Who Cares?

A-Rod goes to Mudhens

I think the Yankees best move during the off season was
GETTING rid of that good for nothing A-Rod. Getting him
back ensures only another "almost ran" year. For the
price of one guy who does well in meaningless games but
is a proven chocker when it counts you could have gotten
two first class pitchers or three very good ones.

What I don't understand is why don't they just sit him
down in the playoffs? He sucks, year after year he can't
hack the pressure. Everyone I say this too says "Oh you
can't do that? he's a marquis player." So? If I buy a
wrench at Home Depot and it's great for fixing things
around my house but can't help me to fix my car do I
continue using that tool on the car and risk damaging it
or do I use a better wrench when I doing that specific
task? What's the problem here, you might hurt the $350
million players feelings? It's a business folks, the
only ones stupid enough to care about outcomes are the
fans who pay for the trinkets with the Yankee logo on
them or the even more deluded fans who actually buy over
priced tickets to sit in the South Bronx and swig $8
paper cups of watered down Miller. Fuck all of that
noise, sports, all sports is a waste of time and money.

OK, now let me see who is playing football today. I hope
those loser Jets can find a new even more humiliating
way to lose. Maybe they can snatch another loss from the
jaws of victory this afternoon. Man, if there is one
thing following that team has taught me, sports is for
playing, not watching. Want to waste a couple of
meaningless hours in the comfort of your own home, maybe
with some snacks and friends? By all means do so, just
don't waste one cent or one tear or emotion for players
and teams that could care less if you live or die. As
the gangster in A Bronx Tale correctly surmised "Mickey
Mantle don't care about you". If the Yankees or Jets win
on Sunday doesn't really change the fact that you still
have to go to work on Monday. Mickey Mantle ain't
putting any food on your table. If anything, he's taking
it off!

One more thing, Guinie Joe and the Yankees obvioiusly
didn't want to be on the same team anymore. If Torre
wanted to manage, he would have taken that offer. If the
Yankees wanted him back, they would have made sure he
was happy. As is, both made a huge mistake I think. We
shall see.

Happy Thanksgiving

Indian Chief "Two Eagles" was asked by a white government official,
"You have observed the white man for 90 years. You've seen his wars
and his technological advances. You've seen his progress, and the
damage he's done."

The Chief nodded in agreement.
The official continued, "Considering all these events, in your opinion,
where did the white man go wrong?"

The Chief stared at the government official for over a minute and then
calmly replied. "When white man find land, Indians running it,
no taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water.
Women did all the work, Medicine man free. Indian man spend all day
hunting and fishing; all night having sex."

Then the chief leaned back and smiled. "Only white man dumb enough
to think he improve system like that."

Age Old Question Finally Answered

Higher Prices

Butthash

I can't stop laughing ever since a friend clued me in on this latest drug craze. It may or may not be true but from what I know it comes from the slums of Africa and is made with human waste. I only wish I could be clever enough to make something like this up. But what I am capable of adding is song parodies based on the fad.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/406067.stm

(sung to the tune of Elton John's Rocket Man)

Gonna be a long long time,
Jenkem gonna get you high tonight
because I'm a butt crack man
Butt crack man
burning out of ass at night
I'm a butt crack man

(Sung to the tune of Mr. Brownstone by GNR)

I use to do a little
but a little got more and more
So I did a little more and more got more and more

He's been dancing
with Mr. Jenkem
He's been sniffin'
at yo' back door

Hughey Lewis missed a golden opportunity, they can make
a comeback with this ode to Jenkem!

I wanna new drug
One that will make me sick
make me hallucinate
and comes from my own shit

I wanna new drug
one that makes my face turn blue
makes me freakin vommit
like I vommit when I'm with you

or Carl's parody of Michael Jackson

"We are the World,
we are brown children,
let's all get a big bag of shit,
and let's start sniffing

There's a choice were making,
we're smelling our own ass,
It's true, it makes a better day
for just me"

You Know Who You Are

A Permanent Trend

Maybe I'm showing my age but when I was a kid the only socially acceptable professions to have tattoos were sailors, carny workers, prisoners, motorcycle gang members and prostitutes. If you belonged to one of these groups on the margins of society, well then it was just part of the deal. It was about the time that women started getting tattos that I realized that "body art" (the term makes me snicker)had completely lost it's toughness. The old bumper sticker "Pussies get shaved, real men get tattooed" no longer held weight. Am I opposed to the body modification? No, do whatever makes you happy, but as always I reserve the right to mock your efforts. My only question is the sexual proclivity of women with these permanent baubles on their bodies. Is it, like a friends wife recently told me "girls with ass crack tattoos like to get it in the shitter"? I have no personal knowledge as a reference so please feel free to comment and let me know your experiences in the matter.

Congestion Pricing Redux

I didn't understand the mayors motivation concerning his congestion pricing plan until I stood on the corner of 55th and 3rd Avenue in Midtown at lunchtime and saw the mass of traffic slowly crawling towards the bridge. A good businessman looks at bad situation and thinks about how he can make it work in his favor. So instead of seeing an endless line of cars and polution, Bloomberg saw the potential for filling the cities coffers. He didn't get to becoming a billionaire without having a killer instinct for genereating revenue where it didn't exist before.

Here however is the rub, a city is NOT a business. People are not widgets in some economic model meant to be exploited by the administration. Citizens are not supposed to be looked at as cash cows, well not by the fuckers they elected. Eh, who am I kidding? He bought the election. In the end I think the calculations were something like $100 per vote. I never forgave the citizens of New York for being so stupid and corruptable. I couldn't vote for someone like that on principle alone. Someone once said that people deserve the government they get. Well, New York you voted for him twice now.

Remember These

Does anyone remember this TV show? It had a terrible name since it had nothing to do with the movies. Rather it was about this haunted antique store and the new owners who had to go and retrieve every item ever sold there because the items would wreck havoc over anyone who possesed them. I hear they are replaying it now on cable networks with the Chiller channel.



This movie was so underground it made it big on buzz alone. It was more gore then horror and it was disgusting but the most dissapointing thing was find out in subsequent years that some of the grusome killings were fake.



This movie had it all. Evil space goo, Leslie Nielsen as a scumbag and that story about the mysterious wooden crate under the stairs.



What a geat show this was. I'd stay up late into the night watching this show in my room and creeping myself out. Even the theme music still still gives me chills.

Oktoberfest

This is the image we all have of Oktoberfest in Munich. I'm fraid the the reality is more like this. I don't know about you, but I live in a big city, the last thing I want to deal with when enjoying myself is big crowds and long lines. F that!

Regis & Kelly

I'm watching the 25th anniversary show with Regis and Kelly today (don't ask why) when they bring out the old one, Kathy Lee Gifford. She looks like a plastic surgery disaster but that's not the issue. What amazes me about this program is that the house wives who watch this show accepted that Kathy Lee was replaced by a younger, firmer version of herself in Kelly Ripa. Isn't that what all house-fraus dread the most? Their husbands leaving them for a younger woman? Isn't that exactly what happened here? They didn't replace that old hack Regis with some young buck. Doesn't anyone see the irony here?

Ominous

Is it me or do these public service ads look like something you would seeing in Nazi Germany around 1938 or Stalinist Russia? Yes, we have reasons to be afraid, no one more then the people of New York. But are campaigns to turn in ones neighbors really what we need? A city of stoolies?

Only In New York

Staten Island ninja thief flees after homeowner stabs him


Phil Chiolo shows bruise he got from man dressed as ninja who broke into his Staten Island home.
A ninja-clad burglar was sent scurrying from a Staten Island kitchen early yesterday when the homeowner stabbed the samurai sneak in the shoulder.
Phil Chiolo said he had just gone to bed when he heard what sounded like a pan hit the kitchen floor about 1 a.m. in his Jefferson Ave. home in Dongan Hills.
"When I got into the kitchen, the door was jimmied open," Chiolo said. "To my surprise, there was a man standing there dressed in a ninja costume, with nun-chucks and everything. All I saw was his eyes."
The thief immediately struck Chiolo across his collarbone with the nun-chucks, he said.
The professional disk jockey tried to run.
"As I turn around, he hit me again in the back of the head," Chiolo continued.
Chiolo clutched the kitchen counter, spotted a knife block on the top and grabbed a 4-inch blade.
"My intention was not to stab him," he said. "I wanted to scare him, but he tripped over a kitchen chair and fell on his a--."
Still swinging the nun-chucks, the ninja struck Chiolo on the leg. That's when Chiolo plunged the knife deep into the burglar's shoulder.
"He showed absolutely no sign of pain," said Chiolo, who lives with his brother, Richard. "He was either high on something or completely numb. He got up with the knife still in him and ran out the kitchen door."
Chiolo called the cops, but the burglar, believed to be responsible for 13 other heists in the area, was still on the loose last night.

I am still chuckling, a freaking ninja. Of course he vanished into the night with a steaknife in his chest, he's a ninja!

http://gothamist.com/2007/09/07/staten_island_n.php

Sometimes It's What Is Not Said

Ehh, no one is listening to me and my ramblings anyway. I just feel very strongly when I see our rights slowly being eroded at every turn. The other day my kooky ex-neighbor was yelling at someone as he often does. A store owner came out and told him to be quiet, my friend responded with "It's a free country". I was floored, I haven't heard ANYONE say that in years. When I was a kid, you used that phrase all the time. It was an excuse to get away with saying what you wanted, going where you wanted and pretty much doing what you wanted. But that was all before Giuliani, 9/11, Imus and everything else. Now you have to be careful what you say, especially online or on the phone. And God forbid it's not PC or Sharptons goons will destroy you. You can't go where you want. Your name might be on some secret no fly list. Whole areas of the globe are totally off limits now because of our meddling foreign policy. In New York City you no longer can dance in a club not zoned for it or smoke in a bar, in certain city parks you can't even fly a freaking kite. Yeah, I'm afraid the term "It's a free country" is about as relevant today as saying "When's the next pony express rider coming by"?

Hypocrisy Of The Right vs. The Arrogance Of The Left

NEWS:

Nugent has reportedly confessed to fathering a child out of wedlock with a Dover, New Hampshire, woman who is suing the '70s rocker for child support and custody. According to the local Foster's Daily Democrat newspaper, the plaintiff, 43-year-old Karen Gutowski, filed suit against the 55-year-old Nugent last August, claiming he has provided little in the way of financial aid for their unidentified eight-year-old child despite making millions from album sales, touring and other revenue streams. Gutowski's attorney, Jeffrey Runge, told the newspaper that the musician, radio and TV host and noted outdoor enthusiast has acknowledged paternity of the young boy, but has never met the tyke and refused to provide proper financial support. "Given the fact he's worth millions and millions of dollars, he's paying the amount someone making about $20,000 per year would pay," Runge told the Daily Democrat in September.

Man, I wish I was a multi-millionaire rock star who has fathered children all over the world. how cool is that, well cool if you can support them.

But the real question here is honor, like my thesis about being that what you hate, look at Mr. Nugent. Laughing at unwed mothers and fathers who skip out on their children while himself being a stinking hypocrite.

This is a common theme. It has been my observation the ones who preach the loudest about conservative moral values are the ones who have the least honor, respect and actual morality. It's like they are so vocal about it not because they are trying to convince others, but rather themselves.

Same goes for the liberals who make big noise about minority rights. In truth, their greatest crime is on some level feeling superior to the people they are protecting. Like a momma bear shielding its dumb young from the big bad world, these people are actually talking down to minorities and telling them they are too weak and stupid to fend for themselves.

My new theorem therefore is a corollary to the old one,
You advertise that which you are not.

You can see this with the most boisterous. The guy thumping his chest and procaliming his greatness is actually the biggest loser of the group. I see it every day in modern advertising. Insurance companies telling you how great they are while news reports after every disaster tell a different story. Let me tell you, the one thing Coca Cola is not, it's not "it". The list goes on and on. I guess that's why you advertise in the first place. Convince people the opposite of what they already think of you or your product.

Poor Nuge, he actually does have many valid points to share and his music ain't bad. But like a deer that stands too long in one place the man just makes himself an easy target.

Congestion Pricing

Actually, if you live in Manhattan the idea of congestion pricing is nice. Chances are, you are well off and don't really care the few extra dollars your groceries and services will cost. You don't own a car anyway, but if you do, you can probably afford parking lots that charge a working mans rent in the outer Boroughs. So why not? Cleaner air, less noise, safer streets to cross all seem like admirable goals. Not bad.....if you have blinders on. Of course what the mayor fails to recognize is the adverse impact this plan will have on the rest of the city. Living in a Manhattnocentric universe one becomes oblivious to the plight of the common people. People in the Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx need their cars. They don't need yet another unfair tax on the middle class. Public transportation is not a convenient alternative to everyone. Speaking as a man who takes the BQE almost every day I don't want to imagine what that will look like if even more traffic is forced there. It's already a nightmare during the day.

My friend in London told me about how the same plan works there. It's great for the downtown residents but everyone living just outside the exclusion zone is miserable. The haves and the have nots all over again. I'll tell you, if the city really wants to implement this plan what are they offering in return to the people? How about some huge parking garages in places near transportation hubs? That would only make sense. You want to increase mass transit, and that is an overall worthy goal but you must help the process along. The function of the government is to help it's citizenry, not make life harder as city officials seem to continually do.

Tornado Pictures

Joe Walsh

You can see twenty shows or you can see one in a year. If that single concert happens to be at the right time, with the right crowd and the right music, it will the show you remember for ever. I have pretty much seen all the bands I have ever wanted. Still, every so often one performer that rarely plays live comes around and I have to see him. Joe Walsh, the one cool guy in the Eagles has had some great songs on his own. I still get goose bumps when I hear Life Of Illusion. What a great time Sal and I had last night seeing this legend at the Beacon. More then just a great performance, the night was a sum of it's parts. From getting a perfect parking spot, to getting tanked before the show at a bar on Amsterdam Avenue. Don't get me wrong, Joe was on the money, playing every note perfectly but what's more fun then sneaking cigarettes in the men's room or getting caught in the front row and sent back to our seats as the band kicks into Life's Been Good To Me? Somewhere along the BQE above the Gowanas canal as I sat in the passenger side of my buddies Jeep trying to light a cigarette and the stray ashes blew back at me from the open window I smugly realized that yes, life can be good sometimes.

Last night was exactly what I needed. That day my temp agency pulled the rug from under me yet again. Dangling a job for next week only to yank it away at the last moment. They just suck, but Sal put things in perspective for me when he said "Why are you so mad, you didn't like that job anyway"? True. Still, who likes getting screwed with? Unfortunately, I have now less time to devote to my online activities. My mailbox is full and I don't have a job where I get paid to look at it. Henceforth I have to take the stance that I will get to it when I get to it. I just have too many other things to take care of right now. At least I will try to keep this journal going. Writing this stuff down has a soothing affect on me.

Last Day At Work

Jobs, where are they? For years now I have been contending that most of the good jobs you see posted online and in newspapers are bogus. Why you ask would a company or governmental agency go through the trouble of posting a job it has no intention of giving you? I'll tell you, these jobs are usually spoken for. Most of the time the job has already been promised to someone. A cousin, Bob from accounting, the next door neighbors son from back in the old country. Whatever, it doesn't matter. You are only looking at the posting because some law or internal corporate doctrine demands new positions be publicized.

So how do I know this? From years of being the schmuck you responds to these ghost jobs. I have also talked to people who worked in companies who confirmed this scam. Now for the first time ever you can see proof. My buddy Aaron who worked at an immigration firm showed me this. The video is a conference of lawyers in the business, hear them describe how to legally place job ads in papers they have no intention whatsoever of filling. The jobs have already been given to foreign workers. This is how they skirt visa laws that require jobs to have been offered locally first.

Beware as you might fly off the handle after watching this like I did.

Zoltar

What's this image have to do with today's posting? Well, nothing, which is pretty much what I have to say today, nothing. We were discussing out favorite childhood cartoons at work this morning and being the oldest the room I stumped everyone with my G-Force reference. Turns out the show was called Battle Of The Planets, this guy was the Darth Vader like character.

Oh, I remember what I wanted to talk about. The sheer number of people in this city. I happened to take the train 1/2 hour later then usual this morning and was floored by the mass of humanity in the subway. At one point I was trying to get around a herd huddled at an escalator and was forced to tip-toe at the edge of the platform to get to the other half of the station. This really freaked me out as the side I was on had the trains coming from behind. One slip at the wrong moment and someone is going to die. I don't understand how this does not happen several times a day? Now I took this same train at the same time and on the same station last year and I can't recall this tidal wave of humanity. This city is having a population explosion that no one seems to be acknowledging. I see it in the construction of condos everywhere. I see it in the lack of parking. The highways are impassable. It's just a mess. You want to talk about overpopulation? In New York city, we are living it.

Night Fishing

Went to Ft. Tilden last night for a little surf fishing. had two types of bait. The squid was useless but the bunker chunks produced some hits after dark, halfway up the incoming tide. My buddy and I both caught a sand shark each.

On the way home we were rerouted around the local bookstore. The street had been closed off. Police barricades, giant inflatable play areas and a line around the block. All at midnight, Harry Potter mania had hit the neighborhood. My hat goes off to the marketing department of that publisher. J. K. Rowling has got a mob scene half way around the world. Man, I can't get three friends to come to a gig even when it's around the corner. I should hire her ad agency, clearly they know what they are doing.

Libertarians: Right 75% Of The Time

After much political soul searching I have come to the conclusion that the Libertarians are the only party that has most things right. 75 percent may not sound like much but when you consider the Democrats and Republicans are at best, right about 25% of the time, the choice is clear.

If we look at social and financial issues each being 50% of the equation it becomes easier to analyze the theory. Let's look at the Democrats. Right off the bat we can say they are wrong on business. Governmental interference helps nobody. At least their brand of nit picking and taxation. On social issues they are a little better. Standing up for individual rights on most occasions unless that right happens to conflict with other ideas. Actively promoting racism disguised as Affirmative Action however makes them lose most of their moral credibility.

The Republicans fare better in the business realm, at least in theory they profess to be "hands off" even though they are not. On social issues they are nothing if not tragic. So while they believe in the first few Amendments to the Bill Of Rights they seem to completely get lost when religion gets in the way. Suddenly they find it acceptable to tell people how to live and what to do. Wrong.

So why are Libertarians at 75% then? On social issues they are completely correct. The basis of their thinking basically is "do what you want as long as you do not harm others." Seems like a sensible philosophy and unlike the major parties they do not make exceptions when it comes to religion, personal morality or cultural differences. Principle only.
In business is where they start to lose me. Sure they are right when it comes to small business. Governmental interference can only harm these enterprises. Big business is another story. Here, the iron hand of a larger entity (such a transparent governmental entity) can actually help. Left to their own devices big business sees nothing but the bottom line. Pollution, safety and the greater good are all small considerations when it comes to profit.

A Libertarian once explained that the market will correct all that is wrong. So that if consumers demand more economic and environmentally friendly cars let's say, the market will adjust itself. Not so, without someone looking out for the nations best interests, big business will rape the environment, enslave the workers and corrupt the soul. Why not, they have done so before. Wouldn't children still be working in coal mines and wouldn't substandard food products be on the shelves if big government hadn't stepped in? Now the real problem then becomes what is government and who controls it?