Weekly Mail April 30, 2017

Sorry I didn't publish last week. Hope everyone had a nice Easter, and if you were able to, enjoy some time off.

SPORTS: A tale of two Saturdays..

Last Saturday night, I sweated through the Rangers finishing off the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs., But man, was it ever fun! Heading to Penn Station after work, with the fans still filing out of the Garden, just reminded me of how much fun this city can be when we have post season action.

The Rangers surprised me with how well they played against Montreal, not only that they won, but the style they played... gritty, hard hitting hockey. They didn't just rely on their speed game, which in the playoffs, you simply can't survive if you think you are going to skate your way to a Stanley Cup. They played a complete game, with tight checking solid D, and of course speed.

Mostly, the King himself, Henrik Lundqvist had a bounce back series after a lackluster (by his standards) regular season. Watching Hank against Montreal was watching him as his vintage self. Carrying the team on his back.

Fast forward to this past Saturday and it was the complete opposite. Having lost Game 1 against the Ottawa Senators on a fluke goal by Erik Karlsson, the Rangers took 2 goal leads three different times in Game 2, only to give up the tying goal in the last minute of the third period before losing it in double OT.

And being that this was an afternoon soiree, I then had to drag through another 5 hours at the Post in absolute misery.

Look I can't say they mailed it in or didn't show up like last year against Pittsburgh when they clearly did both. But you have a two goal lead in the third period, play some f-cking defense and bail out your goalie. THEIR goalie, Craig Anderson, is a solid netminder who we routinely make look like Martin Broudeur. On a day where we got 5 goals past him, we give up 6.

Inexcusable.

And I could take some solace in the fact that the Mets took the first two games of their series in Washington DC this weekend, but holy $h-t have they been a disaster or what? Now even a moron like me knows that pennants aren't won or lost in April. We've got a TON of baseball left to play.

But the Mets first 31 games of the season are all against divisional opponents. These are the games that will come back to haunt you at the end of the season if you don't win them. With their record at 10-14, they have already put themselves behind the proverbial 8 ball.

Throw in that Yoenis Cespedes is back on the DL with a bad hamstring, Noah Syndergaard, after refusing an MRI to check on his "tired arm" (whatever the hell that means) having to leave his start against the Nationals on Sunday and the bullpen has deciding not to wait till October to start sucking, and well,

Let's just say this Saturday wasn't as much fun as last Saturday.


EXCEPT---- I got to take Timmy to Rangertown outside MSG. We took a couple of pictures together and he go to do the virtual reality that makes you feel like you are on the ice with the players. I was hoping some of the old time Rangers were there so I could take a few pictures with them, but he still got a kick out of it. Those were good times.




EDUCATION: Hot for Teacher(S)

I don't usually go for these teacher sleeps with student stories. The temptation is to make light of it, especially when it's female teacher/male student. When I see what the teacher usually looks like, my first reaction is "Why the f-ck would someone who looks like that want to fool around with some 16 year old oily faced geek?" as well as "Where the f-ck were these teachers when I was in high school?"

The reality is that no matter how you slice it, it's statutory rape, it's someone who should know better with someone who has no idea (and I don't care how much of a stud you fancied yourself being in high school, the fact is at that age, you have no idea about sex).

Having said all of that, a story I read this week blew my mind.

According to my pals at the NY Post, a former high school football player testified in a Louisiana courtroom that he not only kicked it to TWO teachers, he had them in a menage-a-trois!

When the now 19 year old student was 16, he began an affair with his English teacher, Shelly Dufresne. After their first roll in the hay, she set up a FB account under the name Madison Mexicano, (which overtakes Carlos Danger as the funniest fake name for sex I've heard) Dufresne chose the name because she thought the kid was Mexican. In fact, he testified that he resented the fact that she called him Mexican because he is in fact half Colombian.

But it didn't bother him enough to end the affair.

In fact they ramped things up by bringing in another English teacher, 26 year old Rachel Respess, for a threesome.

The whole thing began to go south when the dumb a$$ football star took some photos to show off to his teammates. It didn't take long for the word to get to the school's administration and the cops made the arrests in October, 2014.

The defense has tried to get the former student prosecuted for taking pictures of the teachers while they slept and have said that the sex couldn't have taken  place because the teen "couldn't get an erection."

One would think that if that last part was going to be these gal's defense, they'd better be prepared to go up the river, because what 16 year old male would have trouble getting it up with two teachers in bed with him? If they said he splooged before he got it on with them, (ala Jim from American Pie) that story I could buy.

Lo and behold the judge in the case found Dufresne not guilty, citing a lack of evidence. This despite the fact that she plead guilty to a lesser charge in another case related to this alleged crime.

As Dennis Miller once noted: William Kennedy Smith got off.... and then was found not guilty.

You can read the Post story right here....

http://nypost.com/2017/04/26/student-testifies-about-threesome-with-his-teachers/



Next week is Tim's first communion, so not sure we're going to publish next week. Hopefully after that, I can get this back on schedule.

Have a Great Week

Weekly Mail April 9, 2017

Hi Folks:

Hope everybody enjoyed this beautiful spring Sunday. Let's get to it.


NEWS ITEM: The Syrian Conflict

     I wrestled with the question of whether or not I should broach the subject of President Trump's decision to launch cruise missiles at Syria on Thursday. As you are all well aware, I've been avoiding politics here. Like Jimmy Fallon, I'm just trying as best I can to keep things light, in a world where it seems you can't avoid the dark and heavy.

     Another reason I've avoided the political firestorm is that while I used to love getting knocked around for what I wrote, enjoyed firing up the debate, over time I realized a few things, 1) Things I thought I was right about, I may not have been, 2) you can debate till your blue in the face, at this point you're not likely to change anyone's mind.

   What happened on Thursday is a prime example of this. The first people to come on-line and blast away at Trump for ordering the attack, were the same people who would have blasted him if he came on TV and said "It's the policy of my administration that the United States not get involved in the Syrian conflict."  I couldn't help but shake my head.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that what the President did was the right move, in fact, I'm not sure that it was at all. Like President Trump, I was appalled that chemical weapons were used and that innocent children were killed in that horrific way. Like his opponents, I wondered how many of those kids we could have saved with a refugee policy that would have allowed them safe passage to America. As someone who has seen way too many terrorist acts in the past 20 years, I also wondered if we let our immigration laws lax, if we could be potentially letting in foreign terrorists. As a human being, I wondered why a nation as advanced as we say we are couldn't just root out the bad guys and save the good.

Keeping our nose out of Syria, as Trump seemed to say he would do while campaigning, would keep our troops out of a war that no doubt would cost us in blood and treasure with no guarantee of victory. What would be a victory? Over throwing Bashar al-Assad and installing an America friendly government? One thing I know for sure, all the cruise missiles in the world wouldn't guarantee that outcome. Eventually you'd have to have boots on the ground, Doing that in Syria, I'm pretty sure would make what happened in Iraq look like a Sunday picnic.

Yeah, there was a part of me that liked the idea of holding Syria accountable for those atrocities they committed. I still believe in the goodness of our nation, that when evil acts like the one that took place in Syria happen, that we have the power to make those responsible pay.

Did we accomplish that on Thursday? I guess time will tell.


OK, now back to the fun stuff.....

OUT AND PROUD: Barry Manilow!!!

      Several news outlets the other day took a few minutes out of their Donald Trump coverage to report that the great Barry Manilow was singing to the world that he's gay and has been in a relationship with his manager Gary Keif for several years. He said that he kept his sexuality a secret all this time because he didn't want to disappoint his fans.

      I don't mean to make light of this, but if even an idiot like me could figure out that Manilow was gay, I'm sure most of the intelligent world had it figured out as well.

       And while I understand that for non famous people, the idea of revealing your sexuality could be difficult depending on your upbringing, the one area of society where nobody truly gives a $h-t who you are sleeping with is show business. I mean, did Barry Manilow really think he was going to lose one single fan because he came out? Sorry folks, I'm not buying it.

        Shoot, I can relate to the time I first came out.....as a Barry Manilow fan! It was dangerous times for me to do so. It was right around this time of year, my senior year of high school. Patti-Ann and Joann were trying to set up friends of theirs with each other. The girl was friends with PA and the guy, was friends with Joann (and with me as well). I don't know how it came up, but Patti-Ann's friend asked if anyone besides her liked Barry Manilow. I said that one of my favorite songs when I was little was Copacabana. Everyone in the car (and there were like 8 of us squeezed into a 5 passenger car) laughed at me. I didn't care. And this was before we all started going out and drinking. Dancing to Copacabana at a bar with half a load on is what makes life worth living.

But I like a lot of his stuff. Daybreak, It's a Miracle, his version of Let's Hang On (originally done by the Four Seasons) hell, even Mandy and I Write the Songs (a song he didn't write BTW) are good.

I'm glad he got this off his chest. I'm sorry he felt he had to wait. I still have no clue as to why this was news.


SPORTS: Hello Mets!

The Mets home opener at Citi Field was last Monday, and even though I was cooped up in my office, I still considered it a great day. I went to a bunch of Opening Days at Shea Stadium in the late 90's and the early 2000's, but my favorite opening day memory was my first one, 35 years ago. April 5, 1983.

The night before, I had watched my first NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship Game.
One I won't soon forget. Even if I did, I would get reminded of it year after year. Of course that was  NC State-Houston, Phi Slama Jamma vs Jimmy Valvano's Survive and Advance boys. The game that ended with Derrick Whittenberg's missed shot being caught and put back by Lorenzo Charles at the buzzer, and Jimmy V running around like a madman when it was over. I even remember that in the days before One Shining Moment, they would put a tourney montage together to a relevant song on the charts at the time. That year they chose All Right by Christopher Cross and I thought that was cooler than Lorenzo Charles' game winning shot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXTxa1Xtgi0

Still glowing after what I had witnessed the night before,  my dad and I went to opening day at Shea Stadium, 48,000 fans welcoming Tom Seaver back from a 5+ year exile in Cincinnati. His first batter faced was Pete Rose of the Phillies, and he struck him out on a low fastball. Seaver was 38 at the time and Rose about a week away from 42, but still I can say I saw Tom Seaver strike out Pete Rose live. The Mets won that game 2-0.

I still think that of all the sports, baseball's home opener is the best. It's a sign that spring is here and summer is right around the corner. I admit, it helps when your team has  a shot at winning a title. I got annoyed when they lost to the Braves on Wednesday, not so much when they lost on Friday to Miami.  On Friday I was just happy to see Zack Wheeler pitch without his arm falling off.

SPORTS: and Goodbye Rangers?

The Rangers play as they limp towards their first round playoff series with the Montreal Canadiens has not exactly inspired confidence. Since March 2, they've gone 7-7-4, not exactly firing on all cylinders.

Now coming into the season, my expectations weren't that high. Since they are tied up in cap space and didn't bring in anyone too exciting after a season in which they bowed out in the first round of the playoffs, I was expecting a down year. But some of the guys they did bring in exceeded expectations, and others who has struggled last year had comeback years, and they came flying out of the gate. They started to remind me of the 2014 and 2015 teams that made deep runs into the playoffs.

But lately, they have been playing the way I thought they were going to play. Sloppy special teams, and more alarmingly, little success on home ice. Now, some may point out that if they win all their road playoff games, (something they HAVE been good at) they'll win the Cup, because they most likely won't have home ice advantage in any of their series.

I don't care how they get there as long as they get there, but that doesn't seem like a winning formula. Hey, I hope to God they have a nice long run, the spring of 2014 was amazing, 2015 slightly less so and last spring quite frankly sucked. Here's hoping they can get it together and give us fans some excitement.



This week, we all learned that I like Barry Manilow and Christopher Cross. This is probably why they never asked me to go fight in the Middle East.

Probably not going to publish next week due to Easter. In this case, have a Happy Easter, and also a Happy Passover.

and Have a Great Week

Weekly Mail April 2, 2017

Hi Everybody!!!

Hope all of you enjoyed tis beautiful Sunday.

We missed last week's edition because I marched in the Rockville Centre St. Patrick's Day Parade, with Tara, Tim and our nephew Connor. That's become a very fun day for us.

The night before I had dinner and drinks with Karl, Ray and Auggie, in celebration of the latter two's March birthdays.

***RESTAURANT REVIEW    RESTAURANT REVIEW     RESTAURANT REVIEW***

Pasta Lovers
142 West 49th Street

It's Friday! It's Lent! We're drunk! We tell stories of debauchery! But we won't eat meat!

So the Ace found us this place where we could get a good Italian meal and not have to worry about offending Jesus. The food was really good. I had the baked ziti and Razor had an eggplant pizza. (I don't remember what Auggie and Ace had... and the only reason I remember what Ray had was because I grubbed a slice off of him.

4 Patties.



I had said that I was going to cut out writing obituaries because I felt like last year that's about all I did here. But so many famous folks died recently that I had to acknowledge them.


1) Chuck Berry- Hard to imagine any Mt. Rushmore of the founding fathers of Rock and Roll with out Chuck Berry included. Go through the list of greatest rock and rollers of all time and you'll be hard pressed to find one that doesn't include Berry as one of their top influences.

The Billboard Charts are funny things. Even though they are (or at least they were) the standard by which singles were rated, the abnormalities that they presented are often amazing. Think of all the great hits Berry had, Roll Over Beethoven, Maybellene, Rock and Roll Music etc. and the only number one hit the man ever had was a novelty song called My-Ding-a-Ling in 1972.  I could do an entire blog and some of the ridiculousness of the charts, (Bruce Springsteen having no number 1 hits for example) but the fact that Berry's only number one was not one of his classics is right up top of the head scratchers.


2) Jimmy Breslin- This was the most challenging one to write, because as a writer, how do you write something about someone who was one of the best writers of his time? And what could I write that hasn't been written already?

Breslin was thinking outside the box before that term even existed, much less became the annoying catchphrase that it has. Interviewing the grave digger at Arlington National Cemetery who was digging the grave for JFK, interviewing the cops who drove a dying John Lennon to Roosevelt Hospital the night he was gunned down, his correspondence with the 44 Caliber killer in 1977, all stuff of NY legend.

I never got to meet Breslin, though I once helped settle a bet between him and an editor at the Post he was friendly with. They were trying to figure out why St. Mary's was known as St. Mary Winfield. I spared them the explanation that our official name was Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians, and told the Post editor that the section of Woodside where St Mary's is was called Winfield Gardens. I'm not sure that's even right to be honest, but I digress.

3) Chuck Barris- Another old co-worker of mine this time from Broadview, Joe Norris, likes to put pictures up on Facebook of people with similar names when someone famous dies. For example, when Chuck Berry died, he put up a picture of Fred (Re Run) Berry, who actually died a few years ago. Alas, I thought a better choice would have been Chuck Barris, the creator and host of the Gong Show. Just for the hell of it, I looked him up on Wikipedia and lo and behold he was still alive.
I feel like I gave him the horns.
Oh, well.  Sorry about that.

The judges for the Gong Show were usually Artie Johnson (of Laugh In fame) Jaye P. Morgan and Cpl. Klinger himself, Jamie Farr. On this episode I found on Youtube, Farr was off, so he was replaced by a certain former weatherman from Indiana

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUThxC_mvIE


4) Dallas Green- You all know how President Trump complains that the media is biased? Well, one of the first times I felt like I truly experienced media bias was when the Mets hired Dallas Green to manage their gawdawful team in 1993.

Let's face it, no manager in the history of the game could have made that team competitive, but about a week before the Mets canned manager Jeff Torborg, the Daily News back headline read:  Lupica to Mets...... HIRE GREEN!. It was obvious the Mets owners made the move to save face with the press.

And why not? Green was a character, someone right out of old school baseball. He had managed the Yankees in 1989 for half a season, and his squabbles with George Steinbrenner filled the pages of the News, the Post and Newsday. If the Mets couldn't win, at least the manager would give the writers some good quotes. "Ima gonna go chew out some butt" was one quote he used often. Bill Madden, in his Sunday baseball column, had a feature called the "He was horsebleep pitching line of the week" which was born of another repeated Green quote.

Shoot, I even had to crack up one night when Green went out to get a explanation as to why the other team was awarded a base on catchers interference. Met announcer Gary Thorne implored the production truck to use a boom microphone to overhear the umpire's explanation to Green. To which Green replied "OK, see you don't know what the f-ck you're talkin about..."

"And that's why we don't usually use the boom mike " Thorne giggled to Tim McCarver.

When Green was fired in 1996, and replaced by Bobby Valentine, the press reacted with either indifference or even disappointment, even though Green's record was abysmal. And when Bobby V started getting the Mets to win, the complaints about him didn't stop. I didn't understand it, I sat through 6 years of crappy baseball courtesy of Buddy Harrelson, Jeff Torborg, and Dallas Green, and now that the Mets were winning some games, the manager was suddenly the problem?

To be fair, Green led the Phillies to the first World Series title in 1980, and as a GM, very nearly ended the Cubs long national nightmare 30 some years before it actually happened. I'm not saying the man didn't know his stuff, I just felt like because he was a good quote, the press left him alone. I generally try not to pick on people too much after they die, but I needed to get that off my chest. RIP.


Speaking of Obituaries...

Once again my tournament predictions pooped the proverbial bed last weekend, only Gonzaga made it out of my Final Four  (Duke, Kansas and UCLA were my other 3) But that's old news, the Elite 8 is usually where my picks go to die.

More exciting was the fact that my sister picked 3 teams correctly to go to the Final 4. Not Katie, who usually is in the running for the pool champioship, but Krissy, who usually pulls up the rear.

Krissy picked Gonzaga and North Carolina to make the Final Four. She also picked South Carolina, which was very impressive. Her fourth pick lost the play-in game on the tournament's first night. Yes, my sister who by the way is brilliant and one of the most fantastic teachers NYC has to offer IMHO, routinely picks 16 seeds to advance. Despite the fact that no 16 seed has ever won a tounament game, much less advanced to the Final Four.

But had our Gamecocks beaten Gonzaga Saturday night, my sister would have clinched the top prize in the pool we were in. I am not overstating the fact that Krissy win would have been up there with the 1980 Men's hockey team, Buster Douglas, and the 1969 Jets in the annals of sports upsets.

Alas, Gonzaga put an end to our hopes and dreams, squeaking by South Carolina 77-73. I now officially don't give a $h-t who wins on Monday night, though I will be doubly PO'ed if those scumbag North Carolina Tar Heels win.

Baseball starts this week. I haven't gone to Mets opening day in years, but it's still one of my favorite days of the year.

Have a Great Week!