, of course, built upon the rock-solid foundation of the best goalie in the national hockey league, and, hence, the world--tuukka rask.

you know that arena chant that generally goes "here we go bruins, here we go", followed by two claps? well, it doesn't exist anymore. no, this chant has been upgraded and replaced by the new one which goes: "HERE WE GO BRUINS, HERE WE GO--TUU-KKA!" and, let me tell you, it sounds AWESOME. best hockey crowd i've sat among since the old garden. (i wasn't there this past monday, which would seem by all accounts to have been even better, which i have to say, based on last night would make it old-garden-amazing, but we all worked yesterday, and weren't drinking since the shot heard round the world at 6am like the prior monday, so we get an asterisk for that). awesome.

but i will tell you two things that aren't so awesome. (no, i will not tell you about the giveaways that led to buffalo's first two goals last night, but those do earn honorable mentions in the not-so-awesome sweepstakes). the two things that aren't so awesome (they're actually pretty bogus to an extreme degree, but i'm trying to keep things positive here) are the twin cities of cambridge and somerville.

let me be the first to posit and prove to you that these are the two lamest cities in the commonwealth of massachusetts.

to wit: last night, me and 17,565 (well, 17,564 because i did see one guy in a sabres sweater) delirious bruins fans spilled out of the td garden chanting "here we go bruins, here we go" (TUU-KKA) and "let's go bruins" and a whole bunch of other euphoric crowd affirmations of having been the proverbial seventh player for the dismissal of the woebegotten buffalo sabres in game six of the first round nhl playoffs. nothing like it. (the b's haven't clinched a playoff series at home since '99--i looked it up). and the first thousand fans peeled off to wait for the commuter rail, and the next thousand fans peeled off to go to their cars in the parking garage but there was still a throng so thick you could have walked on it spilling down into the north station T stop cheering and high-fiving and generally loving life. "let's go bruins!" and another thousand take the orange line, and there are still an amazing throng packing into the green line trolleys like so many blissed-out sardines. "let's go bruins". and at park street the thousand red line folks spill out, still euphoric, still talking up the great win, and we head for the stairs...

nine hundred ninety-nine happy blissful bruins fans tumble down the stairs to the ashmont line... and there i am, alone, on the red line platform to head north to the cultural wasteland that is... cambridge and somerville.

well, not completely alone, because there are various knots of people wearing strange things and showing off their curious personal grooming predilections, but not one single bruins fan among them. no, i am the only one... me and my throwback bobby orr jersey ("he shoots he scores!") and bruins cap, patiently waiting for a train. somebody is going to have to head up there and drop the gloves on these people, and punch some sense into 'em. lots of book learnin', but not one lick of sense. ell. ay. em. ee.

*exhale*

BUT!!!

there are redeeming glimmers of hope among the masses of un-hockey'd lameness, and ground zero for these is immediately in front of the stage at toad.

monday night. jen kearney and the lost onion. (pete maclean, who was KICKIN' it last night even more than he usually kicks it, which is A TON, claire finley, whose guacamole is aphrodisiac-good, and that's even before you get a look at her blonde locks cascading over her beautiful face, carl johnson, who can move things with his mind, including the minds and bodies of a hundred bar patrons, and mark mullins, whose solos were straight at the seat where i was sitting, which, i have to recommend to you, is the best seat in the house). goodness.

AND!!!

i was given the answer this morning to a question which gave me one of the best night's sleep i've ever had, which is "boob quake day".

jen kearney was resplendent last night. her keys were mixed front and center, which is AWESOME, and i don't think i've seen a happier or prouder band leader ever. that is to say, EVAH. and she looked sooooo good. like, so good, that even the women i was sitting with were starting to peel off extra layers of clothing and exclaiming about how hot it was in the place. (i won't say more in defense of their modesty, but lets just say the subject of gay marriage was broached more than once). and the dress jen was wearing... you could buy a thousand fashion mags and never see a woman who looked better in any other. and now we all know why.

iranian cleric hojatoleslam kazem sedighi (i am not making this up) declared that women (specifically!) were causing all of the present world's ills, including shifts among the tectonic plates that cause earthquakes, by displaying too much decolletage. so a bunch of scientific folks immediately (purely in the interests of science!) declared yesterday "boob quake day", and encouraged as many women as possible to accentuate as much breast as possible, to study whether or not this would have an earth-shaking effect.

well, i'm here to tell you, hojatoleslam called it--the world was ROCKED last night, and rocked but GOOD in all the best ways.

bruins win.
jklo rocks toad.
and let's just say i woke up still dreaming about how beautiful life can be.

it just doesn't get any better than this!

take me to the river

zoar outdoor, in cooperation with the lowell land trust, runs white water rafting trips down the concord river into downtown lowell every saturday and sunday in the spring while the water is running high, and the rapids (three sets of 'em on the trip, and they take you through them all twice) are category III and IV. (which is to say, pretty awesome). you can even charter yourself a trip on a friday if you come with 11 other friends...

i took the 25% off deal offered via the lowell land trust, and spent the afternoon today running rapids, surfing rapids, (if you've never, you need to try it--it's the coolest thing on the river), and floating lazily down the old mill stream into downtown lowell in the bright spring sunshine.

you can't beat this--you start at the hotel (now known as the lowell conference center) and you end at the hotel, complete (if the river is cooperating) with a trip up through the locks so you just step out of the boat and into the hotel to check out the photos that zoar thoughtfully takes of everybody's afternoon running the river. the water is warm (relatively, thanks to the concord running from south to north and not being fed by snow melt) and the guides are top-notch and well-versed on the ins and outs of the river and all its fun spots. our guide, gary, was an ace at tucking the nose of the boat back up under the falls of the rapids from underneath, and pinning the boat there via the back-current caused by the crashing wall of water coming down on everything including the front of the boat. yep, you get soaked, and, yep, you love every second of it. and you just stick there, surfing on the swell, in a singular moment of WOW that can't be fully described until you get there.

so get there!

they've got the boats and the paddles and the wet suits and the pfd's (personal flotation devices, yo) and the helmets (all very comfy) and everything you need other than some waterproof underwear. (did i mention that you get wet?) today was so warm i went out in shorts and bare feet (in the handy little neoprene boots they supply) and simply put a waterproof jacket (again, one of theirs) over an underarmor-style t-shirt and i was loving life all the way. my 16 year old was loving life all the way, too. (we'll write more about the differences between kids today and yesterday in another installment, maybe tomorrow--kids today aren't like kids yesterday, and i can prove it).

well worth the price (regularly $80, but $60 after the discount, plus the $20 i gladly flipped to "flippy mcveigh" for his awesome job making the afternoon something to remember. (gary's nickname, and he can explain it to you when you take your trip). no, you can't afford to go out and do this every weekend, but i'm already budgeting for spring 2011, and i'm gonna go the second the ice clears and the water is at its highest, the cold weather be damned. (they've got wet suits if you need them, remember?) this is a blast, and an incredible way to see an incredible city.

isn't it (not) ironic

over 20 years ago, i shacked up with a woman (who was ironically eventually to become my ex) in a pleasant little house in a pleasant little neighborhood right next door to a very nice guy and his wife (who was ironically eventually to become HIS ex) and lived very happily for that time and place. the reason i remember it all so clearly is that on warm spring or summers days, not unlike today, when all the windows were open, you could hear her (his her, not mine) literally shrieking at him over every little thing you could imagine. some days it was because he woke her up in the morning going out to his workshop. other days it was because he woke her up in the evening coming back in from his workshop. (she passed out drunk a lot). but on all the days, the curious consistency was that we never heard a single word he said. her shrieking was as clearly audible as if she had been shrieking it right into our ears all the way across the two lawns, but he never raised his voice, or, god forbid a hand, or held it against her, let alone throw her out. (something even then had occurred to me might have been a better way to live, but let's not digress or skip forward too quickly here).

anyway, fast forward 20 years, and i had reason today to avail myself of my old neighbor's unique and extremely valuable skills, (i won't give away the details, but lets just say the work he did for me 20 years ago only this week turned up in need of an update, and that's pretty remarkable), and i drove to see him in his new shop. it's his new shop, because the old one out behind his old house was lost in the process of his divorce. the woman (ok, i'll say it--the drunk) who had never worked, never contributed dollar one to the "marriage", and who had never treated him with any visible amount of respect, had decided one day to take up with her old HS beau (where have i heard that one before?) and get her divorce, courtesy of a divorce shark, i mean lawyer, who had no hesitation to use the draconian massachusetts divorce statutes against a man who had, in all evidence, been nothing but good to her. she got all of her half, and then some, (no word on whether or not she ever used the phrase "but what if it isn't enough", but some things are just too painful to ask), and made good and sure she insulted him again when, and this is the part that i actually wanted to tell you about, he remarried and had a child.

i LOVE happy endings. my life is one, in case you hadn't figured it out, and i like to collect stories of others, too. my old neighbor has none of his retirement savings, and none of his interest in his old house and shop, but he has his business, a woman who loves him (and didn't yell at him even once the entire time i was there) and a child on whom to lavish his better life example. you can see it in his eyes when he talks to you--he's happy. oh, not so happy that he won't tell an old neighbor a few of the stories, but such is the way that old divorced guys often spend their sunny spring afternoons.

funny how often it works out this way...

what facebook is good for

a friend on facebook shared a photograph of the "opening soon" sign on the front of what was once and will be once again "brian's ivy hall". not having been downtown in the days of the original ivy hall, i can only accept on good word that brian's was a veritable "three floors of whores", where, as another facebooker once suggested, "the first 50 guys through the door got punched, and the first 50 girls got VD". (i'm not making this up--it's what they said).

for all the grief i might endure from holdout friends about my facebook habits, this right here makes every moment on the site worthwhile. where else are you gonna learn information like this!

as my contribution to the discourse, and what these poor folks likely do not realize, the "floors of whores" gag goes back a long way farther than DTL in the 90's. (or whenever brian's was in its heyday). when i was first travelling the world shilling software for a living, i had the privilege to be introduced to the proud city state that is singapore, and all its varied glories. (seafood straight from the fishtank to your table not least among them).

well, back in the day, (we're talking the mid 70's here, peeps), on the corner of orchard and claymore, (i had to look the claymore part up--memory ain't what it used to be), a high-rise office building was constructed in the shining city of singapore whose first four floors were dedicated to hedonism and the best in international bar culture. by the time i was first introduced fiften years after that, it had already attained its iconic international status as "four floors of whores", which, i hope you will all agree, sounds much more poetic and promising than anything sporting only a mere three. the original "three", i'm positing, was directly across the street in the "country jamboree bar & saloon", (since relocated to within the "four floors of whores", if i'm not mistaken), which occupied three floors (and supplied all it's own whores) all by itself. those were the days.

i'm actually impressed that lowell had its own version running back in the 90's, as the concept is a real winner. or, at least i think it is, from what little i can recall...

reality, as usual, one--bureaucrats, as usual, zero

thanks to a tip a few weeks ago over at gerry nutter's lowell blog, i've been watching with interest the state's plan to subsidize the purchase of replacement dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers and clothes washers with some federal funds set aside for the purpose.

here's the line from yesterday's globe: "state officials say they are ready to handle an onslaught of shoppers seeking their share of the $6 million allocation for appliance rebates that massachusetts received as part of the 2009 federal stimulus bill."

further on: "massachusetts has set up a 50-person telephone call center and a website, www.masssave.com/residential, to accomodate 5,000 visitors at once. 'we overbuilt the system to accommodate what we believe the demand will be', said robert keough, spokesman for the state office of energy and environmental affairs. 'we think we are poised to have a very successful program'.

well, what i'd first like to know is who and under which administration was robert keough, and the rest of the proverbial "we", appointed, because they most certainly were not ready, and it's a complete cluster fuck. (like i said, the language here is exactly what is in regular use by my 13 year old daughter--it's not me, it's her).

it would be funnier if it wasn't so sad.

all this talk of casinos and public-sponsored gambling, and not one of these yahoos has ever (apparently) considered a lottery, where everyone registers their interest in a nice, leisurely fashion, and then a fair and random process determines who gets the goodies. no, instead we get to see whose telephone re-dialing skills and or persistence hitting "refresh" on their web browser is luckiest, while 50 patronage hires screw up the phone bank and the state's puny little web servers catch fire.

too funny.

deval, if you're listening, i'd like a new dishwasher and refrigerator, cuz these thirty-year-old clunkers in my apartment are wheezing their last wheezes, and i could really use some new ones. i know you're not, but i just like to pretend. kinda like mr. keough and the state office of energy and environmental affairs.

ice hockey

i postulated to a friend recently that ice hockey is the king of team sports. the rationale goes something like this:

in football, baseball, soccer, basketball and almost every other team sport you can name, you put your absolutely best on the field or pitch or court, and they battle their opponents' best for supremacy. some, like baseball, build the entire drama from one-on-one battles. (pitcher vs batter). others, like basketball, sprinkle in a little roll with their picks, and it becomes a "team" effort on that sense, but you can never get away from the star player with the ball in their hands. (or the bat, or what have you).

in ice hockey, despite what the marketing not-so-geniuses at the nhl and versus are trying to sell us with sid-the-kid and ay-oh, the overwhelming majority of the game, with the possible exceptions of the goaltenders, to which we will get to in a moment, is played with your best players ON THE BENCH. that's right. on the bench. skating being as draining a physical activity as it is, a human body can barely manage over a minute of full-out exertion before it simply stops working. the lactic acid in the muscles builds to where they simply won't go anymore. and the skater has to return to the bench to recover, while his teammates skate in his place. (forgive the sexism in the pronouns, but, at its best, ice hockey is still a man's game, and there's no two ways about that).

recovery time being what it is, and the exertion necessary to compete for a full sixty minutes, (or almost 85, as the case may be, but, as i said about the goaltenders, we will get to that in a minute), there are actually a minimum of three full sets of players necessary to rotate to manage a game, and usually FOUR. that's right, for entire stretches of an ice hockey game, the fourth best players at any one position (be patient for the goalies, i promise we'll get there) are necessarily carrying their team on the ice, to win or lose. in fact, unlike any other team sport, ice hockey requires that the team succeed or fail upon the efforts of the least player on the bench. there is nothing like it.

so it is, last night, that the buffalo sabres and the boston bruins went through two overtime periods (and not those wuss regular-season 5 minute 4-on-4 overtimes, either, but the real thing--20 minute periods with the zamboni-cleared ice and everything) to decide who was going to win the game. each team's best player (vanek for the sabres, savard for the bruins) was in the press box watching in street clothes from injuries sustained on the ice in previous contests. each teams "farm" system was tested, (buffalo's latest call-up assisted on their first goal), and on the slightest of margins, or, perhaps, the preponderance of complete team heart and soul, the boston bruins found the back of the net once more than did buffalo.

one of the best hockey games i have ever had the privilege to see.

the irony of the effort was that it was the two goaltenders that made it so. the only players to stand on the ice for the entire game, (it's such an old saying that it'd be impossible to know who said it first--"they shouldn't call the game hockey, they should call it goalie"), tuukka rask and ryan miller put on a twin display of netminding as has rarely been seen in the history of the sport. each laid out at a full length dive back across the nets to knock aside sure goals. each turned away so many glittering chances (breakaways, tips, point blank shots, etc. etc. etc.) that it made you realize that only a brilliant skating play would ever have the chance to finish things...

and there is was. michael ryder, cast out of montreal, otherwise (wrongly) believed as ice hockey mecca and eden combined, and silent for so much of the regular season, striding with purpose and feint through the buffalo defense to where he could wheel back and survey the entire sheet of ice... the buffalo defense so surely clamped down upon every boston skater going to the net.... except the one...

miro satan, (that's his name, i would not make this up), 36 year old slovak who had six times led the buffalo sabres in scoring, but who was not even offered a contract or a chance to try out with the club after the lockout in '05, was skating to the center of the ice well in front of miller, and received one of those team-game passes that make you want to cry for how perfect it is, and did of which only so few people are capable, and declined to take that seemingly necessary shot. everyone in the garden rose to see him shoot, and he did not. everyone in sabre white and blue and yellow strode out to meet him to try to throw their bodies in front of the shot he would not take, and when he pulled the puck back and continued to glide across the front of goal, it was like the red sea parting, and we all could finally see what miroslav obviously always knew he would see--the wide gaping maw of ryan miller's nets, wide open and unguarded, because ryan miller did what he always does, and moves out to where he can't miss blocking the shot... the shot that miro satan, for all his teammates and for all the marbles, would not take.

and then miro simply glided to where he could slide the puck easily into the hole right there in the heart of all buffalo fandom, and the deed was finally done.

the bruins mobbed miro and michael, but we all knew what we had seen. we had seen two individuals take over a team game, and make it special.

two U's, two K's, tuukka.

watching ay-oh's shots on the replays while he was kicking the crap out of the perennially over-rated and over-hyped montreal canadians, you realize that nobody, not even sid-the-kid, shoots 'em like that. so hard. so fast. so blinding in their speed and accuracy that you can only conclude and believe that nobody can stop them... except one man.

tuukka and the 18th, 17th, 16th, 15th and 14th-best players on the bruins roster are, if they can possibly earn it, going to stand on the ice (you heard it here first--montreal and buffalo are DONE, and pittsburgh sure as shootin' ain't all that) and we're going to (if there are truly any hockey gods) see the irresistible force meet the immovable object in the supreme team sport anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

ice hockey rules.

sublimity

tuesday night, elvis costello (in front of the sugarcanes) pulled out "what's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding" from the back of the songbook, and the entire orpheum theater sang along. it was a singular moment of sublime connectedness, between past, present, future, and every human being standing together there as one. unforgettable.

as I walk through
this wicked world
searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity
i ask myself
is all hope lost
is there only pain and hatred, and misery

and each time I feel like this inside
there's one thing I wanna know
what's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
oh
what's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

and as I walked on
through troubled times
my spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
so where are the strong
and who are the trusted
and where is the harmony
sweet harmony

cuz each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry
what's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
oh
what's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

so where are the strong
and who are the trusted
and where is the harmony
sweet harmony

cuz each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry
what's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
ohhhh
what's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
oh-oh-oh-oh
what's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

TTUUKKAA!!

WOW

so it's 9:45 or so, and we're fresh from some amazing music courtesy of elvis costello at the orpheum, and we're strolling into the bar at the oceanaire for a short one before hopping the train home. jason varitek is on the screen, batting in the bottom of the eighth of a predictably texas-favored 6-4 score. nine texas rangers have stolen bases already tonight. it's not ending well...

jason, as has been his habit this year, scorches one, and it finds its way so far into the left field corner that even jason can leg it into a double. it's interesting, but it's hardly worth getting excited about, there being only three outs allotted in an inning, and scutaro and drew (a combined o-fer eight) coming up soon to erase the next batter even if he were to be lucky enough to make base.

except this isn't just any next batter: this is darnell mcdonald, at career 149 at-bat 32-year-old "prospect" from pawtucket, bused up to fenway for the evening in the wake of jacoby's new IR status. want to know what this guy is being paid? so do i. because it isn't nearly enough. i know this much--it's not 14 million, the base salary of .133-hitting JD "nancy" drew, who has put far less into his year this year than darnell put into two game-saving-and-winning at-bats last night.

i will gladly watch the sox lose 100 games this year, if they put guys like this on the field. guys who come to play. guys who WANT to play. guys who will do ANYTHING to play. guys who, even if they go down swinging, will go down scratching and clawing and giving it everything they've got, because they have nothing to lose.

they need to clean out the clubhouse, and start over. pinch hitting for papi is a start. giving the new guy a chance with the game on this line is even better. maybe some of the old guys, like tek, aren't ready to hang it up, and they're going to come to play, too. that's great. maybe they'll even win a few ballgames, and make it interesting. but, even if they don't, it'll be much better baseball, and i'm all for that.

darnell mcdonald, welcome to boston. a game-saving two run dinger, right there on the tv screen at the oceanaire to put the icing on the delicious layer cake who is elvis costello, and then a bottom-of-the-ninth wall ball to seal the deal. it makes baseball worth watching again. thanks, darnell.

best bargain in music anywhere

today amiestreet.com is offering to give you half off the best music prices anywhere, making today THE day to finally check them out. remember the other day when i pointed out you could get the entire incredible casuals catalog for just a little over $10? well, today that catalog is priced at just a little over $12, AND, if you go for their 2-for-1 pricing deal today, that whole pile of GREAT music can be yours for pennies over $6. there is no better bargain on music to be had anywhere, anytime.

AND

the best part? amiestreet shares seventy cents out of every dollar directly with the artist, so instead of being lucky to net fifty cents off a retail CD, that six bucks you spent to grab six CD's benefits the artist over four bucks. everybody wins. (except the big record companies, who never did much for music or musicians anyway, so nothing to worry about there at all).

AND

when you purchase music and fall in love with a new artist (as i have done from amiestreet with amy speace, populuxe, robinella, the star spangles, dan tharp, the prices on their songs go up to match the interest, and they start to make even more money.

but the real glory of amiestreet isn't the money, it's the exposure. when music starts free, anybody who has a curiosity can check it out. i likely never would have fallen in love with any of these artists at $15 a CD, because i wouldn't have been able to afford to check them out. (for every one with whom i've fallen in love, you know there have been others who didn't quite hit the same musical spot, but that's the beauty of the way amiestreet.com pricing works--you can afford to sample so many more artists, to find the ones who really speak to YOU).

rob shapiro of populuxe has a new project these days called "town and country". you can hear samples of their citified country magic on myspace, (i like "the smile he took away" a lot), and i, for one, and hoping that soon we'll all be able to get our own personal copy of the fun on amiestreet. and, hey, even if we can't, we still know we like rob (who are we kidding--we LOVE rob) and that gives us the confidence to be a purchasing fan no matter what the means given to us.

music is connecting musicians with people, and amiestreet.com does it just about as well as anything ever invented. even if you can't keep up with me in going to see it all live, (treat her right on sunday, jen kearney and the lost onion on monday, elvis costello and the sugarcanes on tuesday, and so it goes), you can still get a piece of it all for your very own.

GET IT!

tuukka

tuukka

i just like writing it.

tuukka

i also like the way vladdy sobotka is playing like it matters.

just like buddy holly wrote it so many years ago, it's so easy to fall in love.

i finally get it

you know how, every year, you always wanting to be rooting down the stretch for your favorite team to beat out the yankees for first place in the division? well, i finally get it.

after sweeping 4 straight from the sox (you don't think i know how today's game ends?) the tampa bay rays are right up there for the division lead. couldn't have done it without help from our sox, either.

so there IS something to feel good about this weekend, after all.

a team you can love--is that too much to ask?

there have been sox teams who have sucked in my lifetime, but few are as poorly-deserving as the present bunch. even while the bruins were handing a couple of easy goals to the sabres in yesterday's first period, (which, don't get me wrong, was a soul-crushing experience), i couldn't help but root for all those kids playing way over their heads. (which made the victory all the sweeter).

when these sox win, (which hasn't been often), it's cheerless. when they hand over the game, game after game, with poor play and absent hustle, to teams that merely have to show up to take them, it's a feeling more akin to shame than to anything else--shame that our support pays the bills for this extreme unprofessionalism, and shame that we even bothered to tune in.

today, for example, and it's only partway through the seventh inning, the sox infield has failed to turn what my memory suggests are at least four double-play attempts, only catching longoria last inning by luck as much as anything else. (ok, they finally made another one work to end the 7th). on the other hand, we're up to three GIDP in six innings for the sox hitters, and not one sox baserunner has made it to second base yet today. (though, in addition to all those GIDP's, we've had the privilege of watching one of our "big free agent signings" get thrown out by a good six or eight yards on a wall-ball single).

which raises the obvious question, as the baserunner has a complete look at a wall-ball right from the turn at first base, and it's not like it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that there's no way, why we, the fans, are being asked to put up with this.

yeah, yeah, it's early, and they'll have some good stretches later this summer (theoretically, and that's pun-intended) but i really don't know if i'm going to be able to make myself watch that long.

i sincerely hope tuukka rask and the bruins have AT LEAST another series in 'em, cuz i REALLY need to help to get through this summer.

when do the spinners start playing their home games? (the *lowell* spinners, not the boston spinners).

edited to add, after boston miraculously produced baserunners at 2nd and 3rd with only one out in the 7th, and tampa left their infield back to essentially (they were trying to, anyway) concede a run, the next two sox hitters (of course) put the ball nowhere productive, and the runners were left stranded. still 7 zero. pathetic.

since they're linking...

welcome if you're here from a link on dick howe's site looking for my comments on secession, slavery, and the recent observance of "confederate history month". you can scroll down to find the original, but i'll paraphrase here to avoid the potential political agendae:

in my opinion, in our present public school civil war curriculum, the "north" is incorrectly identified as the "good" side without any nuance or explanation beyond north=good, south=slavery=bad. the north, in point of fact, was an almost hopeless mess of indefensible politics, including the president's own party's political platform which specifically stated that slavery was AOK. (especially in the south--just as long as it wasn't allowed to expand into new territories, ostensibly so that the congressional balance of voting power wouldn't be altered).

yes, double yew tee eff.

it's easy to forget, but the emancipation proclamation wasn't given until the waning months of 1862, a good 18 months after fighting had begun at fort sumter, and long after hundreds of thousands of soldiers of BOTH sides had been killed, and it was starting to look as if the north might very well lack the ability to put down the southern secessionists. (and it's easily forgotten, but the emancipation proclamation didn't actually outlaw slavery--it only outlawed it in seceding states--and tough luck to you if you were a slave in kentucky, missouri, maryland or delaware, because you were shit out of luck). it was either a sainted moment in american history, as we all have been taught, or perhaps one of the more cynical moments of political gamesmanship ever seen here or anywhere else for that matter, but, either way, the war was finally put into terms that morally responsible people could understand and get behind, (or out of the way of, as was the necessary result overseas where foreign powers tempted by machiavellian urges to associate with the cotton-producing south had to put them aside lest they be seen by their peoples as morally reprehensible for turning a blind eye to slavery, like, say, the two american governments at war with each other across the atlantic) and the rest, as they say, became history.

so why is there such fear up north of anyone re-opening this can of worms? i think the points above somewhat stand for themselves.

of course, as is usually the case when arguing shades of gray, (pun intended), there's usually a pot or kettle a little bit blacker than the other, (pun also intended), and all this can in no way explain or excuse why the governor of the miscreant state of mississippi would refer to the issue of slavery as an inconsequential "nit". as quoted below, and will be here again from alexander hamilton stevens, vice president of the confederacy, from his "cornerstone speech" in savannah, georgia on the eve of the american civil war, the "cornerstone" of the confederacy WAS (and will always be) the institution of slavery:

"[thomas jefferson's] ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. they rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. this was an error. ... our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner–stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition."

it's no nit that confederate history IS slavery.

it's just that, to me, and also no nit, though rarely covered in our public schools, that the business of slavery is the history of this whole united states, south AND north, and abraham lincoln was originally little more than a political opportunist who was left with little choice but to (FINALLY) turn the american civil war into a referendum on slavery, when it was begun and fought for 18 months on a simple argument of states rights and self-determination.

why is it so hard for us all to admit this?

personally, whenever we get on our moral high-horse with foreign governments over their treatment of their citizens, i get a nauseous knot in the pit of my stomach to think about what they really must think about us, knowing as they likely do that we're barely 150 years from government-endorsed slavery. (and less than 70 from sending entire segments of our population to internment camps without due process or recourse, as we did with japanese americans in '42 and beyond).

not for nothing, but only one nation in this world has ever dropped a nuclear weapon in anger, and that nation is, yes, virginia, US. (another pun).

we need to remember the truth of where we've come from. the north more than tolerated slavery as surely as we have a son of an african in our oval office. our founding fathers owned slaves. our civil war wasn't fought, sorry to tell you, to end slavery. (until its end). it was fought to preserve the union. we did the right thing as much by accident and political necessity as anything else.

we need to LEARN from this, not let it stand without examination. and, it's absolutely true that if the south had not seceded, it's entirely likely to the point of indisputable fact that the north never would have outlawed slavery when and in the way that it did. (makes you wonder how long the practice would have survived).

so, count me among those who WANT confederate history to be more fully told. (just not just lied about as is being done by both north and south in this very important kerfuffle).

GO BRUINS

this right here (CLICK THE LINK) needs to be playing LOUD in the bruins locker room RIGHT NOW--

GO BRUINS

party responsibly

liquor companies advertise this way--why don't political partisans?

bill clinton stirred some tea party thin-skins by discussing the causes of political violence, and i don't think he made his point nearly well enough to get it through some tea party thick heads if resulting rhetoric is any indication.

bill's point about tea parties: the original boston tea party on december 16th, 1773 was a protest against taxation without representation. (for the reading comprehension challenged i'll emphasize for bill and repeat WITHOUT REPRESENTATION). it took place in a time and place where action was required because there was no alternative. there was no representative political process in massachusetts in 1773. there was no redress of grievances without violence. ("ense petit placidam, sub libertete quietem").

but bill's larger point, that words do matter, was that we're living in a time where we have earned the right AND THE RESPONSIBILITY to settle our differences politically--not violently. people using violent language DO have an impact on the kooks among us, (and the kook Clinton referenced directly was Timmy McVeigh, not anybody even remotely related to tea parties), and not taking responsibility for that is, literally, irresponsible.

VOTE, idiots.

that's what i say.

all these rallies? they should be about VOTING. isaac davis and abner hosmer gave their lives so we can. so lets.

VOTE.

and save the violent trash talk for the NHL hockey playoffs.

go bruins.

on the eighteenth of april in '75

no clearer lesson on the cluelessness of federal government exists beyond our lack of a national holiday commemorating the day when farmers and family men like isaac davis and abner hosner resolved to raise themselves to define and win for the rest of us abraham lincoln's "last best hope of earth".

"ense petit placidam, sub libertete quietem" is the motto quickly adopted by the massachusetts general court to define the spirit of the day: we seek peace by the sword, and peace only with liberty.



"the regulars are out"

public service announcement

because of the unique way amiestreet.com prices their music, and as long as you'll be one of the first to get on board, for a limited time only there are FREE downloads of incredible casuals live and studio recordings there for the asking.

of course, being the fan that i am, i've also sprung for everything else in their catalog available there, which has basically cost me a grand total of around ten bucks, and i could not be happier. (my ipod couldn't be happier, too). you really should check it out--really.

and then you can tell me if you disagree that rikki bates is the realest deal you've heard in a long time. (right now i'm listening to "love gets breakfast", and i'm yet again being blown away).

GET IT!

casual not

casual, not--my past few days have been spent in earnest pursuit of what rob tannenbaum of rolling stone has called "catchy riffs, twisted lyrics, and enough sloppy enthusiasm to restore one's faith in power pop", or, as is more colloquially known, the incredible casuals.

the quest began last week in a basement room in cambridge from the moment i heard rikki bates kicking out the jams behind chandler travis, dinty childs and steve woods. (not the incredible casuals, exactly, but close enough for horseshoes and fanboy excess). it's extended through the acquisition of a vintage cassette tape of "that's that", (and the associated trek down to a country road in chelmsford to snag a cassette deck on which to play it), and reached its zenith on, where else, amiestreet.com, where a huge portion of the back incredible casuals catalog can be found. (two separate places to go, because the old records were released by two different record companies, so follow them both to get the full experience). actually--i take that back--its zenith was in my mailbox this morning (cuz i didn't bother to get the mail yesterday) when i ripped open the mailer on the latest CD, "nature calls".

i'm a happy, happy twisted riff and sloppy enthusiasm fan this morning.

get yours!

forget i ever said it

awhile back, on another local blog, i commented on some harsh words regarding virginia's proposal to observe "confederate history month". my suggestion, as a proverbial advocate for the devil, was that i did, at times, find certain elments of current public school civil war curriculum to fail (sometimes) to capture what i have learned to be some of the lesser-known nuances of the conflict and its times. (e.g. legitimate questions about the legal extent to federal government power).

well, i take it all back. all of it.

current advocates for the virginia observance of "confederate history month" have proven themselves to be even less interested in those nuances than the black and white "north good, south bad" rhetoric that we've been feeding our kids for decades. (centuries?). there's that guy down in mississippi who declared that the issue of slavery was and is a "nit". and he's just the tip of the ignorant, racist and profoundly dangerous iceberg. (it's too hard to google and link all the incredibly stupid quotes here, and it's late and i'm tired, so i won't even bother, but you can do it yourself--these people are CRAZY).

seriously: the governor of mississipi, haley barbour, in an official interview with candy crowley of cnn, called the issue of slavery a "nit". actually, he said even more than that: "to me, it's a sort of feeling that it's a nit, that it is not significant, that it's ... trying to make a big deal out of something [that] doesn't amount to diddly".

double-yoo

tee

eff

as jon stewart's writers were clever enough to quote from alexander hamilton stevens, vice president of the confederacy, and his "cornerstone speech" in savannah, georgia on the eve of the american civil war, the "cornerstone" of the confederacy WAS (and will always be) the institution of slavery.

in stephens own words:

[thomas jefferson's] ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. they rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. this was an error. ... our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner–stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition."

slavery, adopted at the start of the american civil war as a rallying standard for the confederacy, wasn't, in fact, central to the north's insistence on the union for a remarkable length of time, during which hundreds of thousands of american soldiers of both north and south were killed. in fact, the republican party platform ran upon by abraham lincoln in 1860 specifically stated that slavery was ok in the south, just as long as it wasn't allowed to expand to new territories, and the emancipation proclimation wasn't given until the waning months of 1862, a good 18 months after fighting had begun at fort sumter.

yes, slavery WAS the central premise of the confederacy, and the basic cause of the american civil war--far more than a nit.

seriously, we all could benefit from better public school curriculum that would usefully examine why the politics of our nation were so flexible (that's the most polite adjective i can manage--there are a lot more i might prefer to use) in 1861 that slavery, a declared cornerstone of the confederacy, wouldn't be considered by the north an important enough reason to use federal arms to quell a rebellion. no, these "statesmen", who are credited with doing the right thing by outlawing one of the most heinous human practices in history, were nowhere near as righteous as all that.

but compared with the governors of virginia and mississippi today, i guess we can still give them some credit.

waiting for the righty spin on this one

a few days ago, righty gadflies and their blogging sycophants were all in a blather about barack and his pronouncements on nuclear weapons. today, in the AP, we can read a bit more about the practical, as opposed to imagined, consequences of having a reasoned and reality-based nuclear weapons policy.

for those too lazy to read the fine print, or even read the actual news as opposed to the soundbytes, i'll paraphrase: as the 47-country nuclear security summit kicked off yesterday, ukraine has already announced its resolve to rid itself entirely of nuclear bomb-making materials, and china has signed on to work with the US on possible sanctions against iran for its crazed unilateral nuclear saber-rattling. (russia is already on board, along with the european big three, great britain, france and germany). chinese foreign ministry spokesperson jiang yu used the words "dual-track strategy" to add the possibility of sanctions to their previous position of diplomacy alone.

this, to me at least, is big.

i know, to certain beauty contestants, it's all black and white, or red and blue, or whatever, but for myself, at least, i'm encouraged that we have a semblance of sanity in our oval office on at least this one important issue.

props to the mr mill city boys

with the season winding down, and my fantasy boys missing the fantasy league championship by a nose cuz the guy i was up against two weeks ago had danny boyle who played WAY over his head and sunk my team in a heart/tiebreaker, (though i have both tuukka and ilya as keepers for next season, so LOOK OUT), i didn't even think to go out to hockeyfights.com on the basis of this little note buried at the bottom of the last thrashers/pens game: "pittsburgh forward matt cooke left the game 1:59 into the second period after a fight with atlanta's evander kane.". (full story here, but, seriously, that's all there is except the magically delicious footnote that "cooke was getting evaluated to determine if there is any head injuries").

now, bad grammar aside, and excuse from delighting in the misfortunes of others based on karma and the fact that matt cooke even made the huffington post for his utterly cowardly play on the ice, but this here is payback at its bitchiest. nods to the mr mill city boys for making sure i didn't miss it.

i love hockeyfights.com, and not just because my nephew in moose jaw has his own section on the site. (it's a beautiful thing). this here is the way hockey is supposed to be played, believe it or not, and despite what people who don't understand the game might think based on normal civil standards of conduct, it actually used to work well before they started making up all sorts of silly rules about it. think about it: a guy like matt cooke plays like he plays, and a guy like evander kane (who, by the way, is a remarkable skills player in his own right, with 96 points in is last 61 WHL games before making the bigs this season) calls him out, and drops him to the ice like the 10 pounds of s*** in the 5 pound bag that he is, and the problem is solved.

i am so putting evander kane on every single fantasy hockey roster i make from now until i'm too old to push the buttons on the keyboard. if only the bruins would acquire some more guys like this...

i am a fan.

adam ezra group rocks

amiestreet.com may have been where we met, but a little local middle school is where adam ezra group has stood itself out head and shoulders above 99% of the other musicians out there these days for me, and i just have to give props.

i actually didn't get to see adam and his group today, but, rather, i heard everything about it from a flushed and excited 13 year old who was totally turned on by her entire experience. adam and his mates played some of their original stuff, (one i haven't yet heard, called "cover man", which was the hit of the show for my 13 year old), and invited the kids to contribute ideas for lyrics on a composition that will be prepared and delivered for them all on thursday.

what a great contribution from a musician to the community, and what a great way to turn on the next generation of live music fans! i'm pleased more than i can say that my daughter will have the experience to be part of the writing of a song, mostly because of the joy i can see in her for being part of it.

of all the joy today, i was proudest that my 13 year old tried as hard as she could to catch and remember the names of all of the band members, (remembering perfectly all but one, who she preferred to refer to as "scrappy" because of his "casual appearance"), preferring to believe for myself that she's learned that from me--a group may be "adam ezra group", and one of the guys may be adam ezra, but music is magic and it's never all it is without the contributions of all who make it. so, props too to turtle, josh gold, robin vincent soper (hereafter to be known in my house as "scrappy") and chappy for being there with adam to make the magic.

if only more people would be as generous with their music as adam and the group!!!

ps--it was an excuse to put the adam ezra group songs from my ipod onto the car stereo on the way home to shangri-lowell today, which were enjoyed immensely by all, and now she's eagerly ripping all of them onto her 'pod as we speak so she'll have them for herself. i know it's piracy--I KNOW--but i'm not going to let that stand in the way of a young woman becoming a fan. i trust that adam and the group will see it that way too. (besides, as cute as was thought the band, it's entirely likely that such generosity will be repaid may times over in repeat CD and T-shirt sales in a few years at upcoming AEG concerts around the area).

awesome!

salary nonsense

for those who don't know where to find it every year, the usa today provides at least one top-notch journalistic service to the world, and it's their sortable on-line MLB salary database. you can see the total team payroll view here, but don't hesitate to have some fun and do a few sorts and searches of your own. it's amazing what you can find.

myself, i'm struck this year by the presence of the sox in second place on the list, but not because it's an historical surprise, because it's not. what strikes me is that, though you can see exactly where the yankees have invested their $200M, because it's plastered all over their murderer's row of hitting, top flight speed and defense, and why-pay-less pitching staff, it's really hard to figure out how, exactly, these mediocre sox have managed to out-spend the cubbies, phillies and mets based on seeing bill hall as your starting shortstop on sunday. (bill hall, for those not carrying a torch for the milwaukee brewers these past years, is a guy who couldn't even stick on THEIR roster--extremely funny to see him here on ours).

david ortiz, mike lowell and jd drew (a combined $39.5M) are out-earning the complete payrolls of two entire ball clubs, (pittsburgh and san diego), and if you throw in daisuke and mike cameron, you could pass oakland and texas, too. (tell me again why we think theo is so smart???) we'd better hope john lackey is the real deal, because if we'd toss his $18.7M onto the bonfire of our vanity, we'd already be past florida, arizona, cleveland, washington, toronto, kansas city, cincinnatti, and tampa bay, too.

just to put this in perspective, we're talking over 300 players working on teams that are being paid less than a combination of six of the sox least-effective players. (asterisk for lackey, depending on whether the guy from two years ago shows up again, or somebody else). no wonder everybody else in the country both hates us, and enjoys watching us lose more than everybody else who aren't the yankees. could you imagine what tampa bay would be doing with even a fraction of what we waste every year?

not the best time to be a sox fan if you ask me, and a perfect time to be hoping the bruins can go a couple rounds deep into the playoffs in order to shorten things up between now and patriots training camp. (though did you catch zack schilawski' hat trick the other day, and the rev's first two wins of this early season?)

yeah, i'm spoiled, but lets just be serious for a moment and reflect that the sox teams i've loved best in my life have not been the free-agent frankensteins that have dominated the past decade, two world series victories notwithstanding, and it would be kinda nice if the talent could be as homegrown and high quality as the folks down in tampa have not yet learned to love nearly as much as is deserved. youk, petey, jacoby, josh, jon, etc. are the right stuff. adrian and company aren't quite so much. (though you have to love a third baseman with the range to be able to knock jacoby out of a game, even though it's awful to watch jacoby being knocked out of a game).

lucky for me, it's a good day for the convertible, and jen kearney & the lost onion are at toad tonight!

which is your small market underdog favorite this year?

the sox open the twinkies new field today, and it occurs to me that each year i always seem to adopt, as much by accident as anything else, a favorite small-market team to satisfy my jones for underdog baseball. recently i've had it most for the brewers, but these days i seem to tend to like to see a good royals box score as well. (the royals, of course, suck, so it's not like they can satisfy, but i'm just sayin').

this year, especially in light of frank francisco's relief meltdowns which have masked the emergence of a very interesting team, i'm feeling the tug a little bit for the rangers, and not just a little bit because their closer-in-waiting, neftali feliz, is on my fantasy baseball roster. i only wish the rays weren't in the AL east, because, except for that, i think i'd be on the bus for them as well. heck, let's be serious--i think i AM on the bus for them, cuz, let's face it, the sox are missing the playoffs this year and we're gonna need to pull for SOMEBODY to take down those $200M yankees.

if it can't be the $55M rangers, why shouldn't it be the $71M rays.

'til then, don't forget the $71M reds!

dare i?

first of all, let me get it out of the way to say that i'm a rank beginner on any and all of the instruments i (truly cannot) play, and this isn't at all about that. but for my birthday awhile back, if you recall, i rewarded myself with some new instruments, and i have to say, able to play them or not, they've been the most rewarding gift to myself i've ever made. (divorce included).

music is joy to me, and being able to begin to make any sort of my own, no matter how inarticulate and otherwise embarrassing, is one of those gifts i believe proves, to me at least, the existence of a supreme being. (if you don't yet believe, all i can recommend is that you get yourself an instrument whose sound you enjoy, and just start playing with it).

anyway

along with my yamaha fg700s, gretsch electromatic and kala tenor uke, (all upgraded and set up by the estimable mr carl johnson of carl's custom guitars, which makes 'em light years better than just any yamaha fg700s, gretsch electromatic and kala tenor uke, btw), i hung onto an old peavey predator electric guitar that's been kicking around my closet along with echoes of the ex complaining about how much it pained her to have to listen to me not being able to play it--which reminds me to remind you that you should never stay with someone who thinks let alone says things like that, even if you truly do play like crap, because that kind of joy-killing BS has no place in a relationship, but i digress...

anyway

the peavey was originally deemed to be part of the spring cleaning and posted on craigslist for sale, along with the matching peavey bandit 65w solid state amp, (see prior posts as to the amazing advantages of tube amperage, and my upgraded-by-carl fender blues jr, but there i go with the digressions again), and a few other various things, but though 65watts of condo-shaking solid state power isn't in either my or my neighbors' best interest, and is squarely among the eager interest of anybody who likes to play really, really loud and has the requisite effects pedals to shape the sound before the bandit blows it through the roof, and gladly sold in a hurry, there's something about an off-name guitar, even at a bargain price, that attracts very little attention, and tugs at the heartstrings of nostalgia of the original owner at the same time. and here's the thing: this here '91 peavey is a decent little (even though inexpensive) guitar. the body is rock hard solid (for great sound) lightweight (for ease on the old man guitar strap and shoulder) strat-style ash, and the neck is a work-of-art maple dream. i mean, and i'm sure better guitar players than me could offer deeper opinions, but this neck is as good as any i've ever had the privilege to play, and that includes a lot of other guitars many times the price of this one.

of course, the tuners are geared a bit high, and aren't as tight as one might like, and i'm thinking there are likely better pickups to be found out there for the kinds of sounds i prefer to pretend i can make, so there's a sore temptation to hang on to the old gal instead of selling her, and seeing just what might be made out of her.

but, dare i?

do new tuners have their screw holes in exactly the same places these originals do? is there anything my little soldering kit here isn't going to do correctly, if i try to swap out a pickup or two? and what if i want humbuckers or something else that doesn't exactly match the ovals in the pickguard? and would i need special glue if i wanted to try a better nut? the switch seems cheesy--are there better ones out there? how about those tone controls? could or should i consider something different to match any new pickups?

i know, i know--the answer is all over the place above--take her to carl's custom guitars and she's gonna wail like nobody's business. but this isn't about wailing, cuz, bang for the buck-wise, i'm sure for the parts and labor to refit this one, i could have carl build me a custom telecaster that i've always wanted that'll sound exactly like i've always wanted, and that's always going to be a "better" guitar.

this one is about her being my first (you always remember your first) and it being within my ability to make something more out of her just for me. then, when the wise guys see her, they'll have to ask where she came from, cuz she'll be one hell of a sweet axe, and like nothing anyone else has.

if only i hadn't set her up just the other day with round-core 10's that are sounding and playing so well right now...

not nearly 'nuff said

the other day, if you might recall, i wrote "tuukka", and " 'nuff said".

well, today, having watched tuukka keep his composure when it seemed possible that all the other guys on the ice in black and gold might not, i have to say, like tim thomas last year, not enough can be said about the kind of goalie who can literally carry a team on his back and into the playoffs. tuukka rask is the real deal, and i for one am looking forward to a competitive bruins team for possibly decades to come. (the kid is barely 23).

a few people will possibly remember this day as being the day that, for the first time in nhl history, a team scored three short-handed goals on the same penalty kill, (which the bruins did to start the second period with matt hunwick in the box, whose name will be important to remember some day as the answer to a trivia question), but the memory for me will be tuukka ("two u's, two k's, two points") holding the fort when carolina finally showed up to play down the stretch.

yes, there are too many breakdowns (and all i need say about that is dennis wideman) to expect the team to be able to go all that far just yet, and it's pretty devastating when you haven't scored on the power play in over 30 chances, but when you have a guy in goal like tuukka rask, all things become possible.

we get one last tune-up against washington tomorrow, and then it's on to buffalo (i think) to get this party started.

GO BRUINS!

red sox shortstop watch

first off, a disclaimer to say that this has absolutely nothing to do with scooter, and i mean that sincerely. the guy is a gamer, and i like him.

BUT

it's become too much fun to make fun of the sox front office shortstop sweepstakes, and i just have to refer you to a few interesting tidbits from this early 2010 baseball season:

alex gonzalez is 5 for 18 with a homer, 3 runs and 5 RBI. (ok, julie lugo is 0 fer 8, and some things are immutable). remember edgar renteria? he's 11 for 16 with a homer, 4 runs and 5 RBI. heck, even orlando cabrera has a dinger already, too. (and alex cora is currently the starting shortstop for the ny mets).

it's all too funny.

even if we're not making the playoffs, at least we can still enjoy the game.

GO BRUINS!!!

right on time

saturday nights i'm still holding out hope, desperate as it may be, that SNL finds a moment to redeem itself between 11:37 and 1am, so i don't tune my tivo in to catch the first-run airings of "a local anesthetic". (the tivo is necessary cuz i'm out, as you can pretty much figure from the ramblings here). so it is that the following saturdays, like christmas, i find on my tivo the replay of the previous week's broadcast from friday night at 11 on comcast channel 95 (cuz i'm out on friday nights too, and, yes it's a weakness) which is right on time, as far as i'm concerned, when the music is as good as it is this week.

first of all--props to the new credit sequence, and the visual shout out to sarah-jane macfarlane, joeg, nicole ribaudo and gus cota who bring us the show each week. (the crew is looking good!). second of all--WOW.

this week's show kicks off (present tense cuz it's on my tivo--past if you missed it--and that's too bad, though you can always come over for a replay...) with the rafters delivering on "don't lose yourself" and "these days", and, i have to say, these are a pair of beautiful songs from some GREAT talent. you just can't see stuff like this just anywhere or just any day, but you CAN see it if you put some eyes and ears on a local anesthetic each week.

now, i hope to be forgiven for not caring much for the next act after the rafters from last night's recording, but, see, that's the beauty of it. a local anesthetic is part MTV, part V66, (cuz it's local, yo), part america's got talent, and part pure gold, and it's also stuff you can appreciate best with your fast-forward button (a lot like SNL) and it's never about, at least for me, watching every second of every broadcast. lets just say i skipped one this time around, and i was very pleased to be able to have the privilege. the next (third) act is/was all nine pieces of the celebration of life that is thunderpants johnson's hillbilly orchestra, and "liver song", "the great ship titanic" and "mr. t" never sounded better. (if you can't love jug band music, you can't love music--that's what i say--and meat loaf also says two out of three ain't bad, and that's a fact).

but it's more than two out of three this week, and the next stuff from the speakermute, audrey can't die, air traffic controller show at gemstones a few weeks back is worth a look and listen. those of you who recall my rants about how abysmal the room is, and was especially that night, can see for yourselves at least a small glimpse of about which i'm talking. it's almost all there--the go go cages, the kitschy LED-lit faux trees, the silly to be almost random light "show", (that rarely actually illuminated the musicians playing), and everything else, but you'll have to take my word for the bottom-heavy to the point of quasi-inaudible sound mix, cuz gus and nicole and sarah-jane (i know they don't trust joe g near the dials) got the feed from the board and did a GREAT job with the sound. (did i tell you it was a GREAT job? it was a GREAT job). like, a job so good, that if i hadn't been there, i'd swear to you the audience could have heard the show, which, having been there, i can tell you for a reliable fact that many if not most in it most assuredly could not. (though, it's fair to say that between renting the AMAZING setup for the carl johnson trio, trick bag, jen kearney & the lost onion show following, and having the PA repaired in time for the most recent green band show, it's much better now). yes, sarah-jane, gus and/or nicole, whoever was mixing this one did a GREAT job.

viewers should be advised not to miss the songs from that show from dave munro and air traffic controller, like "bad axe michigan" (the irony of mixing sound straight from the board, is that you can't appreciate the actual volume and enthusiasm from crowd for their set, because it's almost entirely out of the pickup range of the stage mics, and you'd have had to be there to get the full picture) and speakermute, like "stutter", which prove that even a bad room can't kill rock and roll.

the treat and capstone of the episode is getting more from the rafters ("i'm sorry) to close it out--like edgar renteria going 11 for 16 to start the season, and then capping it all off with a dinger to help san fran win another one. (though a polite heads-up to the hopeful newbie in my fantasy baseball league who just picked him up, that not every wish comes true).

at least, with a local anesthetic, the wish to see the best of lowell live is right there on your tv each and every week.

get it!

JACKPOT!

amos lee, marc cohn, lyle lovett (AND his large band) and robert randolph just got added to the lowell summer music series. this year is lining up to be the best yet!

rikki bates

the most remarkable thing about music, to me, is that it's a *social* art. music communicates and connects people in a way that no other form of art can, because it's fundamentally interactive--it's a conversation between musician and listener, who is, by the best music, literally invited to respond.

for many, the response is, itself, musical, and if you let it, music will connect you from musician to musician until you are discovering something new, exciting and rewarding every day. it started for me when i was a teenager, and i discovered among the fine print on my albums a treasure trove of "appears courtesy of", meaning that a pop weakness for linda ronstadt's voice as a part of the stone poneys could quickly connect me back to my childhood appreciation for the monkees, ("different drum" was written my mike nesmith"), as well as forward to neil young, jackson browne and little feat. (though it doesn't always work--one of her backup configurations literally became the eagles, and i'm with mojo nixon on that one). lowell george (little feat) turned up playing guitar on an etta james record that i found buried in the stacks of a used record store on mass ave outside of harvard square. the connections are endless.

so it is last night that i happily played the degrees of musical separation game to catch everyone who opened for treat her right at the lizard lounge. (after watching tuukka rask shut down the buffalo sabres across the street at the temple bar, natch). walking down the narrow, winding stair to the dark and already-crowded lounge, the first thing to be noticed was the force of what we being put down by the associates of musical mayhem who had arrayed themselves in the center of the room. the euphemism for them that evening was CATBIRD, but chandler travis, dinty childs, steve wood and rikki bates were kicking the crazy out of the place. i mean, KICKIN IT. i've seen dinty childs enough to recognize his musical polymathery, and enough rock and roll bands to appreciate everything that he, chandler and steve were putting down, but i'm here to say that i was blown away by rikki bates, and by that i mean COMPLETELY.

i can tell you who played skins on all my oldest and most favorite records, and most all of the ones since then, too. russ kunkel. (thanks linda!) richie hayward. (get well, richie). steve gadd. roger taylor. john bonham.

john bonham.

john bonham had a way of hitting his kit that was like nothing so much as percussion grenades going off in time to the music. no, strike that. going off to BE the music. one listen to the opening drum line for d'yer mak'er and i was HOOKED. like on crack. rock and roll. the ocean. the list of songs on which bonham shone like a beacon just goes on and on.

so please know that there's something hard-wired in my brain to respond when somebody grabs a beat and explodes it like that. rikki bates, just hacking around with some guys she knows on songs they likely only play out together as that particular group once in a blue moon, if they ever had before, which i don't know, maybe they hadn't, (though, of course, they all knew each other pretty well, which helps), was, to me and my ears, ON IT last night in a way that defies words to describe. i'm an instant fan.

i'm also here to tell you, if you should ever have the good fortune to get to see her as part of the chandler philharmonic, or mascara music, or the incredible casuals, or any of the other combos she plays with down on the cape these days, that you're instantly going to know what i'm talking about when i say that it's likely you've rarely, if ever, seen anything like her before. i walked up to her after the show and got to shake her hand and tell her how much i loved all of it, and i'm always going to remember how completely gracious and appreciative she was that some odd guy off the street down in a basement bar in some small city somewhere might have liked the way she played. until then, here's a sample to wet your whistle.

i'm a fan.

oh! i almost forgot! treat her right was AWESOME.

edited to add, with gracious thanks for the info in the comments, that the missing member of catbird is steve wood. great show!

tuukka

'nuff said

sox stuff

hey--it's obvious mike lowell isn't doing anyone any good on the bench...

how long before tito wakes up and realizes he needs to take advantage and platoon his two classic DH prototypes--one from the right, and one from the left? it's an expensive way to cover four or five at-bats per game, but it sure seems like it'd be a very impressive one.

just saying...

real-post-racial-politik

i'm looking for a rationalization this morning from the democrat readership on this one: "president obama announces recess appointments to key administration positions". and, please note, i'm not looking for diatribes on republican obstructionism, because, if we were to begin to talk about that, we'd need to immediately talk about how reasonable people will be sincerely discouraged this morning that republican obstructionism has failed to do anything about at least one of these appointments right now. yes, before you get all up on your lefty high horse, (if that's your preference), take a closer look at the actual fine print. to wit: islam a. siddiqui has just been named chief agricultural negotiator in the office of the us trade representative.

for those unfamiliar with islam a. siddiqui, perhaps reading this background piece from the centre for global research in canada will help bring everyone up to speed. (i had to go to canada for this, since none of the us media seems interested to cover this, though, i expect, since there are democrats to bash, there's a chance that fox news might consider it, though, of course, since fox news is also in the tank for righty big business concerns, it's not all that big a chance...) yes, our not-black-not-white president, barack obama, has seen fit to hand the keys to the agricultural hen house to one of the most obvious agri-business foxes (is there a pun in there?) that could possibly, in the case of our ecology, be named. yes, virginia, there is an agri-business lobbyist now in charge of negotiating global us policy with agri-business.

for fun, just read a few of the anecdotes in the research center piece. my favorite is how croplife america (the outfit for whom siddiqui previously lobbied) had petitioned the white house to complain how michelle obama wasn't using pesticides in the white house garden...

what's yours?

good news in the sun this morning

the paper of record (nods to the mrmillcity boys) has thoughtfully included a convenient advertising pull-strip overlaying the front page which enables readers to quickly and easily strip out the editorial page without even needing to glance at it.

thanks, lowell sun!

bruins playoff math

(i know you don't care, but *I* do, and who's writing this thing, i ask you)

the bruins stand in the eighth and final playoff spot in the standings this morning, with three games left to play. if they lose all three remaining games, and either the rangers win one and reach overtime in another, (or reach overtime three times in their remaining three games, regardless of not having to win any), or atlanta wins both of their remaining games, they will miss the playoffs.

however!

the flyers, who stand only a single point ahead of the bruins in the standings, and the rangers, who are but three behind, play each other twice at the end of the season, and somebody is obviously going to go home from one or both of those games disappointed.

so!

if the bruins manage to salvage even two points out of their remaining three games, (which would be either one win out of three, or two trips to overtime, even if they lose), the math looks a heck of a lot brighter.

with those two extra points, the bruins are assured of making the playoffs if the rangers stumble even once. and, if the rangers win all three remaining games, that means, necessarily, that philadelphia will have lost both of theirs, and only the odd overtime credit point would be able to harm the bruins in that scenario.

the good news is that if the bruins take care of business and earn three points or more out of their remaining three games, they are all but guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. if they earn four, then they're mathematically guaranteed.

personally, i'm looking forward to watching both of those flyers/rangers tilts, and reveling in the strong likelihood that one of my least favorite teams in the league is going to be going home, crying.

only question i have left is whether it'll be washington or new jersey for the b's in the first round of the playoffs. personally, i'm hoping it's washington, because that overtime loss the other night left an extremely bad taste in my mouth. that there is a beatable team, and these b's have just the right amount of defense and goaltending to be the ones to do it.

go broons!

wake me up when we become "post-racial"

all the white folks (including me!) blogging in lowell this morning seem to want to make it about race. marie over on richardhowe.com is echoing complaints that virginia is insisting on being able to study its own past. cliff over at the right side of lowell is repeating some highly questionable anecdotal arguments that somehow the overwhelmingly white tea party phenomenon can steal a modicum of pan-racial cred because a few dozen folks of color have stumped themselves for the Republican party and a few more have shown up on doorsteps on behalf of the TP's.

well, honestly, i've been disappointed in the (quite literally) black and white characterization of our american civil war to the exclusion of all other gradients of gray (pun intended) which would otherwise serve to illustrate the downside to unrestrained federal power. (substitute "federal" with "confederate", and understand why individuals MUST be empowered to resist their state when their state is morally wrong). and i'm also completely flabbergasted that irresponsible journalists will trumpet an unsupportable racial anecdote when good empirical evidence is readily available to refute it, as if that readily available refutation doesn't exist.

i have a president who is just as white as he is anything else. somehow, however, his "blackness" is being waved around like a medieval mace by BOTH sides, in complete ignorance of the very real threats currently assailing this nation, from both without and within. our economic policies (my black and white president's economic policies, which are eerily similar to those of his white predecessor's) are unsustainable. our international diplomacy, (also apparently authored by the previous administration), accomplished at the point of a sword, has destabilized the world, and made us and many others the target for violence and mayhem. our bigotry on all sides is now religious as much as it remains racial, and their is little end in sight.

MLK's "content of their character" is a much more useful measuring stick. i'm thinking we need to insist on more of that, rather than less.

the vatican doesn't

per angelo sodano, dean of the college of cardinals, "the pope embodies moral truths that aren't accepted, and so, the shortcomings and errors of priests are used as weapons against the church."

yup--the pope embodies a morality that places the interests of his church above the innocence of the children entrusted to it, and, yes, absolutely, the shortcomings and errors of priests (isn't that nice that rape of a child can be conveniently euphemized into "shortcomings and errors") are the cudgels by which those who do NOT believe in a morality that excuses child rape for any reason will defend themselves and those innocent children against that church. it all makes sense to me.

however, i have NO idea how the vatican's rhetoric can possibly be twisted to this degree without causing their heads to explode, but there you have it. the problem perceived by the vatican is being held to account for protecting those who rape children--and they would have it that this "moral truth" should be above any questioning.

rape of children. just once i'd like to hear those words from the lips of one of these dissemblers. maybe you don't, as i do, know someone who has been raped by a priest. maybe you do. but, either way, the silence from the "faithful" is, to me, the coldest and most cruel stroke of all against those who were betrayed, raped and then swept under the rug.

how can you look someone who has lived this terror in the eye, and not speak out against those who continue to refuse to acknowledge the extent of the perfidy and moral corruption--both by the rapists, as well as those complicit in keeping them from answering for their crimes?

if you believe in judgment, i believe you will need to answer for where you stand on this one. the vatican wants to to protect the church above the children. i have a thought that another whom you will eventually meet might see things differently. i, for one, would like to go into that interview with a clearer conscience.