all hallows' eve...

The brothers share. Have a happy!

thinking aloud allowed...

Hanging out at Channel 10 in Fairfax, my stomping grounds throughout the 90s, so that I may convert my VHS library to DVD. At the moment, I am dubbing a Christmas party shot back in '92. Such beautiful people we all were then. Amazing the ravages of time can impose on a middle-aged body in 14 short years. Then I had dark brown hair and beard to match, and only began to exhibit my capacity for putting on weight; okay, a lot then; a lot more now. (Sigh!) Can't I just push the minute hand backward.

Ah well.

Other things to do: Balance the checkbook; follow-up on admin job leads for the short-term (Yep! Downsized back in September, the bastards!), edit audio air-check for reentry into radio, a more long-term prospect - planning on peppering Boston & San Francisco w/mp3s & resumes.

Oh yeah, the backlog of video editing: I have raw footage of the SilverDocs festival from last June that still needs editing. Meanwhile, Ingrid still wants me to come up with a business plan for a documentary on China and its environmental issues. Jesus! Work!

The brothers want me to move back to New England, and a part of me really wants to, be it Maine or Massachusetts. The inclination as to destination, were I to make said move, would be Boston or thereabouts. Western Mass would be my second preference. Or if some kick-ass gig at a Portland radio station opened up... well...

Would first like to liquidate my assets: sell my comic book and baseball card collections. The comics, I recently reappraised per Overstreet's guide. Cover prices of roughly 1,500 comics from the 70s & 80s that totalled, again roughly, $950, are worth $6,886.75 today, i.e., in "mint-condition" terms: Alas, mine are but in "good" to "very good" condition, which'll knock off a grand at least.

The baseball cards I haven't even begun to catalog. I do note that one of them, the Jerry Koosman & Nolan Ryan combo rookie card, was priced back in the 80s, again "mint" shape, at around $1,500. Today? I also have a '58 Willie Mays and a '57 Ted Williams, a '64 Whitey Ford, a '67 Johnny Bench rookie card, to name but a few. No, no 1905 Honus Wagner.

How much are these worth? I dunno, but I sure could use the scratch. Lots more too.

Anybody in the market?

Meanwhile, the library conversion is paramount.

another reason to root for detroit...

baseball players who stick their nose in it because they heart jesus are a useless lot...

now jeff suppan, who's team, the st. louis cardinals, is still active in the world series, and who, by the way, is a piece of shit pitching as an american leaguer, oughta pledge with his hand on the bible, not because it means anything to me but that it apparently has a grip on his sanctimonious and very fevered brain, that he's never taken steroids to keep his career from tanking; well, this sonovabitch has come out against stem cell research...

Because [the Michael J. Fox] ad ran during an earlier World Series telecast, the opponents of the amendment decided to respond in kind with the ad featuring the athletes.

Ms. Ruse said her group paid $135,000 to air two ads during the game on stations carrying the game in Missouri one a 60-second version, the other a different 30-second ad. Suppan appears only in the longer version.

how sweet it must be to be a multi-million-dollar jock who can look down from his lofty perch and tell a simple working stiff and his/her family that s/he is immoral for seeking desperately any semblance of normality and protection from the ravages of a brain debilitating disease...

go fucking tigers... !!

in wknd news...

the shark club is where a small group of us pats fans hang out for the games... and we all recognize each other... one guy, who looks like a jets fan, even though he sounds like a bostonian (dunno why he looks like a jets fan -- maybe it's he looks like that guy who always wears that jets fireman's hat), and i go for laughs back & forth during the game... i got two good laughs o'er the course of which:

- he's having a conversation with his buddies when he spouts loud enough for all to hear: "i ain't the fuckin' eastah bunny!"... no clue as to context and i wasn't listening until then... after a little time, and as the network goes to a commercial, i yell across the floor, "hey, wait a minute! you're not fuckin' the easter bunny??"... laughs all around... "since when??"... more laughs...

- vince wilfork gets a sack... i go into my chris berman impression, spouting "VINCE WILFORK 'FOR FOOD'"... mondo laughs...

okay, u hadda be there... lotsa beahs... !!

one man's treasure...

Oh my Christ! Chris Shays, beleaguered Republican rep from Connecticut and who's trailing in the polls, referred to Lieberlips today as "a national treasure."

This both sickens and amuses, the latter of which is when one can take a turd in the punchbowl and call it "a treasure"; comical on so many levels.

that which king george deems "unacceptable"...

Dan Froomkin cracked me up:

All of this reminded one faithful reader of my column of that running joke in the movie, "The Princess Bride," where the evil Vizzini, played by Wallace Shawn, repeatedly splutters "inconceivable!" in the fact of the implacable advance of the Dread Pirate Roberts. Eventually, Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya tells him: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

the departed...

Just back from the movies with J&J, after having dinner at the L&N Seafood in Pentagon City, after an afternoon at Johnny Unitas Stadium in Towson watching UMass roll up to a 35-0 lead with 4-1/2 minutes to go in the game.

Anybody know the final?

Okay... Simply, Scorsese's "The Departed" is a superior film. No, it's great!

This is a great great film!

Alright, I may break the levee with the gush of Katrina here but I loved this movie.

Start with an all-star cast, each and every with sublime performances: Jack Nicholson as a fictionalized Whitey Bulger (Funny, I didn't know Costello was an Irish name). It has been years since I've really enjoyed Nicholson. It may've been me, but it also eemed he'd been mailing it in with campy imperfection since he made the likes of "Easy Rider", "Carnal Knowledge", "Five Easy Pieces", "Chinatown" or "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". You can now add this one to the mix.

(Update: Okay, strike that! "About Schmidt" was a very understated performance, and which actually triggered my empathy for the character. Oh, wait! I also loved "Prizzi's Honor". Agh! Respect!)

Of course Leonardo DiCaprio, as an undercover state trooper, was powerful in this role, and, no, I'm not one usually given to swooning over them baby blues. Having said that, I've been reading the IMDb reviews. Apparently there are some who don't think of him even as a talented actor. To them I say, you're nuts! For example, in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", the first time I saw DiCaprio, in this case a younger teen, I thought they actually cast a brain-damaged actor essentially playing himself, and not so much what Kate Winslet mused on HBO's "Extras" as a sure way to an easy oscar: "playing a mental". Later on, I found him quite entertaining, and convincing, in "The Quick & The Dead" as a paternally deprived teenaged gunslinger. DiCaprio ain't just a pretty boy, people; he's got some real chops. And he can cry & die on camera with the best of 'em.

I confess to always having liked Matt Damon; his "Bourne", "Rainmaker" and "Good Will Hunting" characters being my immediate faves. Here, he plays the dirty cop affectingly.

Alec Baldwin, the only Baldwin brother with talent and charm, always pleases with his performance (his best performance in "The Cooler"). Mark Wahlberg, meanwhile, has come a long way from the 80s era underwear model. And Martin Sheen, although no longer the president, still carries gravitas with ease. All enjoyable, all very watchable.

And introducing Vera Farmiga (she's been around according to her bio, but I only just discovered her). She is stunning yet approachable, bright and definitely sexy. Heck! I'm in love with her. Now her baby blues, I just might swoon.

I wont spoil this thing by even providing a cursory description of the story outline, i.e., for those who've seen the trailer and thought they might go see it -- and by all means, do! -- because there are some surprises that brought significant and palpable gasps & "Oh!"s from the audience. I think I may've muttered "Jesus Christ!" myself.

I will add, however, I've seen a lot of Scorsese movies: the best of the lot being "Raging Bull", "Taxi Driver", "Good Fellas" and "Casino"... "The Pretender" could be his best yet, if you can believe that. Come to think of it, that DeNiro and Pesci *weren't* in it may be the reason it wasn't just a good movie but a GREAT movie. Scorsese was in a rut with those dudes. Anybody who saw Good Fellahs and then Casino can see that. New blood, it seems then, does wonders for a rut. (Update: Right! DiCaprio starred in "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator", both lavish Scorsese productions but both overlong and overwrought).

It says here that Scorsese's back.

Oh, and one more thing: This picture was filmed on location in Boston.

Love that dirty water.

Footnote: Closing credits with this cast? Who would you think?

Here it was: 1) Leonardo DiCaprio; 2) Matt Damon; 3) Jack Nicholson; 4) Alec Baldwin; 5) The Departed; 6) Martin Sheen...

Interesting...

everybody agrees... ? there... ! it's anonymous... !!

And I'm not the only one who says so:

"Even if the idiot Democrats don’t screw it up by themselves, the Republicans will win anyway, because they own the voting machines."

On another front, mass media sleaze peddler Fox News, having its free-ride on the public airwaves, is up to no good again:

"FOX News has followed its recent blunder of misidentifying Republican Mark Foley as a Democrat by doing the same with Senate hopeful Sheldon Whitehouse, showing him as a Republican when he is in fact the Democratic candidate for US Senate from Rhode Island."

This is no mistake and is a concerted effort. The Associated Press IDed Foley as a Democrat over the weekend too. Meanwhile, Ohio's scumbag state secretary, Kenneth Blackwell, whom, if you can believe Bob Woodward anymore, George Bush considers a 'nut' (which is all a body need know how hoop-dee-doo he really must be), and who was in charge of counting the votes in 2004 as he is this year -- this while running for Governor -- has been sending out mail-in ballots IDing the Democrat as Republican. Talk about the ultimate smear campaign: tarring your opponent as one of your own.

Assuming for the sake of argument, because I don't believe for a second the Oligarchy will let the likes of Mark Foley interrupt their fascist takeover of what's left of America's democracy -- say the Democrats do take over Congress in 2006. Does it not make sense, then, the first order of business should be an anti-Anti-trust measure to decentralize what has become the American corporate media?

Paper balloting'd be nice too.

Meanwhile, go see The Brad Blog for today's outrage.

hot stove...

trade manny for a-rod...

friday funnies...

This slayed me, thanks to li'l brother, who clearly has too much time on his hands, & his emails.

i've gone gay all of a sudden...

Having bombasted as I did in the previous post, Lawrence O'Donnell, on Scarborough's show tonight, now says the untold story in the Foley/Hastert/GOP House debacle is the significant number of *closeted gay Republicans* who have controlled the flow of this breaking news all these years.

Come out! Come out! Wherever you arrrre... !!

Next you'll be hearing about the F.B.I. serving a warrant on the Log Cabins and seizing their database.

34 shopping days to Election!

get a clue, people... !

The right-wing nuts, when not overly concerned with being called gay-bashers -- yah! right! -- will quickly blame the whole vile business having to do with Mark Foley on his being gay.

Schwing! Jeez, that was fast!

You want the truth? Can you handle it?

That Mark Foley was wild & crazy as a predator of youthful types doesn't have a thing to do with his being gay. It has to do with his being male.

Gay men are no more predatory then are straight men. Gay men are no more indescriminiate than are straight men, they simply have more opportunities.

Straight men have to deal with the reluctant female. Gay men do not. Gay men have other men to chase after, men who may already be chasing them (How hard is that, eh? And what kind of world would this be if women were as loose as men? I mean, besides wonderful!), and we all know -- don't we? -- the male of the species would chase after the crack of dawn if he thought he could get away with it.

And this just in: teenage boys, gay or straight, are serious horn-dogs. Everybody who went to high school knows this, so I don't buy into the dudgeon. And as a rule, Congessional pages are privileged and well-educated snots (I know, I've interned on The Hill), and word is these critters in question were said to have been warned well in advance.

Whether these teenagers prove to be savvy prey, of course, is not a relevant defense by law. And middle-aged men, of whatever stripe, who are otherwise sad and lonely, should nonetheless be held responsible for crossing that particular line. So Mark Foley and his Repo leadership buddies will have earned every nasty opprobrium that's apparently coming to 'em, although I'd suggest more so for rubber-stamping the war-criminal-in-chief over the last five years than for this overwrought nonsense.

But I ain't worried about the pages. Not these pages anyway. I read Lord Of The Flies.

End of debate!

Update: Age of consent in D.C., as in many states, is 16. Of course that doesn't mean the president cannot deem Foley an enemy combatant... or anybody else for that matter.

But, uhm, I digress.

Update #2: Oh ho! These are *Republican* pages. All bets are off! Think of what a charming lad George W. Bush *at 16* had to be. I say send over TWO Mark Foleys to babysit!!

endnotes for this sports sunday...

Baseball season's over. The playoffs are for somebody else. Not like when Mr. LaRouchelle brought the T.V. into my 6th grade class, supplanting that afternoon's reading, writing, 'rithmatic, etc., with the Orioles/Reds series of 1970. Ah, the days when the World Series was played under the sun. Night ball these days sorta reminds me of that episode of Northern Exposure when the town's populace had to wear headlamps for the six-months of little natural light so they wouldn't slip into depression. That's night ball on T.V., and I say you can have it!

Dunno who this rookie Devern Hanseck is, having never heard of him before, but I thought at first glance it was Oil Can Boyd making a comeback.

Color me surprised with the Pats win over Cincy today. Heck, I thought it would be a blowout, except New England, after looking like the Joe Kapp Pats against Denver, was looking ripe for taking it up the chute again, what with two of their starting secondary types out against maybe the second best passing game in the NFL. Of course winning the games you're not supposed to makes them all the sweeter.

Peripheral noise has it the Rocket's been juicin'. Given his longevity and uncommon dominance during which, all I can say is "nooooo... !" Uh, that'd be sarcasm. Gotta wonder, though, what goes on in Jason Grimsley's world where he becomes one of baseball's snitches on everybody he ever played with, not that I care about the cheats. So far only Curt Flood can be proud of his outside-the-foul-lines exploits in Baseball history.

Some still say, hey, if they want to juice and max out on their talent, where's the harm? To which, of course, the answer is: Fine! They're big boys. But it's the kids growing up who learn and feel compelled to juice earlier and earlier in order to compete. Not kosher. We're sick enough a society and becoming sicker by the day.

And speaking of the Speaker of the House... You think even the protectors of pedophiles can lose their seats of power when the voting machines are rigged in 80 percent of the nation's polling areas?

We The People are sooooo screwed!

Aaaaaaand that's sports!