hey, old man winter!...

go fuck yourself!!...

this just in...

i created a word...

himp-hopster—noun—1. musician/lyricist who passes his or her sound or style off as Hip-Hop when it is more closely related to pop music.

2. A fraud or sham in the Hip-Hop genre.

usage—Man, Wil.I.Am is such a himp-hopster he almost makes Fred Durst look like he has Hip-Hop cred.

pardon the interruption...

Upon driving home from my swim this afternoon, i was enlightened to find out that, Tony Kornheiser, the co-host of ESPN's 'Pardon the Interruption' has been suspended for on-air comments he made on his ESPN Radio show regarding Sportscenter anchor Hannah Storm...

The Washington Post, (incidentally Kornheiser's other day job—he is a columnist), reports about the incident here. It seems Kornheiser commented on the wardrobe of Storm, while she anchored the morning program that runs live, and back to back on the network. ESPN, in the infinite wisdom, took the knee jerk/politcally correct route in suspending Kornheiser from his late afternoon TV program which he hosts with friend and co-writer Michael Wilbom. Kornheiser has personally apologized to Storm for his comments and continues to host his own radio show...

While i have multiple issues with ESPN, and its parent company Disney, i do not have an issue with Kornheiser or PTI. Its one the few produced programs i watch on the network. As for Storm, i find her to be a conscientious anchor and reporter, as she has been throughout her career which began on NBC as an anchor of that networks sports updates, and my issue is not with her. She is free to wear what she or whatever her wardrobe assistant decides is appropriate for her work on-air. My issue is with ESPN for propagating a classic example of a double standard...

sex sells, like it or not, sex sells like pancakes at IHOP. If we are to believe that Storm's wardrobe is not picked out with the issue of aesthetic, including sexuality, in mind, then we must be made to believe that the Brooklyn Bridge is indeed for sale. Not many among us walk out of our doors without thinking or at least wanting to look good to others, let alone stand in front of a television camera for three hours...

the question is whether this would be an issue if, say, Joan Rivers, or Tyra Banks made mention of the appropriateness of Storm's outfit? How about Isaac Mizrahi or Michael Kors?...

Woman reporters and anchors in sports have to eat a lot of misogyny, to be sure, but don't you think Storm should be insulted that the policy thugs at ESPN have to fight her battle for her because of a wardrobe comment? i'm insulted and you should be too...

Kornheiser is paid for his commentary, just as Storm is paid for her effort and expertise in reporting. Am i to think that if Storm had commented on Kornheiser's wardrobe or hairline she would have been suspended?...

Storm has not commented on the suspension, which is par for the course if she wants to keep her job, ESPN is all over this. This is yet another reason why i have been fading ESPN out of my television viewing routine. The network has become an entity above sports—even to the point of eating itself. It has overshadowed the sports it covers and created a generation of athletes that care more about the highlight than the sport they play, or the team they play for. This has led to a deficiency in the sports we love. The Me-Generation personified. The idolizing of a Michael Jordan led to the lack of fundamentals in younger players in the game of basketball. The network's cannonizing of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa led to the eventual demise of those player's integrity and then quickly jumped ship to burn them at the stake of the steroids scandal. They dress up broken down ex-players to report on the NFL in May, two months before any meaningful workouts will take place, four months before any meaningful game and so on, i mean; the network is just as responsible for the floundering of hockey as the 1995 lockout was...

Now ESPN suspends Kornheiser for making a comment that, i would think, some people would find valid. But then again moral superiority is hypocritical. Disney doesn't mind trotting out pop tart after pop tart for the young boys and girls to fawn over, knowing full well what sort of kind Freudian-stew they are creating, only to allow its arm, ESPN, strike down any comment against it machine...

Do as i say, not as i do...

Well, here's to you Tony, for speaking out about a skirt that was indeed shorter than the Cat Mom's camo skirt i love so much (and believe you me, its short), that a Sportscenter anchor was wearing at 9 am in the morning. While i think you be hard pressed to find a male viewer outraged by it, you still have the right to voice your opinion, even if your bosses think you should keep your mouth shut to their hypocrisy...

good night Cananda...

are you listening? vol 6...sunday soundtrack trois

as i made my way through the gardens i was invulnerable, and full of asha...

basking in the tremors of a sonic trio, shuffling with aggression...

Bombs over Baghdad—Outkast

Yeah X 3—24/7 Spyz

Boom—The Roots

what are you listening to?...

now what?...

this is probably the best day the Knicks have had since that fateful day in May, 1985, when David Stern announced, in the NBA's first Draft Lottery, that the Knicks would receive the first pick in that year's player draft. With that pick the Knicks chose, center and Knick-icon, Patrick Ewing...

a lot of people have intimated that the lottery process was a fixed event. That Stern and the NBA brain trust, conspired to give the Knicks the first pick in the draft and give them a clear shot at drafting far and away the best college player in the nation in Ewing. Apparently there is Zabruder-like evidence of such a conspiracy...

i can see how some people would think that garnering Ewing would be a boon to the Knicks franchise, based in the largest media market in the country, and in turn, aid the NBA in becoming the most popular sport in the world, which it was, with the help of a guy named Jordan who played in the second largest media market. Ultimately, i see the choice of Ewing to be the albatross the Knicks would wear for the last 15 years. Sure, Ewing made the Knicks a playoff team, and brought myself and other long time fans closer to a championship then we had been since before i was born, but those of us who live and die with the Knicks, those of us who know better, are cursed to remember only a mistaken shot—the finger roll...

some people remember that 1995 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals as Reggie Miller "choke" series, or the most egregious piece of non-officiating since 1993. i and others like me recall that game as the last time we wanted to see Ewing in a Knick uniform...

you see, drafting Ewing was not a gift, it was a well placed curse, meant to torment the Knick fan into thinking that we would ever be anything more than the team that propped up the Chicago Bulls to three straight titles and made Michael Jordan. An unwitting pawn in Stern's master plan. Maybe it was a conspiracy and the Knicks merely made a deal with the devil. And make no mistake, Stern is the devil...

it would take another 5 years to shed the physical nature of the franchise's albatross, only to descend deeper into the abyss through the work of Isiah Thomas and the wreckage he made of the once proud Knicks. It wasn't until a year and half ago that the sun finally peaked through the dark clouds to present Donnie Walsh, a respected basketball man, originally from this fine city, to begin to wash away the filth left behind by that day in 1986...

Yesterday, Walsh consummated a three-way deal to obtain Tracy McGrady and his $23 million-expiring contract for what, in my opinion, amounts to a bag of basketballs and a pair of old Chuck Taylor's. Sure, pundits on ESPN and TNT are worried that the Knicks might very well be mortgaging the team's future by giving the Houston Rockets access to what could be two basically unprotected lottery picks in 2011 and 2012, for nothing more than a decent shot at LeBron James, arguably the games best player, and other NBA Superstars that will be available as of July 1st. i would take any two of those guys over anyone who will be eligible for the NBA draft in 2011 or 2012, let alone lottery-worth...

in McGrady, the Knicks get a two month rental on a guy the Knick fans have always fawned over, ever since the Knicks won their last playoff series to date against the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors sported two great young players that year, Vince Carter and his cousin, rookie Tracy McGrady. During the series, Vincanity played like Vince Cortho, but McGrady, only 22 at the time, made the series competitive and announced his entrance into the NBA elite...

much has been made of McGrady's health in the later part of his career with the Oralndo Magic and then Houston Rockets. Back troubles and knee surgeries have plagued him, leading to micro-fracture surgery last February. But it seems to me if he didn't have to carry those franchises on his back all these years he would be healthier. The Knicks don't need McGrady to carry them anywhere. The Knicks merely need the clock to tick and the days to turn, until 1995 is but a memory and the clock strike midnight July 1st...

so...now what? Of course, the prize of this years free agent class is James, but i'm here to tell you—don't be fooled by a wolf in sheep's clothing...

while watching the early match-up on TNT last night between James' Cleveland Cavaliers and my pick to come out of the western conference Denver Nuggets, i noticed something that just might change minds at Two Pennsylvania Plaza, and reveal something i've always suspected. King James might not be ready for prime time...

with the game on the line James and Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony played each other on both ends of the floor. Both teams ran their offenses through their superstars. Anthony, used the dribble to create offense for himself and his teammates including a wonderful circus finish beyond the broken ankles of his defender, James, and the eventual game winner, an 18-footer right in the eye of the King. Over the same stretch of time, James while covered by Melo, settled for three straight 23-foot+ jump shots, netting one. On the final play of the game it wasn't until the Cavs used a ball screen to free James from Melo, as the Nuggets switched on defense leaving Aaron Affalo to check the Cleveland star. James then thought it prudent to use the dribble to create a chance at the tying bucket. Affalo was able to provide stout defense and James forced a poor shot resulting in the Nuggets win on the road. James stalked off the court hastily and seemingly in a huff about a foul that wasn't there let alone called...

it was a telling minute of basketball. Faced with the prospect of driving against a player of equal height and skill (more or less) James deferred to his jumper, which can be erratic, rather than challenge his equal. That's not the kind of attitude i want out of one of my max-contract players...

this is not to say that James isn't a great finisher, i once saw him go toe-to-toe with Gilbert Arenas, long before his current troubles, beating the Washington Bullets into submission in a Conference Semifinal in the Spring of 2006, but it seems to me that James cowers in the face of comparable defenders, say like, Melo, or Kobe Bryant...

regardless, i believe the Knicks have finally turned the corner. Next season will be the first season of the rest of our Knick lives. LeBron or not. I just hope that Walsh, coach Mike D'Antoni take heed to what is clearly in front of them. Nothing in the NBA, including one of its best players is cut and dry...

i was born a mere month and a half after the Knicks last championship season, so there are few Knick fans that have waited longer for the the franchise to once again stand atop the NBA as Champions. Today is the day, the beginning of what should wipe away the pain and torment of the last 36...

finally, drama makes its entrance...

Those of you who know the Constellation know its spend an inordinate amount of time writing about sports. Locals like the Knicks, Mets, Jets and Rangers and issues related to major sports as a whole...

This past Friday the Winter Olympics began, and i have kept an eye on the proceedings—moguls, cross-country and downhill skiing, short track speed skating, and figure skating have all been on display. But none of those events holds the drama and excitement of the penultimate tournament. Gladiators doing battle on a sheet of ice with relentless abandon. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, get ready to be rocked by the feature presentation of this 31st Winter Olympiad...

Curling, baby!...

Who needs fixed judging or tests of individual strength and will when we can enjoy one the oldest team sports in North America in Curling. The game teems with strategy, precision and drama to the last hammer of the last end. i can barely contain my excitement at the prospect of another American medal finish...

i realize that the Knicks are on the cusp of a franchise changing trade, that pitchers and catchers are set to report to spring training this week and that there is a new season of Tool Academy vying for your attention, but allow yourself a moment to be immersed in the spectacle that is the sport of Curling...

oh, and the Hockey tournament starts today, if you're into that sort if thing...

don't look behind the curtain Joe...

Joe the Plumber says John McCain ruined his life...

Wow. Joe says the whole "Joe the Plumber" thing was a ploy...

Really?! Man-oh-man alive, you could blow me down with a the false breath of socialism!...

Over the weekend, at NYLISL Draft, the notion of Sarah Palin came up. JB said that she made his party look bad. My response—"Oh, she's the one." i've said it before and will say it again, the Republican Party has a conservative problem. Sarah, Rush, Hannity, Beck, Joe—the scourge of your party, fighting the battle, willingly or unwillingly, for the Military-Pharmaceutical-Industrial Complex, other wise known as the "free market"...

So Joe feels betrayed, yet still sings the same old song. That the current administration is trying to enact un-American policies, (like the New Deal, you know because FDR was a communist). Joe the Plumber has been stripped down and ass-raped by his party but yet still wakes up early to make them a sandwich on his way out the door. Way to go Joe. You're right, we just don't understand them the way you do, not when you're alone, like you do...

The Republican Party is filled with battered wives. When will it be the day those of you who with any sense in your heads will stand up and demand real leadership from your party. Democrats made it pretty clear back in 2008 by electing Obama. Its not his fault that he inherited a bunch of broken records. Change can't occur in the age of the lobby, the age of the corporation, the age of the sheep...

Sooner or later the age of the wolf will come, and eat you all up, and your shepherd won't care...

required viewing...

at some point you will realize you are closer to the bottom than you are the top...

for reference...

and for background...

enjoy...

i'm sure the majority of you will be in front of your televisions or your plate of wings and Guinness, or IPA or—heaven forbid, Bud Light watching the largest sporting event that this country produces, the National Football League's Super Bowl...

while you sift through the hours of faux-inspiration, melodrama and inanity of the hours upon hours of pre-game in anticipation of an overblown spectacle of perfect set pieces and glitzy advertising, i'd like you to turn it off. Yup, do it, turn the fucking thing off. I know its hard to fathom...

'guy, its the Super bowl, what's wrong with you?!'...

there's nothing wrong, i just think you might want to get used to it...

the NFL and its consortium of owners will make the filthiest amount of money you've ever seen or heard of by the time a pigskin is touched by a single football player tonight, let alone how much they will make by tomorrow morning. These owners, purveyors of "the most popular sport in America" will then take a months off at their palatial estates and beach front or mountain getaways and head to Manhattan to cry poor...

the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association is expiring. 2010 stands to be what is being called and "uncapped" year. You see, since 1982 the NFL has operated under a salary cap, which sets a specific dollar amount that each team must adhere to when setting its roster. Next season there will be no cap, players can sign to highest bidder, similar to baseball, but really, only for the year. In 2011, the CBA expires for real and then everything will stop. The owners will tell you that economic conditions will force them to tighten their belts and institute more stringent guidelines in managing payroll. This, by the way, after signing the most lucrative television contract in sports history with a stipulation that even if games are not played, the four networks involved are still required to hold up their financial responsibility to the league. It makes a lockout almost an inevitable event...

this is the microcosm of Capitalism. There is never enough. Greed outweighs good sense, and the common man is left holding the bag. You already pay for your TV, whether its cable, or dish, the majority of Americans pay out for what they watch. Some broadcast networks demanded a surcharge to cable that would be passed on to its customers to have the right to air these networks. As if advertising revenue had hit its ceiling, i mean; how else can they bleed a penny out of the American people...

this is what the NFL and its owners are planning to do. They are planning to lockout players from their facilities, fully prepared to let 2011 come and go with nary a game, while still getting paid for a product they are not producing, all the while blaming the greed of the players...

really...

now, i know, athletes get paid a lot of money. The likes of you and i will ever see such paychecks in our lives, and there is some give and take to be had, especially in a sport like baseball where athletes have enjoyed unprecedented wealth in their sport for over 30 years, but in football things are a little different. The average football players career is 4 years long. Most first year players do not get the million dollar, multi-year deals, with million dollar signing bonuses and those that do, the Eli Mannings of the world, sign multi-year multi-million dollar contracts, only to be wary of the fact that their ownership, at anytime, can revoke the contract as if it never existed. There is no such thing as a guaranteed contract in the NFL. Good players with smart agents can negotiate guaranteed money in the form of signing bonuses and percentages per year of the contract, but tell that to the 23 year-old who was just cut and is forced to find a job working at the Jamba Juice. Tell it to Kurt Warner 15 years ago, when he was bagging groceries, or 5 years ago when he was cut by the New York Football Giants. He is a Hall of Fame caliber quarterback, and not once in his career was he ever sure he was going to have a job from year to year. The owners of your favorite teams are about strong armed these players into eating shit, so they can take more money out of your pocket...

listen, if you're cool with that, than have at it. Eat your wings, drink your beer and enjoy what could very well be a good football game tonight. Laugh at the commercials, discuss whether Jim Nantz should be doing play by play over the likes of Greg Gumbel, and cringe at the fact that Roger Daltrey, (and i consider myself a fan of the Who), has completely lost the ability to sing Who songs. But even if you do watch, i implore you keep an eye on the dollar signs bouncing across the screen for those 3 1/2 hours, and think about your place in it all and whether it was really all worth the time and effort...

hey, look, i won't need football in 2011, the Knicks will be well on there way to a 55 win season by then on their way to fight for an NBA title. i don't need some over-orchestrated game played with increasingly suffocating restraints on gameplay to get by. i've lived through two NFL strikes/lockouts, and i am still standing here...

truth be told, i'll be watching the game tonight, there will be nothing else on. Its too cold out and its the one thing that won't cost me any money—directly that is. The Cat Mom has been excited thinking about where she can eat in solitude this evening after her time at the kitty hospital is done 2,500 miles away. The streets of Tucson will be empty but for her Volvo tonight. She has no want, need or understanding of football, as she is not alone. There are billions of people who could care less that 106 men will be playing for a championship tonight. But all of those people are effected by the ripple and undertow that is the greed and gluttony created by such an event...

maybe there will be an Pauly Shore movie marathon to check out. One can only hope...

doing the world a favor...Vol 2

percy jackson?...

percy?...

really, that's what you're going with?..

percy jackson...

if i wanted to see a remake of Clash of the Titans, i'd go see, well, a remake of Clash of the Titans...

ok. Maybe i'll just wait for the new Harrison Madison film...

midnight movies vol 1...

if the floors could talk they would admonish you

lights be loose, sonic boom, reeks of illumination,

can you see the sounds? that's cosmic inflation,

wrecked be the norm as tracks wax poetic,

heat rises.

bodies tumble in sardine tins,

its pathetic.

(sure, thing could be worse)

i heard you talking some what not, nonsense, hell no,

bending ears, pulling legs and saying in jest. you could be erased.

this is space and time suspended, its own circus, welcome.

a three-ringed rectangle, fourth world condition,

an mta disease

men with beards...

i met up with Aces this weekend, it had been a while. He lost his battle with machine not too long ago and truth be told, i'm not good with bad news. i consider myself more an inspirational speaker, so when talk turned to his desire and wherewithal to grow a beard, i knew i was in my element...

this is my beard...

i've been growing it since late September. i've trimmed it to do my best to keep it uniformed, while allowing it to grow in full. i'll keep it until Easter Sunday, its not religious as much as it is a good round number of a date. And shit gets hot in this city in the Summer months...

the Cat Mom loves it. So much so she'll probably want more...and she'll get it.,,

my mother thinks i look like Yukon Cornelieus. i think of my young comrade Yukon and hope he hasn't broken his neck on some ski slope or on some third floor of a hospital somewhere...

the Brooklyn Bomber calls it majestic. He might be right, but the Dungeon Master would scoff at my effort...

the bastard's beard sees a therapist twice a week to offset the inferiority complex that its working through...

judge roughneck still thinks it 1998, but that's not the point...

i've noticed, since growing this beard, how i have entered an exclusive club. Even i am victim of a vain thought, now and then. When i walk the streets and i see other men, (and women unfortunately), sporting beards i rate them in comparison to mine. Rarely, at least here in the NYC, do i meet an equal, let alone a superior. But i find that i have entered an order unlike any other. As i walked through my errands in the hills this fine day i ran into a gentleman doing construction on the station clock tower wearing a beard similar in length and style to mine. We locked eyes and gave each other a head nod, it seemed a subconscious gesture. Its almost that with beard comes esteem among men. Not in a bopiti-boopiti-Family Guy way, but in a beard growers way...

you wouldn't understand, bare-face...

enjoy Aces, your life is about to change...

the following is my comment left on Judge Roughneck's facebook page. I had been toying with how to attack this issue in the constellation, but I think this says it all...

What's insulting about fiscal conservatives is that they sold us a bill of goods that anyone with a memory knows didn't work the first time, in fact, George Herbert Walker Bush lost a second term to it. He, in fact, created the moniker "voodoo economics".

Supply side economics does not work. Any effort to manipulate the law of supply and demand will always end in the benefit of the very few and a crushing blow to the rest. Supply side economics are why we are in this recession, not planes flying into buildings, or wars. Supply side economics and all of the lousy tax cuts from the W years led us into the recession of the early part of the decade, and we never really made back to level ground.

The real tack to these conservative democrats should be through strong and viable liberal opposition. It was a mistake to make a deal with the devil in the first place. I'd rather have a strong minority of honest-free thinkers than a feckless majority.

apparently, someone finally woke up our President. ...

nice to hear from ya', bro'ham...

bing!...

so by now a couple of old men in tuxedos have lifted a poor-overgrown varmint in the air and have announced whether this animal saw its shadow, through which proclaiming either a quick end to our frozen suffering or a deeper foray into the stark reality that is the dead of winter. Groundhogs Day...

black folk have always mused that the shortest month of the year is the one they were given to celebrate their history, and there they are, sharing it with a groundhog and a a couple of dead presidents...

February is the coldest month of the year on average. It is the definition of bleak and throughout its days it holds all of us captive to its malaise. We've fully digressed from our holiday high, hitting bottom and reaching for anything that will give us hope, like, say, a groundhog's skill of prognostication...

i, instead, am reminded of one Ned Ryerson. The annoying ghost of times past that Phil Connors meets over and over again in the film Groundhog Day. Ned is representative of the fears, and hurdles we face. For me, February is one big hurdle. Annually i sink further inward. Cold, and disaffected by the barren wasteland before me. Creatively i shut down...

this page has sat silent for the better part of the year. This is how it starts, an unwillingness to see things to their end, that's January, until a slow, dull stagger comes to a full stop. Ned Ryerson, rearing his ugly head...

Phil, after several replays of the meeting with Ned, finally seems to master the event with aplomb, even employing Ned to his advantage. The lesson is clear, after years of falling prey to the claws of February, to Ned, the time has come to use it to my advantage...

meet the new Ned, here's to making sure he isn't the same as the old Ned...