Weekly Mail August 21, 2016

So the other day, I went to the end of camp carnival at Timmy's day camp. I was chatting with one of our friends,whose daughter went to camp with Tim. And she was lamenting the end of summer. "I hate seeing her go back to school." she told me.

I agree.

I haven't been in school in a long time, I swear, the end of the summer is more painful for me than it is for Timmy. He was a bit melancholy after camp let out on Friday, which was strange only because anyone who knows Tim knows he is rarely sad or melancholy. He actually enjoys school for the most part.

But Tara and I are the ones who seem to get all depressed. I'll never forget walking him to his classroom for his first day of first grade, He ran right into the classroom like he owned the joint. Meanwhile, Tara was visibly upset (so much so that a woman walked passed us and put her hand over her heart as she did so) and I was having a rough go of it as well.

Obviously, having a child who is school age makes this all the more tougher. But in reality, even in my freewheeling single days, I hated the end of summer. It really does seem silly. There was nothing preventing me from heading to Rockaway on a Saturday during the fall, most of my peeps from Rockaway, I saw in the city during the year, it wasn't like my work hours were any different. It's just that summer means so much good.

Longer days, warm weather, shorts, t-shirts. Beaches, pools, baseball (even the crap being served up this summer by our Mets and Yankees is better than football)

And it's not that I haven't had some $h-tty summers in my lifetime, but for the most part, summer is always a time to make things right again.

I'll always be a summer person. It's in my DNA. These next two weeks should be fun, but after that, I'm not looking forward to it.

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I was really on the fence about bringing this up, but it's been bugging me so,

NEWS ITEM: SOUTHERN FLOODS

Last week, in a scene eerily and sadly familiar, parts of Louisiana and Mississippi were underwater due to severe flooding. For many, it brought back horrible memories of Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. Closer to home, it reminded us of Superstorm Sandy.

And while these sorts of tragedies always bring out the best in many people, it also brings out the evil in some. Insurance companies are already backtracking on paying out, There was on story on CNN.com about a guy claiming to be a pastor from a local church who was collecting FEMA ID numbers offering to help, but in reality was running a scam.

Then there were the politicians. Namely, President Obama, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.


Let's play a game... Guess who did what last week.


Politician A went down to Louisiana to meet with and help out flood victims.

Politician B attended fund raisers in Miami

Politician C played golf on Martha's Vineyard.

One would think that A would be President Obama. Certainly Donald Trump would have to be either B or C and Hillary would either be A or B.

Well, Trump, love him or loathe him, found his way down to Louisiana on Friday to help hand out supplies and meet with flood victims. A shameless photo op you say? Maybe, but also he could have been legitimately looking to help out. And the people he did meet with seemed genuinely happy to see him.

The President, meanwhile, refused to cut short his vacation on Martha's Vineyard. I've written many times before, I never begrudge any President taking time off during the summer, or taking an occasional vacation, but in wouldn't have done him any harm to come down one day and assure the people of Louisiana that he had their backs.

I always see these memes on Facebook: imagine if President Obama showed up with 5 kids from 3 marriages, or imagine if Hillary Clinton praised Vladimir Putin. Well I've got one for you..Imagine if during Hurricane Katrina, President Bush spent a week golfing or hanging out at his ranch in Crawford. As it was, he went to Louisiana and got his a$$ chewed out for praising Mike Brown and generally bungling the relief effort.

But $h-t, at least he tried.

Obama? Hillary? Nowhere to be found.

Shameful.

Speaking of Shameful

SPORTS: THE OLYMPICS

I was one of the last holdouts in believing Ryan Lochte's story about being robbed at gunpoint in Rio. As other news outlets began to report that Lochte's story was about as true as Brian Williams getting shot down over Macho Grande (he never really got over Macho Grande) I kept the faith and believed the lying MoFo. Why? Well as I reported two weeks ago, there were so many issues with the Rio Games, that I had very little faith the the Brazilian government (in general) and the Rio city government (in particular) had any real credibility. Factor in the lack of adequate security, the inability to contain the Zika virus, and the sewer like conditions of the rowing/sailing venues, and can you blame me for thinking maybe Lochte was telling the truth? I mean who would you believe?

It wasn't till he finally acknowledged that he concocted most of the story (meaning he probably concocted the whole thing) did I finally believe that he did something wrong. I understand the Brazilians wanting to make an example out of him, and I'm certainly not condoning what he did, but it's probably in everybody's best interests if both sides just let the matter drop. Brazil has little to gain by prosecuting him, and now Lochte will have this shame hanging around his neck, to go slong with the shame of not being able to carry Michael Phelps water. (no pun intended)

The good news is, once again we kicked some serious a$$ in these games. We even lost some events we normally dominate, (beach volleyball, women's soccer, men's volleyball) and we just made up for it in other events. Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas in gymnastics, Kate Ledecky and Lilly King in Women's Swimming, and of course Michael Phelps on the Men's side,  The women's track team sweeping the 110 meter hurdles. Pure domination. And without 'roids either.

The men's basketball team,made things interesting by not blowing every team out by 30 points. But again, no LeBron, no Steph Curry, no Russell Westbrook. With those 3, we may have waltzed to the gold.


So to wrap things up, I'm going to go on hiatus for a couple of weeks. Agian, I thank all of you who read this and especially to those who give feedback, whwether it be a like on FB, or a comment or two. Yes even when you disagree with what I write, actually especially if you do because I do want to hear all sides. My goal with this comeback was really to try to keep it light, try to write more stories that we could joke about rather than try to solve the worlds problems. I know this week I got away from that, and in the coming weeks, I'm going to give my two cents about Trump and Hillary and the legacy of President Obama. I'm going to kick things off with some essays dealing with 9/11, as my season premiere blog post will be posted on 9/11/2016. But I also promise to have some funs, provide some laughs and get back to the real reason I restarted this thing in the first place.

Life is too short, too fragile. We have to do the things we enjoy. I enjoy writing. I enjoy it even moire if I can entertain people while I do it. And that's the goal every week.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Weekly Mail August 14,2016

Hello All!

          Friday night I had dinner with three of my favorite guys in the world. Indeed, I don't get to see Karl (The Ace) Ludwig, (Razor) Ray McGarvey  or Ed (Auggie) DePuy as much as I'd like to, but when I do get to catch up with them, it's really awesome

The best part was they agreed to come out to Oceanside to visit. So I took them to JPaul's. I had been there with Tara and Tim in June to see Tara'a friend's daughter sing, and then a couple of weeks ago, I went there with my man Dan Unverzagt and his buddy Paul. That night ended with me nursing a wicked hangover for the next day and a half.

I took some precautions before heading out with the boys this time. I didn't pregame with red wine like I did two weeks ago, and we had a proper dinner as well this time. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast with Danny and Paulie, but man did I pay the price.

The Woodside crew decided to get the politics out of the way early so we didn't end up clobbering each other later. It's good because talking to them gives me ideas of how I want to take the blog. I was really planning to cut down on the political chat for a while, because quite frankly, between now and the debates, the only thing that's going to happen is more idiotic crap out of the mouth (and Twitter account) of Donald Trump. But the guys asked some interesting questions and made some excellent points that I'd like to explore. They really are cool like that, (though I never give them enough credit)

Otherwise we bitched about the Mets, bragged about our kids, complained about our jobs and reminisced on old times. And they loved JPaul's, which was packed.

I made it home. Before 11 PM, and relatively sober. A win all around.

SPORTS: BEAT THE METS:

     So the good news was, I got to go to another Mets game last week. My brother in law, Steve, was nice enough to take Tara, Timmy, Becky, Big Bill and myself to last Wednesday's Mets-D'Back's game at Citi Field. The seats were great, the company was great, even the overpriced food was great.

But the baseball was awful.

Both teams sucked. The Mets sucked just a bit more. What made this loss especially irksome was the fact that the Diamondbacks are amongst the worst teams in the league The Mets are supposed to be contending for the World Series.

Not happening folks. Not this year.

Now, naturally you may want to direct my attention to last year, when the Mets were equally mediocre, and went on that miracle run that carried them to the World Series.

But that run started a few weeks earlier, they were really only duking it out with the Nationals, as opposed to several teams for the wild card.

Most importantly, the pitching last year was dominant.

If the Mets were losing these games 1-0 or 2-1, I'd say great, we'll get Yoenis Cespedes back, maybe even Lucas Duda, that will ignite Curtis Granderson and Jay Bruce, and we'll go on a couple of long winning streaks and get ourselves right back into this thing.

But the problem with that is that the pitching has been equally putrid. Noah Syndergaard has been a huge disappointment in the second half, Steven Matz acts like he's pitching in the Home Run Derby sometimes, and Logan Varett, well, Timmy's got a couple of good friends named Logan who I'd rather run out to the mound than that hump.

Jacob DeGromm has been solid as of late, and thank goodness for Bartolo Colon. That we have to depend on a 43 year old man with weight issues is a terrible indictment of this team. And don't get me started on the bullpen, (except for Addison Reed and of course La Familia)

They've been scoring some runs. Not a lot, and certainly not in key sports. (Granderson must lead the league in leaving guys on base) And I realize the pitching has been killed with injuries. Syndergaard and Matz have bone chips in their elbows, and that HAS to be having some effect. Matt Harvey once again, has spit the bit, having his season end early.

I figured that the Mets would have to win 20 of their 29 games in August to secure a playoff spot. After Saturday night's win, their record for August is 4-8. Is it conceivable they could get their injured guys back, and maybe Syndergaard and Matz figure it out and they go on a run. I guess. And of course , that's how I'm going to root. But it's hard to see it happening. As a former Met manager once observed, It's getting late awfully early.

RIP: John Saunders from the Sports Reporters...

Every Sunday morning, without fail, I tune into the Sports Reporters on ESPN. Or I catch it ASAP on the DVR. When I first started watching it, the legendary Dick Schapp was the host. Shortly after 9/11, Schapp passed away, and ESPN named John Saunders at his successor. I had nothing against Saunders, who seemed like a nice enough guy and a solid sports journalist, but I couldn't see how he could fill the shoes of someone like Dick Schapp.

Boy was I ever wrong.

Saunders not only took the torch from Schapp, he made the show his own. And he made it better.

This was no easy feat. For starters, the panel is usually made up of three of the following four sportswriters: The universally despised Mike Lupica, a bit of a loose cannon in Bob Ryan from the Boston Globe, the smarmy Mitch Albom from the Detroit Free Press, and the somewhat pretentious William C. Rhoden of the Times.  If one of those guys aren't there, ESPN usually gets one of it's own to fill in. The anti NY Israel Gutierrez,  Pablo S. Torre  or Taraji P. Henson lookalike Jemele Hill.

And through it all, with that amount of talent and ego, and with ESPN limiting the topics generally to the sports they have contracts with, (Football, Baseball and Basketball) John Saunders made it work. He made it work by checking his own ego at the door, despite the fact that he had every reason to interject, he was as knowledgeable as anyone on the panel, but his job was to keep the conversation going and the debate raging. And he did that job superbly.

His parting shots were usually inspirational or thought provoking and generally both. One time, I think it was during the Don Imus controversy, Saunders mentioned in his parting shot that he had seen people "cross the street as he approached them." I found that absurd, being that I welcomed him into my home every Sunday on TV, and would have no problem doing so if he ever showed up personally. He just came off as that warm of a personality. Of course his point was that these people who were afraid of him, didn't know who he was. It drove a very important point home.

The outpouring of sympathy and sadness from his ESPN colleagues was heartfelt and also expected, he was every bit the gentleman off the air as he presented himself on it.

I hope that Jeremy Schapp takes over now that Saunders is gone. It would make the show come full circle so to speak. But I can understand if he doesn't want to. It's hard enough for him to fill his father's shoes. to have to fill those of John Saunders will be an extremely tall order.

He will be missed.

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I'm a summer kid. Always have been. My birthday is in the summer and now my kid's birthday is in the summer. Summer means no school, and unlike some people who will go nameless, I don't pop the champagne corks when Tim has to go back to school. September and January are still my least favorite months.

That said, this has been some last few days with all this heat and humidity! I mean I'll take this over 2 feet of snow any day, but man, it's been tough slogging through. Please be safe out there.

Have a Great Week

Weekly Mail August 7, 2016

Sorry I missed last week.

On Saturday, we took Tim to the doctor because he had some swelling under his eyes. They suspected a sinus infection, but a further test revealed a peanut allergy. That sux. But he doesn't really eat peanuts or peanut butter, so it's not the worst thing in the world. Still I feel bad for the kid.

Saturday night, Tara and I left Tim with Lizzie, his awesome (despite her Islander loyalties) babysitter and we met my Rockaway crew (Patti-Ann, Mary, Ellen, Kerry and Maggie) at the Saloon in Long Beach. I hadn't been to the Saloon in years and never to eat. But the food was really good. The gang was all doing well and there were laughs aplenty. It was really cool to catch up with them. 

The DNC- For me the highlight was the speech given by Congressman Joe Crowley from my hometown of Woodside, NY. Not that I agreed with everything he said, but I've known Joe since. I was 8 years old, and it was a proud moment.

I thought some of the other speeches were pretty good and well. President Obama didn't disappoint, neither did VP Joe Biden. I enjoyed Cory Booker (though I wish he had stuck around to clean up Newark a bit more before going to the Senate)

Bernie Sanders got the crowd going with speech, my favorite part was when he asked what the average contribution to his campaign was, and the crowd answered 27 dollahs!

As for Hillary, her speech was better than Donald Trump's if for no other reason than that it was shorter. I also give her credit that she laid out more of a game plan than did Trump, but that really wasn't going to be hard to do.

Bottom line...She didn't do anything to drive anyone away who wasn't already driven away, but I'm not sure she inspired anyone to join up with her who wasn't already on board. The people who are joining team Hillary now are doing so because Trump keeps shooting his campaign in the proverbial foot.

Here is a tip for Trump: if you are running as the candidate of the party that claims to be the party who will properly defend the nation, it's not a good idea to go after the family of someone who gave his life defending said country.

Khzir and Ghazala Khan, whose son Humayan was killed in Iraq in 2004, stood on the stage at the DNC. Mr. Khan chastised Trump for his anti Muslim policies, questioning whether or not Trump ever sacrificed anything in his life. 

In response Trump said he's made several sacrifices and suggested that Mrs. Khan was being silenced because of her religion. And then he actually said this...

I'm being attacked by these people,. Don't I have the right to defend myself? 

No you don't. Not here.

On this you need to honor the Khan's for their sacrifice and move on. The idiocy of taking on the grieving family of a war hero goes without saying. More frightening is Trump's inability to take a punch. One year into this campaign, and he still doesn't get it. If he becomes President, half the country is going to think he's an a$$hole. Just like every President before. Of all his issues, that to me is the one that disqualifies him the most. 

SPORTS: A-Rod says Good bye

Sunday morning, Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez held a press conference to announce that he and the Yanks had agreed to amicably part ways come next Friday.

This brings an end to one of the most annoying careers I have ever witnessed. Sports radio, for better or worse (and mostly worse) was all A-Rod all the time, pretty much from the time the Yankees brought him in up until now.

And very little of it was baseball related. I could have lived with that.

Indeed, the baseball related numbers were plenty impressive. Multiple seasons of 50 homers, batting championships, RBI's, the man was an offensive machine.

But it was all the other $h-t that drove me crazy.... The ridiculous contract, the love hate relationship with Derek Jeter, (again I ask, has the relationship between two allegedly heterosexual men ever been so closely scrutinized?)  The mistresses, his divorce, and of course his steroid use. It was one mess after another way with this guy, and a while there was so much other good stuff going on in sports around here, it just seemed like we were fed all of A-Rod's crap all the time.

And the crazy thing is: some folks suggested that this was nothing more than a jealous Met fan complaining because my Mets didn't have anyone with the talent and skill of the Yankee star...

Except.....

I found that the folks who complained most about A-Rod were Yankee fans themselves.  Fans that remembered the good old days of Wade Boggs and Scott Brosius. Those marches down the Canyon of Heroes seemed to stop when A-Rod showed up and Yankee fans never let him forget it. That may have been unfair, but it was hard to feel bad for an overpaid primadonna who, let's face it, brought most of this upon himself.

So instead of cutting Rodriguez a 30 million dollar check and telling him to have a nice life, they announced they are releasing him at the end of the week and making him the highest paid roving instructor in baseball history. I was really hoping he would just go away. But for now, no dice on that.

THE OLYMPICS

Every two years, when we have these Olympics, especially lately, they seem to run into the same issues, namely lack of funding, incomplete venues and security concerns. I admit, I was bummed out when we lost our bid to host the 2012 Games that eventually were held in London, but in retrospect, that was probably a good thing.

The 31st version of the modern games, which kicked off last Friday in Rio de Janeiro, was no exception. However, in addition to the usual issues, Rio had to also deal with the Zika Virus, and their sailing and rowing venues making Newtown Creek look like a crystal blue Italian stream. Several prominent athletes chose to sit this one out, rather than  risk coming home with some icky diseases.

I have to confess I didn't catch any of the opening ceremonies, but I did see some of the swimming and some basketball. We've pretty much continued to kick a$$ in those sports.  Monday night, I got to see Lily King win gold in the 100 meter breast stroke.  What made that victory particularly tasty was that she did so while talking smack about her Russian opponent.

Yulia Efimova was one of several Russian athletes busted for doping. Initially banned from competing, Efimova had her ban overturned on appeal. To add insult to injury, Efimova won her semifinal heat, and waved her finger in the air, to the chagrin of King, who vowed to beat her clean.

And did so.

I don't believe the Russians should even be here. But since the IOC once again showed no guts, here they are. So the victories against them will be extra sweet.

Have a Great Week!