Ok, this is getting ridiculous
Rumor has it that Randy Johnson might be available in trade. Suprise, surprise. The Yankees and Red Sox are both actively pursuing him. In case you haven’t been keeping score at home, these would be the projected starting pitching rotations for the two teams if they happened to get one of the nastiest lefties to ever sport a mullet on a major league mound.
Pedro Martinez
Randy Johnson
Curt Schilling
Derek Lowe
Fill in the blank
Randy Johnson
Mike Mussina
Jose Contreras
Javier Vazquez
Kevin Brown
Even if the Yankees got Randy Johnson, I would still give the edge to the Red Sox in pitching staff, because I don’t think Mike Mussina is nearly as good as either Pedro Martinez or Curt Schilling anymore. Maybe 4 years ago he was on their level. Contreras and Vasquez are relative unknowns and Kevin Brown is a complete unknown because of health.
I will admit it is kind of fun to talk about, but it is yet another example of a seriously ill game with almost no competitive balance.
Regulating the Regulators
I am a big fan of Howard Stern. Anyone who knows me knows that I have been listening to Howard for a long time. 11 years, to be exact. The first time I ever listened to Howard Stern I was riding the school bus with a Walkman and flipped through the radio dial until I heard Flava Flav, the wacky member of Public Enemy. At the time, I was 14 and a huge fan of Public Enemy’s album, “Apocalypse ‘91: The Enemy Strikes Black” so hearing Flava Flav was something I wanted to listen to. From that point on, I have listened to the show quite frequently. At points in my life, I have listened every single day. 11 years. Needless to say, I am a fan. I just needed to be up front with that.
Trust me when I tell you that I know a lot about the show. Yesterday, Clear Channel Communications radio conglomerate pulled Howard Stern’s show off of the air in 6 markets including Pittsburgh, Orlando, San Diego and others. This decision is within the rights of Clear Channel, obviously, but this story goes a little bit deeper than Clear Channel making a judgement call on decency. It just so happens that one of the higher-ups at Clear Channel, John Hogan, had to appear before Congress yesterday for an indecency hearing. Is this just a bit coincidental that this is the same day that his company pulled Stern from the air? I don’t think so. Now, lets meet the rest of the players.
The Sheriff – Played by The FCC
The Federal Communications Commission is the regulatory commission in charge of the public airwaves in this country. They take complaints that people might have and they also levy punishments against broadcasters who have done things wrong.
Michael Powell (Colin’s son) the head of the FCC has proposed to raise the maximum fine for indecency tenfold from $27,500. According to Powell, the current maximum fine is not enough to dissuade broadcasters from broadcasting indecent material. The funny thing is that I agree that the fine amount is not enough to be persuasive to these huge conglomerates. That is, of course, if they are never handed down.
The FCC doesn’t do anything pro-actively and frequently doesn’t hand out any fines at all. Now all of a sudden, given the Janet Jackson thing, the government and the FCC have found themselves under the gun a little bit and they are now responding. This isn’t how things are supposed to work. By not enforcing rules that have been there for a long time on something as subjective as “decency,” it is almost the same thing as saying that material is acceptable for the airwaves. Now that there have been no fines over the course of time, you can’t all of a sudden make scapegoats of broadcasters who have been doing the same thing for the last five years.
The Outlaws
Opie and Anthony
There have been some examples of broadcasters who have been punished for activities. Opie and Anthony were pulled off the air last year when they had an explicit contest with listeners who had to have sex in public places around New York City for “points.” When one of the couples got caught in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the hammer was dropped on Opie and Anthony because they encouraged someone to do something illegal and then broadcasted it. I must say that I was listening that day and thought it was one of the most entertaining and funny shows I have ever listened to, probably because of the shock value. That being said, I don’t question the decision to fire those guys. They encouraged someone to do something illegal and broadcasted it. I loved that show and I wish it was still on, but I know that isn’t right.
Bubba the Love Sponge
Then the case of “Bubba the Love Sponge” happened in the last week. I don’t know who “Bubba the Love Sponge” is, and I have never heard the show, but he was fired last week after accruing a $755,000 fine based on the complaints of one man to the FCC. I have heard about some of the antics of “Bubba” and maybe some reprimanding was in order.
The Snitch
There is a bigger problem here with the way the FCC works. Obviously the FCC can’t monitor all shows all the time. I don’t think anybody in his or her right mind would expect such a thing. They should be using a different system for determining where and when fines should be levied. After digging through some articles about the “Bubba” firing, I found that the action by the FCC was brought on by the complaining of a single person, Douglas Vanderlaan, who has been on a three year crusade to try and get the FCC to do something about the “Bubba” program.
- Douglas Vanderlaan is a scientist by profession, and a dad who’s top priority is caring for his two sons. Three years ago, he listened to Clear Channel’s ‘Planet Radio’ in Jacksonville, in the middle of a “Bubba the Love Sponge” show featuring a porn-star who went on to give listeners the web address of her personal site.
- “The more I listened, the more irresponsible content I heard,” said Vanderlaan. “I just felt this sense of purpose when I first heard that radio broadcast. I thought, ’somebody ought to do something. Why not me’.”
- So Vanderlaan recorded several ‘Bubba’ shows, and joined forces with a broadcast attorney in Washington, D.C., to file a formal complaint with the FCC. That complaint eventually resulted in the $755,000 fine.
- For Vanderlaan, news of Bubba’s firing is seen as a gracious victory.
As you can see, a single person has determined the definition of “decency” for a whole lot of people. Doesn’t this seem like a flawed system, where a single person can determine what should happen for a whole group of people?
Howard Stern
With all these things in mind, Clear Channel removed Howard Stern’s program a day after a caller used THE racial epithet that is most offensive to African Americans. After the caller used the word, Stern hung up on the caller and asked another question. Is it enough to not condone the word? Should the word have never hit the airwaves? I am not the person to answer that question. I am also not the person to determine it for other people.
This is my point. I understand that maybe we have a problem that needs a solution. I understand that when an issue becomes hot it has to get overdone by politicians and other groups in this country. It is the way of the world in the United States today. But, why can’t we ever do things slowly and strategically? We always need to give that instant gratification to the few people who complain the loudest, so we start doing heart surgery, with a hammer and screws.
There are people who complain about the Howard Stern show. There are people who don’t complain and decide not to listen to the show. There are people who like the show and won’t admit it. What would you guess the population distribution is in this case? Seeing as Stern is number one in the majority of the markets that he is/was broadcasting in, which group is in the majority? The complainers? Yet, they are the ones who are determining what everyone else gets to listen to.
There is definitely a problem in this country in relation to the public airwaves. Something occasionally needs to be done about what is broadcasted over the airwaves. Before that can happen effectively, we need a better way to determine problems, come up with solutions and ultimately regulate these airwaves.
For more, check out This Link
Bad Parent Part 2
I don’t know if you guys remember THIS POST that I did about the parent who body-slammed the high school referree. Well, the power of the internet is once again shown. One of the man’s sons (apparently) found my little article and is none too happy about my characterization of his father, who body-slammed a high school referree. He says I should know what I am talking about before I speak. It is a very good point. I think maybe I am justified in being critical of a parent who is out of control at a high school sporting event to the point he attacks a referree.
Am I wrong?
Trading Words for Rights
President George Bush has now officially stated that he supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. I think this is completely misdirected energy on the part of the president. I don’t think pushing a constitutional amendment defining a word over what I presume to be religious reasons is a proper use of the time that your creator gave you. As this has developed over the last few weeks, I wonder if this country has ever gotten into such a big argument over semantics before.
The President said,
- “The amendment should fully protect marriage while leaving state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage.”
Ok, so the Christian in him wants to make sure that his Church-sanctioned union is the only thing defined as “marriage.” He wants marriage to be defined as the union of a man and a woman, but he doesn’t want to rule over the “arrangements other than marriage?” Interesting.
I have a plan that I would like to propose other than a constitutional amendment. I am not saying it is the only plan, but I think it will work. I just think that it is better than wasting everyone’s time on this issue with ratification of the most storied legal document in the history of Gahd’s Green Earth.
- 1. Schedule a nice long pow-wow with the folks at Franklin, Oxford, and Merriam-Webster’s. You know; The dictionary people? We will simply have them define marriage more specifically and give it usage preference in the religious context so that every hetero couple on earth who was married in a church can have the “sanctity” of their statistically-doomed union. Ok?
- 2. Then we tell the same dictionary folks that we need a new word that will describe all the two-person, state-sponsored, rights-having unions that will be recognized in this country for any two adults who decide they want to make their relationship official, while retaining rights to a standard set of rules governing important things like taxes, inheritance and hospital visitation. There are already words available, but I think an all-new word will be a better option so there is no usage history for anyone to recall at a later date.
- 3. That’s right. This new word will describe the relationship between any two consenting adults. This is not going to open any doorways to multiple wives or any of that old-school Utah stuff. It also won’t open it up to other “religious groups” who think women should be organized into a harem for some cat that thinks he is the reincarnated jebus, or the second ray of the sun in charge of spiritual guidance while awaiting the arrival of the mother ship who will take you and all your castrated, Nike-wearing selves off to the promised land. Nobody is talking about allowing this kind of thing. So don’t bring it up.
You see the problem is that we have let the word “marriage” become far too important in the real world. I say, let it be a religious term. You can have it. As a straight, unmarried, non-religious person, I am going to grant you the right to take that stupid word. BUT, when you are outside of the church and you decide to choose someone as your partner, you will be referred to as a couple that is (fill in the blank with the conjugated form of the word that we had the dictionary folks come up with to mark any two adults as rights-having couples.)
I realize this might still be offensive to the gay community to not be able to use the word marriage. For that I am sorry. The only thing that I can say to that is, you already knew you were up against it with the Bible folk from many different churches. (Mind you, I didn’t say all the churches.) But really, you knew most of the churches were never going to accept you anyway as a gay couple. So let those folks have their own word. You don’t really want a word that people have historically used to exclude you anyway.
Give them words all day, as long as they are willing to give you rights.
Watchable Sports in Cleveland?
I now have reason to watch the Cavaliers.
Last night against the New Orleans Hornets, the Cavaliers were down by 25 points at one point in the second quarter. 25 points. The Hornets were on fire and started the game shooting a ridiculous 80% from the field and the Cavs just couldn’t do anything right. The Cavs decided to change things up a bit and put Jason Kapono into the game.
Jason Kapono was an afterthought pick in the second round of the draft last year from UCLA. He came in the game when it was totally out of control, caught fire and led the comeback from 25 points down. In 28 minutes, Kapono went 7-9 from the field including 5-5 from three-point range for 19 points. After three quarters, the score was 77-73 in favor of the Hornets.
Then the rest of the team caught on, as Coach Paul Silas left Kapono on the floor for a good portion of the rest of the game. The Cavs finished off the Hornets 104-100 for the unlikely comeback and win. This is the Cavs third win in a row. It is their 23rd win of the season. It puts Cleveland tied with Philly for 9th place in the eastern conference. The top 8 teams get into the playoffs.
These are all just stats though. This is the first time in years that the Cavs have had a team. A group of guys that don’t seem out of place together. A group of guys who pick each other up and do different things every night. The last few years we either saw Ricky Davis shooting ridiculous fade-away jumpers, or a completely forced offense through Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Nobody else was even capable of scoring.
Add in the number one pick in the draft, and a coach who wasn’t a discount special off of the league scrap-heap and look what can happen. Now we see Lebron not only leading the scoring, but also leading the team. The difference is that when he has problems, which as a rookie he has from time to time, he is making Carlos Boozer better by drawing attention to himself and then dishing off. Sure he takes some awful shots sometimes, but he is learning and has been pretty successful so far.
The Cavs improvement goes further though. They picked up point guard Jeff McInnis from Portland. He was generally considered to be a bit of a bad guy even though he is very talented. So far he has been far more valuable than Darius Miles ever was. He allows Lebron to play the 2-guard and concentrates on setting the offense. Carlos Boozer has continued to get better and better as a power forward and Zydrunas Ilgauskas has improved his defense this year with instruction from Paul Silas and is still reliable for 20 points a night.
The biggest difference in the team this year is depth. Because they traded guys like Ricky Davis, Chris Mihm and Darius Miles, they were able to get solid veterans like Jeff McInnis, who I mentioned, along with Tony Battie and Eric Williams, who are coming off the bench. These guys shore up the defense and provide some leadership for all the young guys on the team. This depth is what makes the Cavs a team and ultimately watchable this year.
They have a budding superstar in Lebron. They potential allstars in Zydrunas and Boozer and they have a bench full of role players who can step in and carry the load for a few nights a season. This is the start of a very good team. They may make the playoffs this year, but they won’t go far. Still not bad for a team starting from nothing.
Owning Mahowney – DVD
Owning Mahowney is based on the true story of a young bank manager who was responsible for the largest one-man Canadian bank fraud ever. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dan Mahowney. Other cast notables are John Hurst and Minnie Driver who plays Mahowney’s girlfriend. Much like Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich, Minnie Driver is unrecognizably hideous due to a wig, makeup and the largest pair of eyeglasses that I have ever seen. She did look like she was in the 80’s, but it makes me wonder how anybody got married in those days with the hideous hair and fashion.
Owning Mahowney is the story of Hoffman’s character, Dan Mahowney, who gets addicted to the track, and eventually casino gambling while he has access to multi-million dollar customer banking accounts and various lines of credit. You can imagine how it goes from there. It is a typical story, but as usual, Philip Seymour Hoffman creates a character that you feel like you haven’t met before.
Overall, this movie is utterly depressing for the majority of its duration. It is like a train-wreck that you can’t avert your eyes from. You can see the tracks are out about a mile ahead, but you know the brakes won’t stop the train in time. I want the movie to end because I know where it’s going, but Hoffman’s portrayal of Dan Mahowney is so good that you can’t stop caring what happens to this guy.
Hoffman is an expert actor at portraying odd characters with his eyes and facial expressions. He has done it time and again, like his portrayal of odd porno towel boy in Boogie Nights, or his convincing portrayal of Lester Bangs in Almost Famous, or his unsung role in Flawless, as a transvestite who teaches Robert DeNiro to talk again after a stroke.
If you get a chance to check this one out, you probably won’t be disappointed.
All the Real Girls – DVD
When you get tired of the schlock that ends up filling theaters every year, make sure you go to your local video store and look at the movies that are below eye level. I am talking about all the independent movies that might normally fly under the radar. Sometimes the acting is a little spotty, and there will be far fewer special effects, but the difference is in the writing. I watched All the Real Girls this weekend and it was refreshing.
The story is about Paul, who has made a name for having experienced most of the women in his small southern town. The problem now is that he has fallen in love with Noel who is his good friend’s sister. He must battle the perception that he has created of himself over time and his past to make this new and different relationship work.
The story isn’t overly compelling, but it is executed pretty well. Some of the fringe characters, like “Bust-Ass,” weren’t acted very well. And honestly, who writes a movie with a mulleted character named “Bust-Ass?” With the independent films it doesn’t really matter though. Expectations are tempered and you can look for a storyline and character development, both of which were present in this film.
Day of Unrest
I try not to do those typical blog posts that many people read at other blogs and hate, but I am going to make an exception today.
It is one of those unexplainable high-stress days. Nothing is wrong (yet) but I can’t seem to calm myself down. Maybe it is too much coffee or something, but I have this sense of worry or dread that I just can’t get to leave me. I tried listening to music, but nothing I have on my computer is making me feel any better. I tried reading some sites on the internet and some news stories, but all I pull out is the negative stuff.
I went over to read Acidman at Gut Rumbles because he usually makes me laugh, but he is talking about some impending court case involving his kids and his ex-wife. I get the feeling we aren’t hearing the whole story from him either. So that doesn’t do anything to calm me down. I know it’s some high expectations, but all I wanted was one of his rants to make me laugh. No such luck.
Then I went to CNN.com and the headlines were as follows: “Train blast destroys Iran villages,” “Twin suicide bombings kill 11 Iraqis,” “Colorado to hire monitor for athletics department,” “Study: Oldest drivers more likely to die in crashes,” “Disney to buy Muppets,” “Palmolive pitchwoman ‘madge’ dead,” “Study suggests novel treatment for heart failure,” and finally, “Teen surfing Web learns he was abducted.” For a recap, that is Death, Death, Rape, Arthritic Death, Cartoons and Puppets, Dishsoap Death, Heart Death, Kidnapping.
This isn’t helping.
The best things I have been able to come up with (and trust me I am grateful) is Deezo Feezo talking about how despite what Outkast would have you believe, shaking your Polaroid picture isn’t the preferred method for developing their instant photographs. That was good, but not enough.
I don’t have many days like this anymore. I used to have five or six in a row frequently last year, so you would think I would be able to deal with a measly single day of unrest. Not the case. I think it actually makes it worse. So, you need to help calm me down today. Give me something fun to check out so that I can calm down and concentrate.
Is this the end?
I am sure a lot of you don’t follow the links over to BlogCritics and in some cases people have told me specifically that they don’t like the site. I might be starting to agree with those people. I have now been labeled a “silently complicit de facto racist” for not screaming loud enough or with enough frequency about different comments that some perceive a certain way and others perceive in another way. I really don’t care for the infighting that occurs over there all the time. I joined that site to do Media reviews. I never back away from an argument, but I just can’t deal with this. Maybe I will keep my mouth shut and just do my reviews over there.
If I am going to be accused of being “silently complicit” I don’t really think there is any way for me to win. I am not a racist. I am not a silently complicit de facto racist.
A Country Weekend
This weekend for Valentine’s Day I was in Southern Michigan at a bed and breakfast. I picked this place out over all the others because it isn’t your typical bed and breakfast experience. When I think of a bed and breakfast, I think of multiple couples staying in a place that has maybe 5 bedrooms. It seems like these places are really nice, but lacking in the kind of privacy that lends itself to complete relaxation.
This place is nothing like the others. It is really a private house on the property of another family out in the middle of nowhere in southern Michigan. It has a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen a little dining room and a bathroom. No other couples. No group meals. If we wanted, our host would cook and bring over breakfast. Options include omelets, quiche, and freshly baked muffins. And most importantly, you don’t need to bother with other people unless you want to.
The other great thing is that, while there is a TV there, there is no cable. There is a VCR connected and there are some VHS tapes that the family left here, including The Fox and the Hound and Alice in Wonderland which were only a bit tempting. There are electric heaters hanging on the ceiling in every room with individual thermostats, but you really don’t have to use them. The wood-burning stove in the living room keeps the whole place very warm and the pyro in me was in heaven tending to the fire all weekend long.
Saturday morning I got up bright and early at 8 am. I am kind of an early riser, so while I was waiting for the day to start for everyone else (ahem) I got up, made some coffee and actually watched the birds feasting on the feeders outside the kitchen window. I am not into the whole cliche that I need to do the nature thing and I will be instantly refreshed. I don’t really fall into the cliches like that normally, but there were more than five bird feeders outside of the kitchen window and at least thirty birds at any one time literally flocking to the feeders. A feeding frenzy is always fun to watch.
But it didn’t stop there. Yesterday after driving around and exploring some of this middle-of-nowhere part of the country and having lunch, we came back to the farm and took a walk around. There is so much open space on their property that we could still be walking if we wanted. Frankly, after walking for an hour or so through the fields and then out into the woods, we really didn’t see much. The sleepiness of the area during the winter isn’t surprising, but I would have thought there would have been at least a couple little animals running around.
It didn’t matter because once we got back to the house, the owner of the bed and breakfast, Emilie, and her young daughter, Larkin, gave us a tour of the barn. This is one of the times that I am fully aware that I am more of a city guy. I had forgotten just how strong the smell is inside barns. A mixture of hay, animal, and excrement fills the air and it takes more than a couple of minutes to adjust. Emilie and Larkin are obviously more than used to the smells associated with a barn as they walked us through, while I was breathing through my mouth for a while until I got used to it.
We walked past the chickens and roosters, which are some seriously vile animals, unless they are plucked, carved, trimmed and otherwise prepared in a freezer pack in my local supermarket. Next we walked past a cat that had a three-quarters length stumpy paw, which apparently was the result of getting caught in some sort of trap. You wouldn’t know it at first as this cat moved almost as fast as any of the other cats in the barn. The cat apparently doesn’t know it either as Emilie tells us that the cat frequently tries to sharpen its stump as if it was a normal paw scratching on a post.
Finally we get to the largest portion of the barn where the sheep and rams are kept. There are more than a few babies that have been born recently and we were about to see some. Before Emilie could even say anything, Larkin, who is seven years old, ran over to a lower portion of the fence. She hopped up through an opening and down among the 200 to 300 pound bundles of wool. Emilie didn’t bat an eye. Meanwhile I was thinking that it was pretty interesting that a little girl could just interact with such big animals without any fear.
As she ran around the pen and I could see why it wasn’t such a concern. Most of the sheep treated her like a sheep dog and kept moving to the opposite corner as the little bundle of energy running through their space. We lost site of Larkin for a few minutes and then she came walking slowly up to the gate holding a little baby lamb. The little creature was almost as big as Larkin and she was walking with her back arched to balance the weight of the squirming baby in her arms.
Emilie opened the gate and took the little baby from Larkin and held it in her arms. A few little cries came out of the baby, but it was comforted as we started to pet it. I am now 25 years old, but I can’t remember ever getting a tour like this. It was unbelievable just how strong this little baby was at just over a week old. And the wool surrounding its little body was already thickening and felt like a warm, squirming little sweater. We spent almost an hour just watching the sheep eat and lounge around.
It made me wonder what it must be like for Larkin to grow up here in what I would consider to be the middle of nowhere. At seven years old, she is too young to know anything different, and it’s probably more exciting for a little kid to have access to so many of these different types of experiences on a farm and learning all the life lessons that can be learned from watching animals than growing up on 1.2 acres in suburbia.
It was a nice weekend in the country and I would recommend it to anyone for a change of pace. I wouldn’t want to do it all the time because I like modern conveniences and going out to restaurants and bars, etc. Once in a while (when I don’t mind cooking) it can be a lot of fun to escape completely. You can see the place we went by clicking HERE.
