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Bar Chat
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12/28/2006
The Godfather of Soul
UPDATE: Pray the Feds have the goods on Barry Bonds. Keep hope alive! Keep hope alive!
But, Murray Chass of The New York Times had this take on a federal court ruling on Wednesday that allows the Feds to use steroid-test samples seized in 2004 for whatever purposes they see fit related to the BALCO investigation. Aside from Barry Bonds’s name, and those already revealed such as Gary Sheffield’s, many others may now emerge.
“One thought some people had upon hearing the outcome of the government’s appeal was that it could have an adverse effect on Barry Bonds’s status, but that will probably not be so.
“The Bonds speculation stems from the possibility that he tested positive for steroids use in 2003, the year baseball conducted survey testing of all players to determine if testing for disciplinary purposes would ensue in 2004.
“However, even if Bonds tested positive, he would not have known it because the testing was supposed to have been done anonymously. Furthermore, he reportedly told the grand jury investing BALCO for steroids distribution that he didn’t knowingly use steroids. Bonds thought one of the substances was flaxseed oil, he reportedly testified.
“If Bonds tested positive in 2003, the result might make him look worse than he already does, but it wouldn’t help the government prove that he perjured himself with his answers under oath to the grand jury.”
The Major League Players Association could take this case to the United States Supreme Court, if the Supremes will hear it.
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College Basketball Quiz: With Bob Knight preparing to surpass Dean Smith as the winningest college basketball coach (minimum 10 seasons in Division I), name the top ten in victories. Aside from the first two I’ll give you #4, Jim Phelan. Answer below.
James Brown, RIP
How could you not love this guy? I’m just thinking of his performance in “Please, Please, Please” and smiling; perhaps the single greatest routine in rock / R&B history. And as the Reverend Jesse Jackson said, “He was dramatic to the end dying on Christmas Day.”
The Reverend Al Sharpton traveled with Brown in the 1970s and Sharpton’s hairstyle is literally an imitation of Brown’s, the latter having taken Al to his hairdresser one time and forever after Sharpton wore it as a tribute.
“James Brown changed music,” said Sharpton. “What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music. This is a guy who literally changed the music industry. He put everybody on a different beat, a different style of music. He pioneered it.”
Chuck D of Public Enemy once said “To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one’s coming even close.”
Brown was born into poverty in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933, and abandoned by his mother to the care of relatives, including an aunt who ran a brothel, in Augusta, Ga. He served three years in reform school for breaking into cars when he was in the 8th grade, but it was there he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took him in as Brown joined Byrd in his group the Gospel Starlighters. Eventually they changed the name to the Famous Flames, Brown took the lead, and the rest is history.
Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb / Washington Post
“Brown’s music transcended generation and musical genres, beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing to the present. His sliding, gliding, sweat-breaking dance steps and splits and jumps brought audiences to their feet the world over. With his pompadour, showy outfits and a repertoire of songs that defied inertia, he was a phenomenal performer .
“Over the years, Brown sent audiences into states of frenzy when he dramatized his first R&B hit, ‘Please, Please, Please’ (1956), on stage. As a finale, Brown would walk off stage, body bent with fatigue. He would stop, drop to one knee and wait for a band member to drape a cape around his shoulders. As he was being led away, Brown would toss the cape off, run to the microphone and start begging again, ‘Baby, please don’t go, don’t go I love you so.’ The audience would go wild as band members wailed on their horns.
“Jonathan Lethem, writing for Rolling Stone magazine, described watching Brown entertain as a ‘feast of adoration and astonishment.’
‘For to see James Brown dance and sing, to see him lead his mighty band with the merest glances and tiny flickers of signal from his hands; to see him offer himself to his audience to be adored and enraptured and ravished; to watch him tremble and suffer as he tears his screams and moans of lust, glory and regret from his sweat-drenched body is not to see: It is to behold,’ Lethem wrote.
Historians Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel West wrote in their book “The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country”:
“Mr. Brown, as he likes to be known, rapped and crooned before his time, used vibrant horn, raunchy rock and roll guitar, and driving bass overlaid with a grunting, familiar voice like the sound of a moving train. His persona prefigured the flamboyance of the disco years, of techno-funk humor, of the era of his royal highness known as Prince.”
Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb:
“Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger aspired to dance like Brown; Elvis Presley was said to have studied Brown’s choreography on film .
“Brown’s live recording at the famed Apollo Theater in October 1962 was considered a pivotal event in his career and was declared one of the greatest 100 moments in rock music in the 1960s by Entertainment Weekly .The live recording also created a template for Sly Stone and George Clinton to follow .
“Some say Brown’s migration from R&B megastar to cultural icon came in 1968 in the heat of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Preparing for a concert at the Boston Garden, he took to the airwaves and urged viewers not to dishonor King’s memory by turning to violence. [Ed. Brown also got the local PBS station to televise it live to help keep people indoors.]
“He continued his message of self-reliance and education in songs such as ‘I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I’ll Get It Myself).’
“He traveled to Vietnam to perform for U.S. troops, spoke out about the importance of job opportunities and surprised and angered some by endorsing Richard M. Nixon for president.”
Brown’s song “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” changed America’s racial vocabulary.
But for all his success the mainstream still didn’t embrace him as much as the R&B world. Brown had a record 60 (my count is 62) top ten R&B hits, but just 7 Billboard Pop Chart top tens. Just glancing through my R&B singles book, his success is best exemplified by three straight No.1s in 1974 “The Payback,” “My Thang,” and “Papa Don’t Take No Mess.”
Robert Hilburn, long-time music critic of the Los Angeles Times
“For all the impact of such towering figures as Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye, no one influenced black music more than James Brown because no one mirrored black culture more than the man behind such hits as ‘Please, Please, Please,’ ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’ and ‘I Got You (I Feel Good).’
“You hear his percolating style in Prince’s funky guitar licks, see his spectacular physicality in Michael Jackson’s dance steps and feel his spirit and self-affirmation in every explosive hip-hop record.
“Long before he was showered with celebrated (and eminently fitting) titles such as ‘the Godfather of Soul’ and ‘the Hardest- Working Man in Show Business,’ Brown was briefly thought of by some as the black Elvis, which was mostly silly – except in one profound way.
“If Presley was the artist most often cited by leading white musicians as an influence – and I found that to be true in the 60s and 70s – Brown was the name I most often heard when asking African-American musicians about who inspired them.
“Brown’s influence isn’t limited to black artists by any means. One of the most illuminating pop moments ever captured by a camera was when a young Mick Jagger stood in the wings, mesmerized, watching Brown’s seductive moves during the 60s concert film ‘The T.A.M.I. Show,’ and we all know how Jagger eventually built his stage performance around those moves.
“If anything, Brown’s impact on modern pop music is underrated, partly because he did most of his defining work on secondary record labels that didn’t have massive publicity machines and he never really embraced the mainstream the way, say, Ray Charles did. Yet, you could build a case that Brown was also the ‘Godfather of Disco,’ the ‘Godfather of Rap’ and the ‘Godfather of Funk’ because his electrifying beats powered so many genres .
“In nominating the 500 greatest singles ever in a 1989 book, rock critic Dave Marsh listed ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’ at No. 3, declaring that the only way the single could be ‘more bone- rattling was if Brown himself leaped from your speakers, grabbed you tight by the shoulders and danced you around the room, all the while screaming straight into your face.’ He added, ‘No record before ‘Papa’s’ sounded anything like it. No record since – certainly no dance record – has been unmarked by it.’
“Still, my favorite James Brown record is probably ‘I Got You (I Feel Good),’ which was the follow-up to ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.’ It was a record of supreme optimism and cheer. I’ve even got a foot-high James Brown bobblehead in my den, and it screams ‘I Feel Good’ when you push a button.
“I’ve pushed it dozens of times when friends were over, and every time it brought smiles. It’s just one sign that Brown’s music remains powerful. For another sign, just turn on the radio. Half the music you hear, from Kanye West and Jay Z to Justin Timberlake and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is in part a testimony to that power.
“At some point today, I’ll just push the button on the bobblehead doll, or put on one of Brown’s CDs. There’s no way that music won’t still make you feel alive. What a wonderful legacy for any artist.”
Friend Charles Bobbit was at Brown’s side when he died. It was classic Brown, as Bobbit later recalled. “I’m going away tonight,” Brown said. “I didn’t want to believe him,” Bobbit noted. But a short time later, according to Bobbit, Brown sighed quietly, closed his eyes and died.
Gerald R. Ford
[I apologize .I’m scrambling time-wise, as you can probably imagine just a few takes you might not see in the news coverage.]
Herbert S. Parmet, from the book “The Presidents” edited by Henry F. Graff.
“At noon on 9 August 1974, the day on which President Nixon resigned, everyone in the East Room of the White House rose as Chief Justice Warren Burger entered. Then came Vice President and Mrs. Gerald Ford. She held the Bible, opened to the Book of Proverbs, as Ford placed his right hand on it and was sworn in as the thirty-eighth president of the United States. He told the audience that ‘our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great Republic is a Government of laws and not of men.’ Then he urged, ‘Let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.’ Three days later, the new president addressed a joint session of the Congress and said, ‘I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage.’ He stressed opposition to ‘unwarranted cuts in national defense’ and gave the control of inflation as his first priority. His foreign policy would be a continuation of Nixon’s: working toward a cease-fire in Vietnam and a negotiated settlement in Laos, d tente with the Soviet Union, and continuation of the ‘new relationship’ with the People’s Republic of China. Addressing himself directly to the ethics of government, he promised no ‘illegal tapings, eavesdropping, buggings, or break-ins by my Administration.’
“Ford was the first president of the United States to reach the White House by way of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. He thereby became more a designated, rather than an ‘accidental,’ president. Even at the moment of his nomination, mounting revelations about the Watergate scandal had made his ultimate rise to the presidency a distinct possibility. In naming him to replace Spiro Agnew, Nixon had little choice other than to heed the advice of the Democratic leadership that the former House minority leader was the only Republican they would agree to confirm. Ford was simply not viewed as a potent candidate for the presidential nomination in 1976. His elevation made him, in effect, the first congressional president. Contrary to the expectations of its sponsors, the Twenty-fifth Amendment created a presidency that considerably reduced the distance between Capitol Hill and the White House. Ford had not been in office very long before the amendment’s implications became obvious. A Ford speechwriter, Robert Hartmann, later wrote that Congress ‘will never knowingly select the strongest possible Presidential prospect as their opposition. They will pick, at best, someone they see as a competent caretaker until the next election.’ Ron Nessen, Ford’s second press secretary, observed that no other president was routinely described as ‘acting presidential’ instead of simply being president.’ Ford never fully recovered from that burden.”
Lewis L. Gould, from the book “American Heritage: The Presidents” edited by Michael Beschloss
“Ford gained a lasting place in the nation’s history when he managed successfully the transition of power after the trauma of Richard Nixon’s tumultuous last two years in office. Ford’s twenty-nine months as president did not produce earth-shattering events, but his low-key moderation seemed to be just what the United States needed. Ford lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter in part because of his pardon of Richard Nixon and in part because of his own limitations as a leader. ‘A Ford, not a Lincoln,’ he said of himself. .
“A generation after he left the presidency, Gerald Ford had the satisfaction of seeing the American people come around to the view that pardoning Richard Nixon was the right thing to do. With the fall of Saigon, he helped Americans to accept the first military defeat in their history with a minimum of recriminations and poison. Ford’s decency and simple virtues helped to restore Americans’ faith, in the wake of Watergate, that their political leaders were not all liars or crooks. Had Nixon been succeeded by a different kind of human being, the history of the 1970s could have been different. One reason Gerald Ford was so underrated by his contemporaries was that he made it all look so easy.”
Thomas J. Bray, from the book “Presidential Leadership” edited by James Taranto and Leonard Leo
“Few presidents have ever come into office holding a weaker hand than Gerald R. Ford. The Watergate scandal had left a bitter residue of mistrust and anger. The demoralizing American retreat from Vietnam hung heavy over the land. The economy was headed into the worst downturn since the late 1950s. Inflation stood at 12 percent .
“But Ford’s fundamental decency made him the right man to lead the country after the trauma of Watergate. In 1977, as President Carter delivered his inaugural address, he turned to Ford and said to heartfelt applause: ‘For myself and my country, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.’”
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Stuff
--As of a week ago, 44 former cadets at West Point have been killed in either the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, including former captains of the baseball, hockey and swim teams. [Juliet Macur / New York Times]
--The New York Giants collapse continued on Sunday in what had to be the worst display of ineptitude I’ve seen in ages. Picture that the Giants never snapped the ball in New Orleans territory in their 30-7 loss, the Giants only score coming on a 55- yard pass play early in the first quarter. After starting out 6-for-6 passing, quarterback Eli Manning went 3 of 19 the rest of the way. Geezuz, he sucks. As the New York Post’s George Willis observed, “The Giants want us to be patient, insisting it’s only a matter of time before he starts to play more like his big brother Peyton. But judging from his performance yesterday, it’s hard to believe they are from the same blood line.” In the first 40 games of his career, Eli has a terrible quarterback rating of 73.2.
Selena Roberts of the New York Times commented on Giants coach Tom Coughlin, who is about to be fired. “They (ownership) hired Arthur Fiedler to conduct VH1’s ‘Divas Live.’ A mismatch from the beginning is in full bloom now. Coughlin is a throwback coach trying to direct a team built to win today that is assembled with self-consumed players fixated on tomorrow.”
But after starting out 6-2 and then going 1-6, at 7-8 the Giants are virtually assured of making the playoffs if they win next Saturday versus Washington, with only one very complicated formula involving Green Bay, also 7-8, in play.
--But how ‘bout my Jets?! Beat Oakland on Sunday and they’re in one of the more remarkable coaching jobs in some time by rookie Eric Mangini. We’re in a state of shock around here.
--And speaking of shock, what an awesome job by the Eagles after Donovan McNabb went down. Jeff Garcia, who filled in for him, and Dallas’ Tony Romo, the latter despite stumbling lately, are the QB stories of the year. Who wudda thunk it back in September?
--Then there’s Terrell Owens. “I just feel like I’m not involved early in the game. Everybody knows that’s what I do .It’s hard to get in the flow when you’re getting a ball here, a ball there.” Contrast that attitude with that of the Jets. They just keep their mouths shut and go out and perform.
--The New York Mets raised their ticket prices for 2007. Box seats now range from $72 to $108, compared with $60 to $96 last season. You can feed a child in Africa for a year on that.
--Mike Evans, aka Lionel Jefferson, died at the age of 57 from throat cancer. Lionel was perfectly cast for his stints on “All in the Family” and then the spinoff “The Jeffersons.”
--Jeff B. lives near where Brett Somers of “Match Game” fame also resides and he told me she used to have Christmas trees with old-fashioned candles on them. So about 10 years ago she got loaded, lit the candles, passed out, and set her house on fire. Jeff saw her a few weeks ago in Barnes and Noble and said she didn’t look real good. Well she is 82, after all; though I would submit she looked about that age when she was on “Match Game.”
--Sorry to see Miss Nevada USA get fired by Donald Trump. Then again when pictures surfaced of her “licking other women’s breasts and tongues, flashing her breasts and thong, and ” Actually I better not go any further if I’m to keep my International Web Site Association.
--For those of you who lived in the Manhattan area over the past 70 years, you undoubtedly at some point came across Jerry Berns, a proprietor of the “21” Club. Ironically Berns died on Dec. 21 at the age of 99.
For over 50 years he greeted some of the nation’s big movers and shakers, including every president between FDR and Jimmy Carter. Some regulars ate at “21” almost every day and Berns was known to reserve the best tables for the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Frank Sinatra or Humphrey Bogart, who proposed to Lauren Bacall in the restaurant.
“More than once, his daughter said, Mr. Berns averted disaster by making sure that the third party in a love triangle was seated out of sight.” [Tim Weiner / New York Times]
--December 28, 1886, Illinois socialite Josephine Garis Cochran patented the first commercially successful dishwasher. Wire racks hold the dishes in a boiler while a hand-operated pump shoots sudsy water at them. Cochran targeted hotels and her company evolved into KitchenAid!
--Brad K. was very concerned about Flora, the pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, who was close to delivering a bunch of babies on Christmas Day, even though Flora had never mated, or even mixed socially (at The Dragon Pub) with a male Komodo. So it’s a virgin birth.
The problem, as both Brad and I see it, is that Flora’s deal, along with another similar virgin birth at a different UK zoo, proves a point made in the journal Nature; that being how female dragons could swim to another island and establish a new colony on their own. So like we could have Komodos multiplying in, say, Florida, and then hitching rides up I-95 to the New York / New Jersey / Connecticut tri-state area where you’d have Komodo pods all over the place. Very unsettling.
--For the archives, a 350-pound Siberian tiger attacked and ripped her trainer’s arm off at the San Francisco Zoo as at least 50 visitors looked on.
“The 3-year-old tiger reached through the iron bars of her enclosure and grabbed the trainer with both front paws shortly after a regular 2 p.m. public feeding, zoo officials said.” [AP]
--True, tragic story and yet another reason to kill all the deer.
“A deer hurled into the air after colliding with a car and killed a driver in an oncoming lane when it crashed through his windshield.
“Sandra Simon, 40, of Baltimore, Md., was driving her 2003 Audi A4 westbound on Route 33 in Manalapan, Monmouth County (N.J.) when a deer wandered onto the road in front of her car
“When she hit the deer, it was propelled across the road, police said.
“The deer landed on an eastbound 2001 Oldsmobile Alero driven by Nicholas Bonn, 40, of Point Pleasant Borough. Bonn died of his injuries at the scene.” [Star-Ledger]
--The Bush administration is about to put polar bears on the endangered species list, thereby acknowledging the impact of global warming on rapidly declining Arctic ice fields. Said an Interior Department official to the Washington Post, “Obviously, the sea ice is melting because the temperatures are warmer.” Some scientists now say Arctic temps could rise a staggering 13 degrees Fahrenheit in the next few decades, thereby wiping out the summer sea ice the polar bears need. There are an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 worldwide, 4,700 of which live in Alaska and spend part of the year in Canada and Russia.
Juliet Eilperin / Washington Post
“The ice in Canada’s western Hudson Bay breaks up 2 weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, giving polar bears there less time to hunt and build up fat reserves that sustain them for eight months before hunting resumes. As local polar bears have become thinner, female polar bears’ reproductive rates and cubs’ survival rates have fallen, spurring a 21 percent population drop from 1997 to 2004 .
“Polar bears normally swim from one patch of sea ice to another to hunt for food, but they are not accustomed to going long distances. In September 2004, government scientists observed 55 polar bears swimming offshore in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea, an unprecedented spike, and four of those bears died. In a separate study that year, federal scientists identified three instances near the Beaufort Sea in which polar bears ate one another.”
Not good, sports fans.
--Gerald Ford, as center on the University of Michigan football team, helped lead the Wolverines to national championships in 1932 and 1933. But rather than accept an offer to play in the NFL, he chose to attend Yale Law School. His #48 jersey is one of only five numbers that have been retired in the history of Michigan football. [Once my golf publications have a chance to comment, I’ll have some tributes from that part of the sporting world.]
--Minnesota Twins hurler Brad Radke retired at the age of 34 due to serious shoulder problems. Radke pitched 12 seasons with the Twins and was 148-139 in his solid career.
--Boy, this is a lousy story. Rutgers women’s basketball coach Vivian Stringer was looking at a credit card statement when she found an expenditure that wasn’t hers. She soon discovered other unauthorized charges that were then traced to her longtime friend and administrative assistant Dawn Buckner. Buckner was indicted on eight counts of stealing almost $76,000 from Stringer’s personal accounts. She faces 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted. Buckner had been dismissed end of the 2005 school year after Rutgers learned of the alleged thefts and then the legal process played out until the indictment was handed down.
--The Detroit Lions’ last six seasons:
2001 2-14 2002 3-13 2003 5-11 2004 6-10 2005 5-11 2006 2-13
The only worse six-year loss total in NFL history was Tampa Bay’s stretch between 1983 and ’88.
--According to Mintel, a research company in Britain, the average reveler in the UK will drink the equivalent of 68 pints of beer or 15 bottles of wine over the 12 days of Christmas. Yikes! Drinking has become so bad in some English communities that midnight mass has been done away with in favor of 9:00 p.m.
--So I’m heading to the Orange Bowl to see Wake Forest take on Louisville. Our coach, Jim Grobe, was selected AP Coach of the Year, handily beating out Rutgers’ Greg Schiano. Grobe seems a lot like the Jets’ Eric Mangini. Low-key on the sidelines, loyal to his players and they return the favor. “The best thing he did this year was convincing us to believe in our program and to believe in him and the rest of his coaches,” linebacker Aaron Curry said. Safety Patrick Ghee added, “When he talks to us, it’s not so much like a coach who’s demanding something from us. It’s more like a father who loves us.”
Luckily for us fans, Grobe is staying despite being in big demand for higher-profile positions. “I have no idea what the future holds,” he said, “but I could not be happier than I am at Wake Forest right now.” [ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated]
While I was at Wake in the late 1970s, Steely Dan recorded the album “Aja” with a song on it titled “Deacon Blues.”
“They’ve got a name for the winners in the world I want a name when I lose They call Alabama the Crimson Tide Call me Deacon Blues.”
Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen wrote the lyrics in 1977, the same year Alabama went 11-1 while Wake was 1-10.
But I had always heard the Wake / Alabama football fortunes had zippo to do with the song and as John Delong recently wrote in the Winston-Salem Journal, there have been football myths and urban legends for decades surrounding the tune. What makes it all the more difficult is Donald Fagen refuses to definitively state what the deal was.
One of the legends was that Steely Dan played a concert in Winston-Salem in 1977, but that’s not true. For starters they didn’t tour at all from 1975 to 1982. Another urban legend has co-founder Walter Becker attending Wake Forest, but he went to Bard College.
According to an interview in Rolling Stone, when asked about the lyrics Fagen didn’t give a detailed explanation as to why he chose Alabama’s and Wake Forest’s nicknames, “but it was clear he was looking for contrasts – and was trying to complete the song as quickly as possible,” according to Delong.
“Walter and I had been working on that song at a house in Malibu,” Fagen told Rolling Stone. “And he said, ‘You mean, it’s like, they call these cracker (bleeps) this grandiose name like the Crimson Tide, and I’m this loser, so they call me this other grandiose name, Deacon Blues?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Cool! Let’s finish it.’” [Source: Phil W.]
--Hawaii’s Colt Brennan broke the single-season record in Division I for most TD passes in throwing five in Hawaii’s 41-24 win over Arizona State in the Hawaii Bowl on Sunday night. Brennan ended up with 58 in 14 games, but there’s a chance the junior may return for his senior year if he doesn’t feel he’d be picked high enough in the NFL draft this spring. Brennan says he enjoys school and having finished sixth in the Heisman voting could be a legitimate candidate next year.
--John Hawkins of GolfWorld interviewed Tiger’s caddie Steve Williams and Williams talked about the difference between the Tiger of 2000 and that of 2006. Tiger really didn’t putt well this year, which is pretty scary when you assume he’ll correct that in 2007. Consider 2000. Williams said Tiger once went 258 holes without three-putting. Over 14 rounds!
--What can you say about “For Better or For Worse”? This whole fire deal is absurd. For starters, on 12/22 Jeff B. observed that in the first box the little kid is walking and on the bottom step, but then in the next box he’s somehow been lifted into his mother’s arms, with all three (including the other kid) having moved backwards three steps. And of course you all saw what happened in Sunday’s strip. Miraculously, Michael’s family was preparing for Christmas even as the fire was still raging.
Also, what the heck happened to Copper Paul and his visit to see Elizabeth? I mean as of 12/27, with only four strips to go before year end, including New Year’s (but not including the usual Sunday fiasco), we need to have the final confrontation between Paul and pitiful Anthony; both fighting over the affections of Liz.
And what of Grandpa? Did he overdose while attention was turned to Michael and Deanna’s fire? I’m betting Grandpa is lying in an ally someplace having bought some bad heroin.
But back to the fire, what was it with the fireman philosophizing when he should have been racing upstairs to save Michael? And on 12/23, what was it with the final shot of Deanna and the two kids preening for the camera? At least there is still some hope the Kelpfroths, who started the fire, bought the farm.
--We lost a lot of sports celebrities this year. Red Auerbach, Joe Niekro, Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, Kirby Puckett, Boom Boom Geoffrion, Ray Meyer, Byron Nelson, Floyd Patterson, Curt Gowdy, Bo Schembechler and Buck O’Neil to name just a few.
--And add to the list Cecil Travis, 93, a former three-time All- Star with the Washington Senators whose career was cut short by World War II. By the time Travis had finished the 1941 season, Cecil was 28, had 1,370 hits in his career and a super .327 batting average. But then he enlisted in the spring of 1942, suffered from frozen feet in 1944-45 while he was in the special services branch, and never regained his peak form when he returned to baseball end of the ‘45 season. He retired after 1947 with 1,544 hits and a career .314 average.
But I hate to rain on the Cecil Travis parade, in terms of him getting into the Hall of Fame via the Veterans Committee. While his best season was 1941, when he hit .359 and led the league in hits with 218, the same year Ted Williams was batting .406, you just can’t presume he’d have finished his career with over 2,500 hits and a .330 average had he not been called to duty.
And now THE 2006 BAR CHAT AWARDS!!!!!
Once again, we’d like to thank Pamela Anderson, Ben Affleck and Maya Angelou for agreeing to host despite their busy schedules. And a reminder on some definitions.
The difference between an idiot and a jerk, as defined by Webster’s:
An idiot is “an ignorant person; foolish or stupid.” A jerk, on the other hand, is “annoyingly stupid or foolish.”
To me a jerk is fully aware of what they are doing, while an idiot lacks some of the basics. As for “dirtball,” there has to be something malicious in the behavior.
So let’s look at some candidates.
Ben Wallace, for refusing to abide by the Chicago Bulls’ headband rule, is a jerk. Michael Vick, for giving the finger to Falcons fans, is a dirtball.
Television analyst and former Univ. of Miami football player Lamar Thomas is an idiot for describing a fight between Miami and Florida International players in the following manner.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about. You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked.”
Sara Evans’ husband is the classic example of an idiot for leaving her, while Knicks coach Isiah Thomas is both a jerk and a dirtball; the latter earned for his ongoing sexual harassment case.
Davis Jones is a jerk for yanking Carolina Hurricanes jerseys off a statue of Andrew Jackson following the Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup triumph. He was issued a citation.
Lance Armstrong is a jerk for saying at a sports award show that “All their players have tested positive for being assholes,” referring to French football captain Zinedine Zidane’s head-butt in the World Cup final. [As for Zidane, he almost was "Dirtball of the Year."]
Or how about Olympic snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis? Remember her? She hot-dogged it in her big event and lost the gold. That’s an idiot.
Tiki Barber was a jerk twice in 2006. For blaming the coaches following a desultory 23-0 loss in the playoffs to the Panthers last January, and then doing it again this current season.
Golfer John Daly pulled one of his jerk moves at the FBR Open. He called in sick for the Wednesday pro-am, shot 74 in Thursday’s first round, a 40 on his front nine on Friday, and then walked directly to his car and left without telling anyone.
Allen Heckard is an idiot. Heckard is the man who sued Michael Jordan because Heckard claimed he was recognized everywhere he goes as MJ. Heckard included Nike chairman Phil Knight in the $832 million suit on grounds of 15 years of harassment, or so he said.
The aforementioned Dawn Buckner is the classic example of a dirtball. But Buckner’s offenses occurred prior to 2006 so she’s ineligible.
Basketball player Steve Francis is always a jerk. While with Orlando, he was suspended indefinitely for refusing to enter a game when the Magic were down 103-87 with 3:22 left.
Football player Junior Seau was a jerk for announcing his retirement after 16 years and then four days later signing with New England.
Mel Gibson is a jerk. Enough said. [But I’ll always love “Braveheart”!!!!!] So is Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
And now the winners.
First off Animal of the Year. You know, there weren’t many documented cases of animals being great to humans in 2006. But thankfully few natural disasters required the efforts of rescue dogs. Once again, however, dogs take home the trophy (their third, if I remember right), not just because of individual cases like the female jogger out West who the other week fell off a cliff and was seriously hurt. Her dog never gave up and eventually alerted rescuers to her location.
No, more importantly I’ve seen a few stories from Iraq where soldiers adopt a dog or two to provide some comfort back at base after returning from their grueling, sometimes terrifying forays into the streets of Fallujah or Baghdad.
Idiot of the Year Co-winners Floyd Landis and Ben Roethlisberger. Landis for thinking we’d believe his pitiful story that he didn’t use steroids in the Tour de France, even though for one highly questionable stage of the event he pedaled faster than any human being ever has. And to Steelers quarterback Roethlisberger, for not only failing to wear a helmet when he crashed his motorcycle, but for then saying afterwards that he would do the same thing again. Now that’s an idiot.
The “Terrell Owens Jerk of the Year” Bode Miller. In fact, friends, with his no-show performance at the Winter Olympics, due in no small part to his incredibly poor attitude and seriously deficient work ethic, Bode Miller also receives a “Lifetime Jerk” trophy. [Recall the award was named after T.O. last year.]
Dirtball of the Year Who else, but once again Barry Bonds; now a three-time winner of the Dave Bliss trophy for continuing to desecrate the sport of baseball and the record book that any true sports fan cherishes.
And a new one for this year “Idiot Franchise” award goes to the Florida Marlins, who designated May 28 at Dolphins Stadium as “Jewish Heritage Day.” The team then gave away Mike Jacobs t-shirts; only one problem. Jacobs isn’t Jewish. Said Jacobs, “They said it wasn’t done intentionally, but I don’t know about that.”
Finally, we are handing a special “Lifetime Dirtball” award to Cherie Davis, mother of speedskater Shani. Perhaps you forgot this episode, as I reported back in this space, 3/7/06.
You know, there we were, watching Shani Davis’s anger at the Olympics and I never saw his mother, Cherie. You knew she was there, but boy I didn’t realize what an awful person she truly is until reading Rick Reilly’s piece in Sports Illustrated this week.
On how everyone blamed her for Shani’s icy demeanor, Cherie said:
“Of course they say that. Got to blame a black person.”
On Shani’s uncomfortable to watch interview with NBC’s Melissa Stark after winning gold, Cherie said:
“Well, why should he be all warm to her? She’s got some painted-on smile. She doesn’t care about Shani! Why does his first moment have to be shared with that woman?”
Rick Reilly:
“Shani did have a far warmer interview with Stark after he won the silver medal, but by then the damage was done, and Joe Corporate was running from the Davises like they were IRS auditors.
“ ‘If we want to be poor, it’s none of your business!’ Cherie says. ‘We don’t care about money anyway. Between us, we have one ’89 [Ford] Escort. That’s it So Shani won’t be a hero, won’t be on the Wheaties box. Shani is still going to be all right.’
Rick Reilly:
“Sometimes you wonder. There is footage in a Dutch documentary of her calling Shani a loser to his face. She doesn’t deny it: ‘He’s my son, I can call him a loser if I want. I thought it was funny.’
“Ohhh-kay. And what about this quote she gave the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Bryan Burwell: ‘If it weren’t for me, Shani would be selling drugs on the street.’”
As for Shani himself, he was simply a jerk.
Top 3 songs for the week of 12/27/80: #1 “(Just Like) Starting Over” (John Lennon) #2 “More Than I Can Say” (Leo Sayer) #3 “Love On The Rocks” (Neil Diamond) and #4 “Lady” (Kenny Rogers) #5 “Hungry Heart” (Bruce Springsteen) #9 “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” (Pat Benatar)
College Basketball Quiz Answer: Top ten in wins, Division I.
[Thru Dec. 23 last school worked at listed]
1. x-Bob Knight, Texas Tech 879 1. Dean Smith, North Carolina 879 3. Adolph Rupp, Kentucky 876 4. Jim Phelan, Mt. St. Mary’s, Md. 830 5. Eddie Sutton, Oklahoma State 798 6. Lefty Driesell, Georgia State 786 7. Lou Henson, New Mexico State 779 8. x-Lute Olson, Arizona 770 9. x-Mike Krzyzewski, Duke 764 9. Henry Iba, Oklahoma State 764
x - active
[other actives]
13. x-Jim Calhoun, UConn 743 15. x-Jim Boeheim, Syracuse 736
[other notables]
John Chaney 741 Jerry Tarkanian 729 Norm Stewart 728 Ray Meyer 724 Don Haskins 719
*Knight is going for #880 tonight, 12/28, vs. UNLV.
Next Bar Chat not posted until Jan. 4, at which time I’ll have more on James Brown In the meantime, see you at the Orange Bowl.
Happy New Year!!!!
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