Sox Sweet Sweep

Just saw a great baseball game as the Sox whipped the Mets 4-2. Great game saving catch by the anti-Damon, Coco Crisp. Nice pitching performance by Curt Schilling. A pick-off play at second...a winning run scored on a bunt single-stolen base-sac bunt- sac fly sequence. Sox set a record for errorless games in a row in the American League...am I dreamin'! And a cherry on top by Big Papi...my pops must be smilin"!
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Welcome the Scooter

Help the cause and spread the good Karma by clicking on our new renter, Scooter McGavin's, thumbnail in the sidebar. Fortunately Phil Rizzuto hasn't decided to fire-up a blog and it's not an ad for the Money Store, just some interesting observations eminating from Ohio and covering some of the same stuff I deal with here at "the Collar" (I feel a little Bill O'Reilly when I do that). Click on the "9th Green" and spread the love.
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STUFF

The Sox have spoken and my prediction that Pedro Martinez would melt under the emotional weight of his return to Beantown has come true. Sox 10 - Metropolitans 2.

Speaking of weight...Star Jones walks off "The View", should anyone care? Star is the waddling manifestation of everything that is wrong with celebrity and television "culture" in America...oh I forgot about Rush Limbaugh...make Star one of the manifestations..

Who wants to take the one year over and under on the Keith Urban/Nicole Kidman union. I go for the under - 9 months and they're another celebrity marriage trainwreck and subject of a country western song, either, "I Married a Narcissistic Former Actress" or "I Hooked-up With a Country Cokehead".

Good to hear sportswriter and musician, Peter Gammons, is on the mend. An old guy with a young heart and a balky body...I know the feeling.

Later.
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Peter Gammons

The best baseball writer (and a Boston sports writing institution) I have had the pleasure to read has fallen ill. My hopes lie with Peter Gammons and his family. STORY
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Goooaaaaaaalllll..........Vote for Pedro....

The World Cup has been pretty exciting to watch. I haven't caught that many games, but of the ones I have many have been decided by penalty kicks. The officiating has been pretty spotty with Australia, and Team USA, being the unhappy recipeints of some decisively bad calls. The only positive in this caldron of official malfeasance is that, do to the low scoring nature of soccer, some of these games would still be going on if the refs hadn't stepped in on the viewer's behalf.

Tonight will feature the return of my former hero and mainstay, Pedro Martinez, to Fenway Park. At the height of Pedro's powers he was the most dominating pitcher on the planet. I wish him well...except for tonight, when I hope he gets dehydrated from tearing up during introduction and is forced to leave the game early.

Remember with the Fourth coming this may be one of your last legal opportunities to get out there and burn the flag before Congress passes a Constitutional Amemdment banning the desecration of Old Glory. This imperative legislation is taking center stage while Congress backburners unimportant issues like troop reductions, Social Security, Medicaid, perscription drug legislation, global warming, gun control, illegal immigration...well you get the idea.
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Burps From the Bunker

Looks like the entire Northeatern U.S. could submerge with all this rain...have to email Al Gore to see how all this fresh water is affecting Greenland's icepack.

Saw where an Italian blogger lost a defamation suit, not for stating lies or slanderous stuff, but for "expressing himself in a manner best suited to a brothel". Now the case was tried in Italian courts which are not known for there unbiased perspectives and clear thought, so the warning to our more potty-mouthed brethren is more symobolic than real....Arnold Schwarzenegger refused Bush's request to send troops to the Mexican border and GOP dipstick, Don Goldwater, nephew of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, caused an international stir this week when EFE, a Mexican news service, quoted him as saying he wanted to hold undocumented immigrants in camps to use them "as labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they're polluting."

On a more serious note, Aaron Spelling passed away. This guy was the most prolific of crappy television producers and was responsible for such small-screen groundbreakers as, "Charlie's Angels", "Dynasty" "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Melrose Place," "Love Boat," "Fantasy Island", "The Mod Squad", "Starsky and Hutch", "T.J. Hooker", and "Hart to Hart", all with the exception of the fabulous "T.J. Hooker", pure crapola...he will be missed.

Warning - Political Rant - Quagmire

John Kerry has spoken and he wants a schedule. He should have just stapled a "Kick my Sorry Ass" sign to his liberal derriere and sidled up to Karl Rove's size 10's. "Cut and Run" is the war cry and while you're at it let's buttress Dick Cheney's flagging reputation for telling the truth by unearthing some stanky-assed WMD's from the "Saddam Hussein - The Early Years" collection and have that esteemed butt-floss, Rick Santorum try to get some cheap press to help his flagging re-election campaign while we're at it. It ain't over until the last Humvee is torched and the last insurgent takes his shot. If we're gonna do this thing right stop cutting equipment and manpower numbers to our troops, deploy every available man and let's fight this thing all over again, from scratch, with the military calling the shots -- and not some fat-assed, draft-dodging bureaucrat with a pie chart in one hand, a fist-full of lobbiest cash in the other and two round trip tickets to the British Open courtesy of Halliburton in his back pocket making our military decisions...
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It's Over - Beware - Sports Rant

Team USA was defeated by that soccer powerhouse, Ghana, by the score of 2 to 1 and thus eliminated from the World Cup. Shaq won the NBA title and some team from North Caroline was rumored to have won the Stanley Cup (go Bruins). Now that all those details are out of the way, let's get on with the real work at hand and settle the American League East before Labor Day. The Red Sox have a new gunslinger in the starting rotation and his name is Jon Lester, hopefully the young lefty is another Bill "Spaceman" Lee and not another Casey "I hurt my neck watching that one leave the park" Fossum. The Yankees look old and shaky which like many animal species makes them all the more dangerous. Let the trades begin!
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...Not From the Bunker

Another one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers got wacked. Iraq is totally out of control...Won over 300 traffic credits in Blog Explosion Lottery...had to look at a lot of bad blogs to get that done...Blogged on the wasp-waisted cartoon images favored by some blog ladies in their blog designs and have noticed a couple of other people had almost exactly the same idea...Saw a poll that says something like 50% of Americans favor some form of staying-the-course strategy in Iraq, these must be the same people who on their blogs write in the voice of their cat, dog or child... or post a picture of them and their little pet bunny leading off their searing daily reports and tell us about all the depression medication they take daily (and you will require also if you read their sad little bloggies)...which reminds me it's time for my meds...out.
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Winners... Losers...and More Losers....

Red Sox are on a mini-roll while the Yankeros are struggling, nice...NYC is heating up like a giant mega-skillet...the bullets should start flying shortly as tempers fray, knives are the weapon of choice for cold weather endeavors...I'm looking for a song to use as a track on a job I'm working on but unfortunately the pop music industry is devoid of any redeeming artists...some thing calling itself Gnarls Barkly tops the charts and is an artist of another kind (though the tune is catchy...).

Some guy in North Korea (he does sport a great "look") has a missile and he wants to launch it. Dick Cheney is still squashing that insurgency...it's almost gone...just a little more....

Just read the numbers of a CNN POLL I linked to through Drudge. The poll asked people if the y would "definitely vote for/or against" three possible Republican and Democratic candidates. The Drudge headline was that Hillary Clinton had "high" negative numbers, possessing a 47% "no" number. What Drudge failed to note was she also had the highest "yes" number, 22% (of course, I ain't no Hill lover myself). Did Drudge cop the Fox News approach or did they get it from him?

Shaq is going to win the NBA title, yawn...Can team USA beat Ghana? I wrote our soccer team off last week in a hissy fit...maybe the dream still lives...oh, probably not...
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Jack Murtha Targets Karl Rove's Fat Ass

Just came back for the "Eastend" of Long Island...sweet. Bleery-eyed and in need of an infusion of non-alchoholic liquids, I hooked myself up to an I.V. and pumped life-giving H2O into my system, availing me of the opportunity to see a chunk of this interview between Tim Russert and Rep. Jack Murtha. If you haven't seen it, check-out the VIDEO. Old Jack kicks Karl "cut and run" Rove in his fat ass (to paraphrase Jack) and provide much needed fuel for the political fire.
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Welcome "Haunted House Dressing"

Check-out our new tenant, "Haunted House Dressing", cuz everyone's got a skeleton (or two) in their closet. I, myself, have very limited paranormal experience, although, I did bump into Ted Williams headless torso while shopping on Newbury Street in Beantown a few years back.
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Today's Food for Thought...or maybe not...

I'm a little depressed about the Sox getting whupped the last couple of days against the Twinkies. They shoulda kicked ass. I guess Big Papi can only squeeze his planet-sized ass into his Superman tights once a week.

Looks like the two remaining American soccer fans will be able to go back to their everyday lives following Team USA's upcoming defeat to the spaghetti-twirlers from Italy Saturday (unless they stick around one more game to watch our team get out hustled by Team Ghana). Hope I'm wrong.

My man Rudy Guiliani is talking about drilling for oil under some protected elk in Alaska and building nuke plants all over suburbia...quiet Rudy...I liked you more when you were making NYC safe from squeegy-men , too much time in the hot-tub at the thinktank me thinks. I need a serious presidential candidate...where's Ross Perot or Dale Evans...or Jean Claude Van Damme? Anybody else want to mud-wrestle Anne Coulter....I mean to teach her a lesson of course. When is that Kevin Federline single being released...I'm trying to make my vacation plans.

Two great American Rock bands, Grandaddy and Starlight Mints.
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Wasted Time

Alright so the title of this post might lead you to believe I have been hitting the bong again...not true. The mistake I made was not violating the Bush administrations drug policy but in watching almost 2 hours of Team USA's depressing defeat in the World Cup soccer tournament. Most people in America don't even know soccer exists (other than a few mom's forced to drive their little Billys and Heathers to an occassional weekend game so they can hook-up with the coach of the other team...), so it should have come as no suprise to me when Team USA fell to the mighty Czechs, 3-0. Team USA lead by Landon Donovan looks like a bunch of overprivileged, prep school wannabees against a real European mens soccer team. Maybe our boys can turn this thing around against the Italianos and maybe we will emerge gloriously victorious from the Iraq conflict but I kinda doubt it...
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EMP-TV

MTV is a pox on the American television landscape. What started out decades ago,fairly innocently, as a vehicle for selling all types of music by playing those new fangled and unvarnished music videos, has turned into this giant slobbering, marketing machine for Viacom and every other talent-free media conglomerate out there. I just endured some of the MTV Movie Awards , a horribly written, nutrition free television confection, the TV equivalant of a twinky, which shamelessly sells bogus films and their stars both equally devoid of talent. A steaming coil of poop packaged in a great set with screaming young girls corralled into little audience pits to provide cheers and laughs for the lame pseudo entertainers and their banter. Lowlights included Will Farrell embarassing himself in a NASCAR outfit to hype an upcoming comedy "vehicle". Farrell is fast becoming a poorman's Chevy Chase...or Adam Sandler...or...Jimmy Fallon (if a poorman's Jimmy Fallon is possible).

Jim Carrey accepted some sort of mega-star award with an accompanying bunch of clips that made it appear he'd passed on so he came out and did an unfunny five minutes surrounded by 100 models dressed as angels replete with angel's wings and costumes...ouch!

Jessica Alba hosted and once again revealed herself as just another commodity (I can't say actor) a performer absent of talent, charisma, comedic timing or acting chops...possessing only a smoking body and a great agent. Alba's blue-screen skit as a realtor selling a "cliff" to King Kong was about as funny as an aneurism. When you look at this event as just another component of the flacid MTV programming package you can see the hands of the cynical teen-hating machine of Viacom excitedly rushing to jam horrible products, music and movies down young America's video-game-addled throats. Who decided that every suburban white kid should round out their cultural education by assimilating all of Fifty Cents crotch grabbing socio-pathology into their everyday behavior. TRL, featuring Jessica Simpson interviews and supposed musical guests like Kelly Clarkson feeds into Road Rules vs Kids With Newer Haircuts III, it goes on and on ...

I'm just glad I'm too old and brokendown to get sucked into the vortex for too long...but now I know it wasn't video that killed tht radio star...it was EMT-TV.

Turn that shit off!!
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Lost in the Fog

The rains have stopped for a few hours but the wind makes it feel like a late fall day and it looks like fog may move in...ah, the country life. Jazil just robbed me of mucho dinero in the Belmont Stakes, the Yankees lost...things balance out.
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A River Runs Through... My Living Room

This week I am up in the hills fighting the good fight at the bunker. We have been inundated with rain and actually sprung a leak on our upper-most window. I got up on the 40' ladder to purvey the caulking challenge and realized that I no longer have the cohonas for this kind of thing...get the roofer.

On a more lucrative front, I had bought a bamboo fly rod at auction for less than a c-note a couple of years ago. I am an occasional fisherman but have not taken up the more sophisticated pursuit of fly-fishing (a rich man's excuse for more expensive gear) so I decided to put the rod up on Ebay. The first 6 days of the 7 day auction the thing wallowed around at about 275 Millars, but on the seventh day it arose from the dead in the final two minutes of the auction and jumped up well over a grand...a splendid topping to my birthday week. Must be some of that Kobe Karma.

A shout out to the pilots who nailed Mr. Zarqawi...now why didn't we capture the dude who was in an isolated house in the middle of nowhere...did somebody say press release...and thanks to the U.S. Senate for killing that gay marriage Constitutional Amendment. We have faced the "attack on Christmas", the "attack on Easter" and now the most insidious affront to Christian belief...the "attack on marriage" and we as a nation still persevere...in this inspired state I think I'll go out and take in some of that fine American mountain air...uh, maybe not, it's raining again...


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Welcome to The Kobe Haters Blog

Here at the "Collar" we fully support and appreciate an individuals ability to churn up some real animosity for sports figures and entertainers alike. In this case the object of our new Tenant's scorn is none other than that two-faced, smiling, woman abuser...Kobe Bryant. I have to concur that Kobe represents the worst in preening, self agrandizing, egocentric star behavior, sort of a rich man's Jeremy Piven. In the spirit of such unbridled animus here is a list of some of my favorites or at least the ones I can think of in my current confused-dial-up-state:

A certain former Red Sox player who fits this description:
Looks like Jesus
Acts like Judas
Throws like Mary

- Ryan Seacrest (we'll get into gay marriage in another post)
- Gary Sheffield
- A Rod
- Naomi Campbell
- Any Bush including Barbara
- The Simpson sisters
- Any actress from "Sex in the City"
- Any actress from "Desperate Housewives"
- The Big Unit
- Adam Sandler
- Jim Carrey
- Kevin Garnett
- Punk Ass Isaih Thomas
- Super Punk Ass Stephon Marbury
- Old white-guy Punk Ass Larry Brown

There are so many, many, more I'll have to do this again.
Thanks for the inspiration and bad karma, Kobe Haters, rock on!
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Mountain Mayhem

Notes from the hills.

My birthday was yesterday...the old 6-6-6 thing. I had some moments when I behaved like Satan's spawn but overall I think I avoided a trip the hellfire hotel...

Just saw a turkey walk by the deck... no the bird, not my cousin in a bad pair of shorts.

Played golf yesterday and it was extremely wet. The course was covered in caterpillars so we invoked the standard "two putt caterpillar rule", no more than two putts scored if more than 20 thousands caterpillars on the green (this rule was invoked several times), this, along with other forms of cheating, helped my score immeasurably (I figured it was Satan's birthday).

The road to the bunker looks like Saigon circa 1967. Pothole city. Hillbilly contractors take at least 6 months to bid on a project and another 6 months to execute.

Blew-up the lawn mower...

Can't put up photos due to dial-up restrictions...

Oh, and the Sox are getting pummeled by the Yankees...glad I'm in seclusion and not back in NYC.

Later,
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Motorcycle Diaries

Things I saw on my way to the bunker..

A woman passenger on a giant motorcycle reading a book in the open air at 75 mph...nice...

Misguided teenage girl wearing a Johnny Damon t-shirt in upstate NY (she was in Walmart and so was I...who's misguided now)

Trees totally defoliated by gypsy moths or similar (whole mountainsides)

A vast preponderance of woman behind the wheel...driving north on the NY Thruway (my wife was driving our vehicle). Where were they all going in all those Subarus...we were also in a Subaru...hmmmmm...wasn't Martina Navritalova the spokesperson for Subaru for awhile...

On a dial-up here at the bunker which is in a remote Catskillian perch unvalued by terrorists and realtors...(joking about the realtors). No hi-speed connection for the hill people and the woodchucks...more on them later..
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A Question for the Blogosphere

I started this blog when I was laid-up with a faulty gallbladder, an encounter that turned out badly for both the organ involved and moi. After passing through that dark chapter in my medical history I blogged along indifferent to some of the most basic blogging knowledge and protocals, oblivious and serene. I still use the lame original template supplied by Blogger when I launched this blog - never having taken the time to learn how to customize the template in any real, impactful way.

Now after dabbling in Blog Explosion and similar sites I have seen many things, sampled many a blog and now have a couple of questions. First question concerns blog-title banners and art. I have noticed a growing proliferation of retro, fifties style art appearing on blogs, primarily women's blogs, in which cartoon renditions of tiny wasted women with beehive hairdos stand in 1950's tableaus with small dogs, cats, planes and such. Where does this art come from? Is there an endless supply of talented female illustrators out there feverishly working on their blog designs and why are the women depicted in the art so dramatically different in appearance from the photos and personal descriptions of the blogger/authors themselves? Is this all about positive self-image, or maybe just having fun...in which case maybe I should put a Matthew McConaughey picture up (see above)as part of my blog title? I will explore misleading photos, pet photos and other psychologically disturbing blogger phenomenon when I run out of ideas for a post in the future.
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100 slaps

My niece knows this guy but she had a conflict so she didn't get to slap'im. 100 Slaps Video

All in the name of art, fame and degradation.
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A Third Political Party

I have often seen Peggy Noonan as part of the problem, a Reagan foot soldier with great writing skills, but that being said, I often check-out her columns as she appears to have grown wiser and less party loyal as the years goes by. I just read an article she wrote on the possible development of a third political party, entitled, "Third Time" and she happens to be making a lot of sense. I've often cynically thought a "third party president" was a complete impossibility, sort of like my beloved Red Sox winning the World Series and probably as enjoyable (well almost). I thought John McCain might try it when his last presidential campaign was torpedoed by Karl Rove and the Christian Militia, but he didn't have the nads or the inclination to cut his party ties and kick the Republican Party where it hurts, that being said, maybe he should have. Today McCain dines with Jerry Falwell and Hillary backs the prez in Iraq and both parties crap down the back of the American people. Time for a change, but does anyone see an organization or candidate capable of defeating the giant two-party, political whore masters at their own game? Keep the Naders, Perrots and Clooneys on the sidelines and lets seriously start thinking of alternative before this whole situation gets even worse.
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ps: I will now resume our regularly scheduled programming....Go Red Sox!

NYC...The Front Lines

I just reviewed the budget summary for Homeland Security. NYC has been cut back by 40% and, though the entire budget was cut, this is a disproportionately high percentage versus other cities (large and small). The New York Post, that bastion of liberal thought, has a nice breakdown of the details. The way it works is that the chair of the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) gives $9 mill to Louisville (a rising target on all terrorist screens) and gives the shaft to NYC, the target of the two largest terrorist attacks of all time and a destination on all terrorist travel and vacation agendas. Politics as usual is getting a little tired here in The Big Apple and unfortunately you won't hear much out of dearest Hillary who is running for prez and must carefully stroke the far right and move to the middle like any good political hack should. As somebody who witnessed first-hand the burning towers the morning of 9/11 as I exited the subway in Chelsea, I have to say those images and the smell that lingered in the city streets for the next week make this travesty all the more appalling. Let's hope the fall elections clean out some of the pork barrel crowd and don't just replace them with their twins from the other party.

Go Red Sox,
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