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!