Weekly Mail February 25, 2024

 

Hey:

If you may recall, two years ago Tim and I had an appointment to see the Dr. 

That was Dr. Cool Jay Klang of Hollywood Coolafornia, the man who asked us all "what's crack-a-lackin?" 

Dr. Cool as they say in pro wrestling parlance, "turned heel" and re-invented himself as "The Artist" Jake Lang. This presented a bit of a conundrum for us- and I'll get to that in a bit. 

For the first issue we encountered as we got to the Knights of Columbus in Lynbrook was that the line to get in stretched across the parking lot, and those who were already standing in line were wearing either something to do with wrestling, or something to do with the Islanders, who at that point were leading my beloved Rangers 3-1 in the first period of their Stadium Series game at Met Life Stadium. I thought it would be a good idea to wear my Hendrik Lundquist jersey. 

So now I was perhaps the lone Ranger fan amongst a lot full of Islander fans, coming to root on the bad guy in a Create-A-Pro wrestling match. I may as well have attached a "Kick Me" sign to the seat of my trousers. 

There was a kid and his dad standing in front of us. The boy was about Timmy's age, but he had a mullet and looked like the little kid from The Gremlins (played by a young Corey Feldman). He was going back in forth with one of the characters who was outside with us in the lot. 

Then when we finally got to our seats, there was a dude in his late 20's who first complemented me on my jersey, but also took a second out of his busy day to tell me that the Rangers were losing. I thanked him for the update and prayed he'd find someone else to chat with. 

The Artist, who was also the current CAP TV World Champion, came out to defend his title amongst a chorus of boos. I was sitting near his mom, who I've known since I was 5 years old and his dad. They were rooting for The Artist, so Tim and I cheered along. 

Now there's a school of thought that says that by booing, you are actually helping develop the character. Jen (Jake's Mom) told me that there are people in the family who boo and jeer just like the rest of the crowd. I thought about doing that myself.. I mean, we were booing Jake per se, just the character he was portraying.  

But like I said, Jen's been like my big sister forever. Her brother is Karl (the Ace) Ludwig, who along with (Razor) Ray McGarvey, I have been friends with since kindergarten. I couldn't boo him, no matter how much he was askin' for it. 

Indeed after he won and was getting booed, he lifted up his title belt and shouted "I have this, what do you all have?" 

He's damn good at what he does. 

Tim and I later met up with Ed (Auggie) DePuy and his boys Brendan and James. We watched a few more matches then the 5 of us headed out to dinner in Lynbrook. A fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon/evening. 

Oh and BTW? The Rangers came back and won that game in OT. I didn't have the heart to tell that dude who had been sitting next to me. 

So speaking of hockey, as promised, here is our look at (IMHO) the 6 teams that matter around here. (No offense to fans of Fordham or Hofstra or any of the other local schools)

THE RANGERS- 39-16-3- 1st Place Metropolitan Division- They started off red-hot, cooled off before the All-Star break, and now are once again red hot. Artemi Panarin has been their best player, they have gotten the usual excellent play from Chris Krieder and Mika Zabanejad,  and Adam Fox was hurt for a while but is back to Quaterbacking the power play and providing a point a game pace as a defenseman. They have also gotten key contributions from almost everybody.

Where they have struggled though has been playing defensive hockey and surprisingly, goaltending. Igor Shesterkin has been very up and down this year, at times he really hasn't looked like himself. The team picked up Jonathan Quick in the off-season, the Kings believing that his best days were clearly behind him. But at times he's looked better than Shesterkin. They need Shesterkin to be more consistent and their defense to step up if they want to contend for the Cup. I love their record so far, but I've also seen this movie before. 

THE ISLANDERS- 23-20-14 6th Place Metropolitan Division- Up 4-1 and 5-3 against the Rangers last week, the Isles ended up losing in OT 6-5.  These results have been more the rule than the exception for them. Indeed they have had 21 games go into overtime this season. They have 14 OT losses, meaning they have gotten 14 points, but in many of those games, they held leads. Had they been able to lock some of those games down, they would have a playoff berth within their grasp. 

They made a coaching change recently, bringing in Patrick Roy to try to steer the ship back, but it seems like the same deal. They have the talent, many of the guys who got them to the ECF in 20 and 21 are still there, but too many heartbreaking losses are looking to do them in. 

THE DEVILS- 29-24-4 4th Place Metropolitan Division- I once saw Browning Nagle and the Jets complete a 5-0 preseason, only to go 4-12 in the regular season. I should have known remembered right there not to put too much stock in any sport's pre-season. But the Devils looked like world beaters coming out of the NHL preseason, and after how they handled my Rangers in the previous spring's playoffs, it was reasonable to think they might take the next step and contend for the division title. 

The Devils were wracked with injuries including two stints on the injury list for Jack Hughes, who, when healthy is a stud. Timo Meier has missed a bunch of games as well. If they can get and stay healthy, they could make the playoffs and make some noise once they get there. That's a bunch of ifs. 

THE KNICKS- 34-23 2nd Place Atlantic Division- The Knicks have pulled off two trades this season, one I was a bit critical of and one I loved. So far both have worked out well. The first deal was sending  RJ Barrett and Imanuel Quickey plus a high 2nd round pick to Toronto for OG Anunoby, Precious Achiuwa, and Malachi Flynn. As much as I criticized the deal, saying the Knicks gave up too much, they ended up winning 10 of the first 12 games played after the deal went down. Plus two of the three players they received were top contributors. Now Anunoby and Julius Randle have both been out with injuries, so Donte Divincenzo, who they traded Obi Toppin to make room for, (another deal I killed) Miles (Deuce) McBride and most of all, team MVP Jalen Brinson stepped up and kept the good times going. 

The second trade the Knicks made was with the Pistons, dealing Quentin Grimes, seldom used Evan Fournier, the aforementioned Flynn, Ryan Arcidiacono and a couple of low 2nd round picks, in exchange for Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks. Bogdanovic can start and score till Randle and/or Anunoby come back, and Burks is a solid role player. Like the devils, it a lot depends on if they can get back and keep their guys healthy, but if they do, the sky is the limit. Besides the Celtics, nobody else in the East remotely resembles a powerhouse. 

THE NETS-21-34 4th Place Atlantic Division- The Nets at the All-Star Break fired their coach Jacques Vaughn, which caused Christopher (Mad Dog) Russo on ESPN's First Take, to demand to know how GM Sean Marks was spared the same fate. 

The other panelists on the show Stephen A. Smith and JJ Reddick pointed out what a pile of poop Marks inherited and said that based on what he has done to pull the franchise from that abyss, deserves a shot to turn them around again. I do appreciate what he had done, but still the whole Durant, Kyrie Harden experiment gone wrong happened on his watch, and the parts he received back from dealing those guys away have not paid off. Obviously, the jury is still out on some of the draft capital, but there a big part of me that things Russon wasn't that far off base. This coach, Kevin Ollie is an interim coach, meaning if he doesn't work out, Marks gets to make another coaching hire. Has he really earned that? I'm not as sure as others that he has. 

ST JOHN'S-16-12 overall; 8-9 8th Place Big East Conference

"If I said I was disappointed, that would be the understatement of the year. Our lateral quickness and our toughness is just something I've never witnessed in all my years of coaching. This is the most unenjoyable experience of my lifetime."

"We are so nonathletic that we can't guard anybody without fouling. ... And really it's not about losing. Even winning, when I watch the film, I see unathletic plays, I see people that don't handle the ball, that are just interested in taking quick shots. It's been a disappointing year."

“Do we have sh-tty facilities? Yes, we do. But we’re doing something about that. But that’s not the reason we’re losing. Having sh-tty facilities has nothing to do with guarding.”

We kind of lost this season with the way we recruited. We recruited the antithesis of the way I coach. It’s a good group, they try hard, but they’re just not very tough … It’s not the job. You could be at Missouri and recruit slow players. Believe me, it’s not St. John’s.

“We had to put together a team at the last second. We will never, ever do that again.”

-Rick Pitino after St. John's blew a huge lead and lost to Seton Hall. 

Well then....

My first reaction when I heard Pitino go off about his non-athletic players was to recall a scene recreated in the Bill Madden/Moss Klein book Damned Yankees about the George Steinbrenner Era (Parts I and II). Steinbrenner was ripping then manager Yogi Berra about the state of the team and Steinbrenner kept saying to Yogi and his coaches "These are the players you wanted"

After the third of fourth time George said that Yogi exploded.. "This isn't my bleeping team, it's your bleeping team. You make all the bleeping decisions. You make all the bleeping moves. You get all the bleeping players that nobody wants. Then you just sit back and wait for us to lose so you can blame everybody else because you are a chicken sh-t liar!"

Someone else picked these players for St. Johns? I don't think so, in fact Pitino got rid of all but two of the guys who played for Mike Andrson last year. Sh-tty facilities? This was a news flash? They've had sh-tty facilities since Lou Carnesecca was the coach. The draw to St. John's is that you are a car ride away from Manhattan and you get to play at MSG. And we recruited the antithesis to the way I coach? again, who was in charge of the recruiting? Who's the guy making the big mamoo? 

Pitino was rightly taken to the proverbial woodshed for these comments and has since apologized somewhat. I still think he can turn this team around and get them back to the big dance, but he may want to take a look at as Bill Parcells used to say, the man in the glass. 

Nice win against Creighton today. 

*********************************************************************************

ELECTION 2024-

Captain Orange was projected on Saturday to win the South Carolina Primary. CNN, Fox and MSNBC called it as soon as the polls closed Saturday at 7 PM. I saw Woody Johnson standing there while Orange was babbling on. I hope he does something useful while he's down there like finding us a serviceable quaterback. 

Back to Trump for a minute- I kind of ran out of time last week so I didn't get to discuss the $350 million or so he was fined by Judge Arthur Engoron in his civil business fraud case. (The total with interest has risen to $424 million). Trump also cannot conduct business in NY for three years. 

He's looking for any way possible to get out of paying, and of course some of his more (I'll be nice here) fervent supporters are crying foul and are threatening to themselves not do business in New York. These include some truckers who well need to be filled in that the products they are carrying are not theirs to decide whether they should be delivered to NYC or not.  

Trump can appeal the ruling, but still has to post a bond for the full amount of damages. 

As for the whole Fani Willis mess in Georgia, I watched some of those proceedings. To me it's not going to change the fact that Trump and his cronies tried to illegally overturn the election results down there. "Find me 11,780 votes" is pretty much the textbook definition of election interference, but from what I saw of the Fani Willis hearings, it was just lawyers talking to lawyers the way lawyers talk to each other. It brought back memories of Bill Clinton vs Ken Starr and not just because both cases involved allegedly inappropriate relationships. Just the whole, "You said this."  No I said this but this means that" everybody trying to outwit and outspeak the other. I really don't know how that's going to turn out, but if Trump walks on the lection interference because of Fani Willis and Nathan Wade having a relationship, that would just be wrong. 

Think that’s all we got this week my friends. 

Stay Safe

and Have a Great Week 

Weekly Mail February 18, 2024

 

Hi Everyone:

A bunch of us woke up Saturday morning with a surprise in the name of about half a foot of snow on the ground. Usually when the forecasters screw up, it's by saying we're going to get a lot of snow when the reality is a dusting. This time we were told it would be a dusting and we ended up with a bit more than that. 

According to NBC 4 NY, Coney Island got 9.9 inches, while Bay Ridge got 5.6 inches. I wondered how two neighborhoods that close to each other could have such disparate amounts of snow. Thought maybe one of those neighborhoods needed to invest in new rulers.

But then the meteorologist on News 12 Long Island said that Long Beach, Island Park and Oceanside got hit with more snow than did Lynbrook, Rockville Centre and Hempstead. The storm was over the ocean so coastal areas got hit harder. I've seen that happen before, but not with such a difference in snowfall total between towns so close to each other. 

Just thought that was interesting. 

Last week I wanted to keep it football/Las Vegas themed since it was our Super Bowl Halftime Special. This week, we'll delve into some of the news of the past couple weeks, as there has been a bunch of things going on. We'll get to them, but first we'll wrap up the big game. 

FOOTBALL: Super Bowl Wrap Up

So as I had written in the halftime special last week, the first half of the game made me feel like I was watching our local teams, what with the fumbles, and drops etc. Then the normally reliable Patrick Mahomes threw a pick in the 3rd quarter. I'm not going to lie, I dozed off on the couch towards the end of the third and if not for Timmy being at a Super Bowl Party that I had to pick him up from, I may have turned in early and missed the end of the game.

But the 4th quarter finally gave us the excitement and fun we thought we were going to get from the two best teams in the game. 

Some random thoughts....

1) The most interesting part of the first three quarters was when Travis Kelce got in coach Andy Reid's grill after Reid pulled him out of one play. The cameras also showed one of the Chiefs receivers (forget who it was-too lazy to look) came over to Mahomes slapping himself in the chest as if to say "I was open". Had to laugh when both Kelse, Mahomes and Reid talked about what a great "family" they were. 

Sure.

They looked like the Kardashian family the way they were bitchin at each other all game long. They'll say that happens in games all the time. Sorry, not buying it. Kelce going after Reid was bush league*. Would have loved the cameras to cut to Taylor Swift after that one. 

2) My co-editors Karl (the Ace) Ludwig and (Razor) Ray McGarvey both were woofing on Tony Romo after the game, with Ray going so far to suggest someone at CBS Sports introducing Romo to a Thesaurus. My sister Katie also can't stand Romo, and I had suggested to her before the game she watch the Nickelodeon broadcast with Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson** (and SpongeBob Squarepants and Patrick Star). Ace referred to Romo as "a windbag."

Well, they are all windbags as far as I'm concerned, all speak as if they are getting paid by the word, (and at a cool $17 million per, that's a lot of words for Romo). My take on Romo is that he is good at describing what plays should be run and predicting in the huddles how plays will turn out. He's actually quite good at that. Dan Dierdorf, who was on Monday Night Football when I was a kid, would predict a play and when it wasn't what he said it would be, would still say, "Just like I said.." and he was serious too. 

But where Romo loses me is when he gets the basic stuff wrong. And he does that an awful lot.

Now, I haven't read this anywhere else so I went and found it on YouTube just to make sure I wasn't going crazy. 

As the first quarter of overtime was starting, play by play man Jim Nantz meticulously went over the rules of overtime, being very careful to explain that the rules were different in the playoffs than they were in the regular season. In the regular season, IF you win the coin toss, and IF you choose to receive the ball, and IF you score a touchdown on that first possession, the game is OVER. Likewise, if instead, you kick the field goal, the other team gets the ball, where a TD wins it, a FG ties it, and if neither of those happens the other team wins.

In the playoffs regardless of whether the receiving team score a FG, TD or doesn't score at all, the other team is guaranteed at least one possession.  Again, Nantz explained this fully.

So what happens after the Niners win the toss, choose to receive and drive down the field? 3rd and 4 from the Chiefs 8 yard line, Brock Purdy goes back to throw to Jauan Jennings, but is rushed by Chiefs linebacker Chris Jones before Jennings can get to the end zone.

"This is for the Super Bowl!" Romo screamed as they showed the replay, "Jennings wins for the Super Bowl, right down here, but there's no time because Chris Jones does what he's been doing..

This nitwit, who again is being paid $17 million a year to know this $hit, thought that if Jennings caught the ball, the game was over. Nantz had to be sitting there with his hand over his eyes saying "Why TF do I bother. " 

In fairness, there was video of some guys on the 49ers admitting they weren't familiar with the OT rules for the playoffs, which while curious, at least they had the excuse that nobody sitting right next to them explained the rules in detail right before OT started. 

3) At one point they showed Joe Montana in the stands watching OT, and I'm sure I wasn't the only person watching the game who thought, "He's sitting there saying if I was the Niners QB, this game would have never gone to OT."  You know who I'm sure agrees with me? Boomer Esiason. 

4) The Chiefs are the first team to win back to back Super Bowls since the Patriots of 2003 and 2004.  No team has ever won three straight Super Bowls (the Packers won three straight NFL Championships; 5 in 7 years actually; but one of those was pre-Super Bowl). 

5) Between CBS, SpongeBob and Patrick, and Paramount Plus, this was the most watched program in television history. Was this because of two great teams playing, or because Taylor Swift was there. I'll let you be the judge of that. 

So another football season is done. 

Thank goodness. 

This is usually the week where I get us up to speed on our three hockey teams, two basketball teams and St. John's, but I'm going to hold off on that till next week as I want to get to some other business here. We'll start with two stories concerning the gun plague in our country. Once again, an otherwise festive day was ruined by gun violence. 

TRAGEDY AT THE SUPER BOWL PARADE:

When Jeff Pearlman's book about Bo Jackson came out a couple of years ago, I tweeted to him how much I was looking forward to reading it. he liked my tweet, but I also got a response from a handle Danielle-Royals Baseball and Bad Decisions. She said she was looking forward to reading it too, as she was a fan of Bo Jackson when he played for the Royals.

Turns out Danielle is a Kansas City native and a huge Royals/Chiefs fan. But more Royals than Chiefs, which you wanna talk about two teams on the opposite side of the spectrum. Danielle's Royals tweets are eerily similar to my Mets/Jets FB postings, in other words, not too much positivity. She tweets about other things in her life as well. She is a riot. 

But God Bless her, she watches every Royals game from spring training all the way to game 162, though the Royals are mostly out of it by Memorial Day (Save of course for 2015-we won't go there).

Danielle was at the parade in Kansas City the other day. And while she didn't see the shooting, she was close enough to Union Station to see the mass of humanity running for their lives as the shots rang out. She tweeted a couple of times from the scene that she was OK and one of her tweets she said "It really didn't register at first.."

That's understandable. As much as this continues to happen, many of us still have that innocence right? Still the expectation that on a day of celebration, why should that be a day of violence?  If a Super Bowl win can't bring a city together, what the hell can?

The official explanation so far seems to be that this was merely a dispute. It's not clear what the dispute was over, not that I've seen anyway, nor should it really matter. What matters is that you can add championship parades to the list that includes churches, bowling alleys, movie theaters, concerts and last but not least, schools, where you have to worry about getting shot. 

It was a dispute, not terrorism.

9 of the wounded were kids ages 8 to 16. Let's ask them if they weren't terrified. While you're at it, ask their parents. 

Lisa Lopez-Galvin, was a popular radio personality in Kansas City. She was killed. It was just a dispute, not terrorism. 

The governor of Missouri, Mike Parson was the the parade. According to the St.Louis Post Dispatch...

“The First Lady and I were present when shots broke out. Thanks to the professionalism of our security officers and first responders, Teresa and I and our staff are safe and secure,” Parson said in a statement Wednesday.

Johnathan Shiflett, spokesman for the governor’s office, later said in an email the Parsons “were by the stage in front of Union Station just East of where shots broke out.”

It was a dispute, not terrorism. The Paper also said...

“As we wait to learn more, our hearts and prayers go out to the victims of this senseless violence,” he said.

St.Louis Post Dispatch

Parson, a Republican, said that the state would help local officials through the investigation process, and said people affected by the incident may call the 988 Crisis Hotline.

Hearts and prayers. But nothing about coming up with new gun laws. From the same article..

Democrats have long criticized Missouri’s relaxed gun laws.

Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, called for action after expressing gratitude to first responders in a social media post. He said first responders helped get him and countless others to safety.

“We shouldn’t have to live like this,” Rizzo said on social media. “We need common sense gun safety laws & we need them now. It’s not about politics, it’s about the kind of world we want for our kids.”

Wikipedia said that Parson signed a bill in 2021 that banned local police from enforcing federal gun laws. So yeah, he's not exactly what you would call, part of the solution. 

But it was a dispute, not terrorism. 

Ask the family of Lisa Lopez-Galvin if they feel terrorized.

Ask those kids and parents if they felt terrorized.  

Danielle from Kansas City tweeted this on Thursday morning..

Just woke up shaking and crying. 

Yep. Not terrorism. 

The news wasn't all bad on the gun front. Two weeks ago a jury in Michigan found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter. 

Jennifer Crumbley is the mother of Ethan Crumbley, who on November 30, 2021, as a 15-year-old, shot and killed 4 of his fellow students at Oxford High School, in a suburb of Detroit. 

I hadn't followed much of the trial, but I happened to be able to catch the verdict as it was handed down. I'll admit at first I felt bad for Jennifer Crumbley, just as a fellow parent. Criticizing parenting is something I tried to avoid at all costs as I hate to have it done to me, and as I've said before on these pages, none of us are undefeated when it comes to parenting. 

But of course I felt worse for the parents of the kids who were cut down, doing nothing more than going to school. And when they went over the testimony on TV, including the fact that Jennifer and her husband James bought Ethan the gun he used to slaughter his classmates, a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun. That particular gun holds 11 rounds of bullets. 

Add to this that both the school and the elder Crumbley's readily acknowledged that Ethan had mental health issues, and yet they bought him the gun anyway? The little sympathy I had for Jennifer Crumbley disappeared, replaced by whatever sentence she receives is not nearly enough. 

James Crumbley will be tried separately. 

If we're not going to come up with common sense gun laws than locking up any and all responsible for mass shootings is one of the alternatives.  I'm not naive enough to suggest this will solve the problem, but maybe it will give parents a bit more incentive to not ply their children with guns. 

POLTICS: Trump and Biden Legalities 

We have a couple of weeks to catch up on here....

February 6- Federal Appeals Court Rules Trump not immune from January 6 case. 

Captain Orange claimed that he should be immune from any charges against him stemming from his actions on January 6th. he believes that inciting a riot was part of his duties as President to ensure election fairness. 

The height of this stupidity occurred when Judge Florence Pan asked Trump attorney John Sauer if a President who ordered Seal team 6 to take out a political opponent was immune from being prosecuted. 

“Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival? That is an official act, an order to SEAL Team Six,”

Pan said “He would have to be, and would speedily be impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution,” Sauer said. “I asked you a yes or no question,” Pan said.

"If he were impeached and convicted first,” Sauer replied.

“So your answer is no,” Pan said.

Sauer responded, “My answer is qualified yes. There is a political process that would have to occur.”

By Sauer's reasoning, President Biden could order Trump to be executed, and the only way he could be charged is if he was impeached and convicted in Congress first? 

Trump shouldn't be immune. Neither should Biden, Obama, Clinton or any other President. The problem is, Trump of course is the one that's going to test that. The man who said he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose votes, also believes he can do that and not be prosecuted. Thankfully smarter heads prevailed here.

Trump's filed an appeal with the Supreme Court because he figures at least three of them owe him. Here's hoping they don't see it that way. 

February 8- Supreme Court hears 14th Amendment challenge to keep Trump off Colorado ballot

I got to listen to some of the testimony from both sides and to hear the justices ask questions and make statements. My 7th grade teacher at St. Mary's Mr. Troisi once chose 9 of us to act as justices and the rest of us to partner up and argue a case. 

The first time I went up, I really did a slipshod job of putting together my argument, not nearly enough research. Mr. T firmly (but kindly) called me out on it and gave me another shot. This time I did better research, took better notes, and still lost (to John Croce if memory serves me) on the issue of capital punishment. trying to persuade 9 of your fellow 7th graders to see things your way was terrifying.

Honestly that's all I could think of as I was listening to the attorneys being grilled by the justices. A couple of times I heard Justice Gorsich and Chief Justice Roberts say "You're not answering my question. I'm going to ask again" All I could think of was if that was me I'd be like "I DON"T KNOW!"

The consensus amongst those who are presumably much smarter than I am in these matters, says that the attorneys from Colorado didn't convince the justices that the 14th amendment applies here, and that even the justices he didn't appoint and/or aren't in the tank for him, (Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson) will vote in favor of him. 

February 8- Biden Cleared in Documents Probe 

Robert Hur, the special counsel investigating President Biden's handling of classified documents after his term as Vice President ended, declined to press charges. 

Hur said that while Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified material, "the evidence does not establish Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." 

Hur also put in his report that Biden fully cooperated with the investigation and allowed investigators access to all his properties. Captain Orange on the other hand has gone to great lengths to hinder the investigation into his handling of documents, and to this day insists that the reams of documents he had belong to him. 

But the big story to come out of this report is that Hur several times referred to Biden's advanced age and poor memory. Amongst the things Hur alleged Biden couldn't remember was the years he served as VP to President Obama, and the day his son Beau died of cancer (May 30, 2015***)

Biden gave a press conference later that day that many felt didn't help his cause, especially when he said that Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was President of Mexico instead of Egypt. 

I have a real hard time believing Biden couldn't remember the day Beau died. Some things you just never forget. I tend to believe that Biden was more thrown off by the question than that he didn't know the answer. What did Beau's death have to do with anything related to the documents case? 

And honestly, if you are concerned about Joe Biden's age and mental ability to do the job of President of the United States, I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't be. I can't tell you how to feel. 

But if you do feel that way, and you are a registered Republican (at least here in NY) then you better fill in that dot next to Nikki Haley's name when you vote in the primary. If Biden is too old and too compromised to be President, your solution can't be someone who is four years younger and says that he'd tell Russia to do whatever the hell they want to NATO countries. 

I was going to go into the Fanni Willis hearings and Captain Orange's fine and banishment from NY, but I'll save that for next week. I'll wind this one up with some good news that hopefully we can all agree on. 

THE WORLD CUP- We're Hosting the Final!!!!

I meant to put this in the Halftime Special last week, but it was announced that when North America hosts the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the final will be played at Met Life Stadium. The stadium that hosts two teams nowhere near winning a championship will now host the biggest sporting event in the world. 

When last the World Cup was here in 1994, Giants Stadium hosted one of the semifinal matches while the final was played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California, essentially Los Angeles, just as East Rutherford is essentially New York City. 

And make no mistake, the World Cup Final is absolutely the biggest sporting event in the world. As big as the Super Bowl is, there are plenty of places on Earth no one cares about it. Every corner of our planet will have interest in the World Cup. 

We are obviously a couple years away, but it will be here before you know it. How awesome! 

Enjoy your President's Day Weekend

Stay Safe

and Have a Great Week

*Kelce has more than once apologized publicly for what he did and apparently apologized to Reid even before the game was over 

**I was tempted to tune into that myself, as Eagle and Burleson are excellent together. Don't know how much SpongeBob/Patrick I could have stomached though. Kinda glad Tim is out of that phase.

***I had my heart attack two days after Beau Biden died, so I won't soon forget the date. I watched his funeral on CNN the following Saturday. I really believe one of the reasons I stick up for Biden so much is because I watched that funeral just a few days after I had my brush with mortality. Also watching Biden comfort his grandkids that morning was heartbreaking, considering he was burying his son after losing a daughter in a car accident. No matter what, I'll always have empathy for the man. 

Weekly Mail February 11, 2024 (Halftime Special)

 

      Elvis Presley and Ann Margaret in Viva Las Vegas

Hey Everyone:

I hope you’re enjoying this game more than I am.

Every year I am in a Super Bowl pool with questions like total number of fumbles, total number of interceptions, total number of sacks etc. 

I always go for the low number on those items, the figuring being that these are the two best teams in the league competing for the championship.

This year I may actually get shut out. What a slop fest this has been, The Chiefs are acting like this is the first time they’ve played in a big game. I give the Niners credit for playing lock down defense and I have to tip my cap for that flea flicker. 

Taylor Swift must be sitting there saying “I f-ck-ng flew all night for this?” Would have loved to see her reaction when her man had to be restrained from attacking coach Andy Reid. 

As for the commercials, yeah, I choked up for the Gronk commercial when they thanked the late Carl Weathers. That campaign commercial for RFK Jr? I thought that was a Robert Smiegel SNL skit. 

Anyway….

I've said here before that one of the iPhone features I enjoy using is the weather app. All week I tracked the weather in Las Vegas, and maybe I should have known this, but the weather wasn't great from what I could see. It actually rained out there Monday, Tuesday and Friday, and the temps weren't any warmer than they were here in NYC. It was 36 degrees in Vegas this morning, 46 here. 

It's not affecting the game any, as Allegiant Stadium has a roof, but I always thought of Vegas as a warm weather city all year round. 

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As we discussed last week, the biggest by far non-game story of Super Bowl 58 has been Taylor Swift's commute to the game from her concert in Tokyo. 

According to EDNN, Swift's show at the Tokyo Dome finished up at 9:40 PM Saturday Night Tokyo time (7:40 AM- EST and 4:40 AM PST- Las Vegas). 

At 7 PM EST (4PM PST) both EDNN and The Athletic were reporting that a private plane from Japan landed at LAX. 

And at 4:40 PM EST, 1:40 PST and 6:40 AM Tokyo time (in case you were interested) Taylor Alison Swift arrived at Allegiant Stadium. Now we can get down to business. 

I had suggested last week that perhaps a NORAD like tracker would be a great idea, but apparently who didn't like that idea was Swift herself....

Jack Sweeney, a 21 year old college student at the University of Central Florida, operated a social media account called TaylorSwiftJets, that operated on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Meta, the company that owns those three entities took Sweeney's site down after Swift's lawyers threatened legal action. 

Per Time Magazine....

Using public flight monitoring data from the Federal Aviation Administration, Sweeney has created bots that track the routes, plane details, and other travel information of a number of celebrities and other people of interest, including Mark Zuckerberg, Kim Kardashian, Drake, Russian oligarchs, and Elon Musk—who in 2022 similarly threatened legal action against Sweeney over safety concerns. (The @ElonJet Twitter account was ultimately suspended, though Sweeney has since taken to Threads to continue tracking Musk’s jets and has another X account that posts tracking information on a 24-hour delay.)

The truth is that there are too many sickos out there who for whatever reason would want to do Swift harm Unfortunately that's the world we live in. So I get it that she wouldn't want the whole world knowing her whereabouts 24/7. 

But for better or worse, this is a huge story, I've already said it's the big story of this Super Bowl it could arguably be the biggest non football story in the history of the Super Bowl. The last thing I want is for Taylor Swift to be fearing a stalker, but I still think it would have been fun following her journey from the land of the Rising Sun to Sin City. 

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Another year, another Super Bowl sans our two local teams. The Giants have at least won a couple this century, the Jets haven't won since a few months before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. 

But the Jets made news the only way they can during Super Bowl week, by having someone in the organization do or say something. Owner Woody Johnson, at the NFL Awards gala the other night took a few digs at Zach Wilson and coach Rob Saleh, and essentially put Saleh and GM Joe Douglas on notice. 

There was really noting newsworthy to what he said, it's no secret that the Jets are looking to deal Wilson, and the real news would have been if Woody came out and said Saleh and Douglas were safe no matter what happens in 2024. There are a huge contingent of media and fandom that wanted to see either one or both of them sent packing last month, especially in light of some of the coaches who became available. (For the record I'm not one of those fans-I think Douglas has made enough good decisions to deserve the benefit of the doubt, and I still believe Saleh can be an effective coach) 

You know what I really would have been impressed with? If Woody himself had decided to take some of the accountability for this whole mess. I'm tempted to say that Woody acts as if someone else hired Douglas and Saleh, except that in fact someone else DID hire them (Woody's brother Christopher). If I'm going to point a finger at someone, it would be the Johnson brothers. Of course that's a waste of time and energy, they're not going to sell the team. They're just going to keep screwing it up. And we the fans are the ones who get screwed. 

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For years, the commissioners of the four major North American Sports avoided Las Vegas like the plague. Phil Mushnick in his Friday Post column wrote about a slew of incidents that took place in Vegas involving athletes. From DWI's to shootings and bar room brawls. He didn't mention (probably because he wasn't an athlete) Tupac Shakur's shooting and subsequent death after a Mike Tyson fight in Vegas in 1996. 

The real reason Vegas wasn't touched with a 10 foot pole by the respective sports caretakers was the association with gambling. More than steroids or narcotics or even guns for crying out loud, nothing made commissioners quake in their shoes more than their players being anywhere near gambling. This summer will mark Pete Rose's 35th year since he was kicked out of baseball for betting on his team. Sometime in the next few months, we're going to delve into that whole story again. Especially in light of how all 4 sports have now dove in head first into sports betting, (Fan Duel, MGM, Draft Kings et al) and have embraced Las Vegas as a sports city. 

Indeed, the NHL (with the Golden Knights) the NFL (the Raiders) MLB (possibly the A's) and the NBA (who have held All-Star Games in Vegas, and whose WNBA team, the Aces just won the championship) all have their stakes planted in Sin City. It's really only a matter of time before the NBA puts a team there. And although MLB owners unanimously voted to allow the A's to move to Vegas, Carolyn Goodman, the Las Vegas mayor, suggested that the A's would be better off staying in Oakland. 

The only other time I ever heard of a city NOT wanting a team to move there was with the Chargers. Their owner wanted to move to LA so they could play in the new stadium built for the Rams. (So-Fi Stadium-site of last year's Super Bowl). San Diego didn't seem all that broken up about the Chargers leaving, and Ls Angeles really didn't want them either. In fact while the new place was being built, the Chargers played in a 30,000 seat soccer stadium, and had games that didn't sell out. 

My default stance on things of this nature is that teams should stay where they are, and that taxpayers shouldn't be footing bills for stadiums that host teams owned by billionaires. But we all saw what sorry shape the Oakland Coliseum is in, what with possums pooping in the visiting team's broadcast booth.  (See WM April 23, 2023). The late Al Davis and his son, current Raiders owner Mark Davis, f-cked the city of Oakland and the A's in particular 9 ways to Sunday. It would be great if they could figure out a way to build a new stadium in Oakland, but failing that, I can't really blame the A's for wanting to head to Vegas.

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Of course I can't let this Super Bowl special go without my annual complaint about the game being played in February. This is the Niners 8th trip to the Super Bowl. They won in the 1981, 1984, 1988, 1989 and 1994 seasons. They lost in 2012 and 2019. Their first win was on 1/24/1982. Their second win was 1/20/1985. Three and Four were back-to-back 1/22/89 and 1/28/1990. 

Their two losses were in February. 2/3/13 and 2/2/20. 

I miss the Super Bowl in January. And I heard more about them eventually moving it to President's Day Weekend. I really hope not, but that seems to be the goal.  

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This is the 20th anniversary of the Super Bowl of the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction at halftime. I don't remember the final score of the game, but the Patriots beat the Panthers.

This is the 10th anniversary of the Super Bowl played here in NY. The Seahawks beat the Broncos 43-8. I don't remember who the halftime show was, but I'm sure my sister and my brother-in-law will remind me. 😆😆

 

Enjoy the rest of Super Bowl XLVIII. 

Weekly Mail February 4, 2024

 

Hey everyone:

Last week we didn't publish. This usually happens for a few reasons. Either I'm not at the Post that week, or I write most of it and don't get around to finishing it, or I'm working on something else.

None of those were the reason I didn't write last week. I was at the Post, and there were a couple of topics I could have discussed, but I just didn't really feel like it. That almost never happens, usually there is at least one or two things I like to get off my chest or something that struck me as amusing or worth mentioning. But last week, I just didn't have any motivation. It was kind of weird actually. 

This week I do have a few things to discuss. 

First of all, if you were able to get out this weekend for a bit and enjoy the day, I hope you really did. It seemed like we hadn't seen the sun in about 3 weeks. (It was actually 10 days, which is tough enough) It was still chilly but it's still the dead of winter so that's to be expected. It felt good being out there in the February sun. 

And of course, being that it is indeed February, meaning we survived January. We had that bit of snow that hung around, but really, we just had a lot of clouds and some rain. And we usually get at least one or two days in February where it is unseasonably warm. I realize we could also get clobbered with snow, but I feel like when that happens in February, it goes away quicker. 

February also brings the Super Bowl (next week) a week off from school for some of our kids, and spring training starts soon. 

We'll get to all that in a second, first I want to talk about the three souls we lost in the Middle East. 

MIDDLE EAST WAR

Photo Credit: AP

A drone attack from an Iranian backed militia killed 3 American soldiers and wounded over 40 others in Northeast Jordan near the Syrian border last Sunday morning. 

The three soldiers killed were Sgt. Willam Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton GA, Spc. Kennedy Landon Sanders, 24, of Waycross GA, and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffat, 23, of Savannah GA. 

President Biden vowed the US would seek retribution and as of this writing US forces have struck at targets in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. 

One thing I'm not going to do is get into the blame game, Idiots on both sides of the aisle are of course pointing fingers which solves nothing. 

I just want to make sure these heroes that we lost last week are acknowledged. One of my big fears in life is having a repeat of what happened when I went to see the movie Black Hawk Down. The friend I went and saw the movie with asked me on the way out, "Do you remember when that actually happened?" 

And I kind of did, but not with the clarity and emotion that I should have. The movie came out just a couple months after 9/11, and with that raw anger still burning inside of me, I wondered to both my pal and myself what could we have possibly been doing that we barely remembered the terrible attack in Mogadishu. I had to look it up to see when this all took place. It was October 3 and 4 1993, my 3rd year of college. I bought USA Today at the Student Union almost every day that year. It boggles my mind how this didn't register. 

Of course 9/11 would heighten all our sensitivities, but I had also made up my mind that I would never again let myself get in a position like that. It's a big reason why, as much as I thought it ridiculous that they needed 12 congressional hearings to investigate Benghazi, I didn't allow myself or anybody who tried to trivialize it to get away with dismissing it as no big deal. I tried to find the medium between political grandstanding and indifference. 

God Bless these brave souls that we lost, and may we figure out how to put these evildoers out of business with as few to none loss of innocent life as possible. 

With that, we move on...

FOOTBALL-Big Time Choke Job

I was boycotting football in 2016-17 when Atlanta played New England in Super Bowl LI (51). So I wasn't watching when the Falcons blew a 28-3 lead to the scumbag Patriots. (Looking back on my blog from that week-I spent the first half watching Quantum of Solace with Timmy, and the 2nd half catching up on Blue Bloods)  

I was watching last week though, when the Lions blew a 24-7 halftime lead to the 49ers and choked away a chance to win their first championship since the Eisenhower administration. 

And make no mistake about it, this was a first-class choke job of epic proportions. 

Folks are giving Lions HC Dan Campbell all sorts of grief for his decisions to go for it on 4th down, as the Lions could have used the 6 points kicking said FG's would have gotten them. Karl (the Ace) Ludwig would describe Campbell's philosophy as "heavy on (guts), light on brains". I'm a go for it on 4th down kind of guy, so there is a part of me that's sympathetic to Campbell.

But if you're going to go for it, you better make it. And when you don't you better not drop easy passes, or miss tackles, and the Lions spent most of the 2nd half doing just that. 

As I've gotten older, I try to look at these things with some perspective. Is it possible the Niners played lousy in the first half and came alive in the 2nd? Sure, but from where I was watching, it looked like the Lions just cracked under the pressure. It really was one of the biggest collapses I've ever seen, and I've seen my fair share, what with the collection of misfits I root for. 

Now one could argue that Lamar Jackson and the AFC regular season leading Baltimore Ravens also, as George Steinbrenner used to say, spit the bit. But the Chiefs pretty much dominated from the get-go and never gave Baltimore a chance to get going. It was a close game score wise, but KC was really in control from the beginning. 

So even though we have two really good teams playing, I'm not really feeling the buzz here folks. We already had this matchup 4 years ago. The good news is, I know who I'm rooting for, whereas had it been Lions-Chiefs, I would have had a much tougher decision to make. The Niners tortured me back in the 80's so I can never really root for them. 

Yes, I'll be rooting for Taylor Swift and Patrick Mahomes and the rest of the Chiefs. Mike Vaccaro in the Post this week talked of Chiefs Fatigue even without the Swiftie factor, just based on the fact that they have been the dominant team in the sport in this current decade's first 4 years. I have to admit, I'm getting there myself. But for this coming Sunday, I'll be pulling for them again.

And speaking of America's sweetheart, when our kids and grandkids look back and see the amount of time and ink being spent on figuring out how T.S. was going to make it from her concert in Tokyo to the big game in Vegas, they’re going to wonder what drugs we were all taking. There have been articles and videos analyzing Taylor's trip, as if she'll have to worry about a layover in Hong Kong, or if she'll make her connecting flight at LAX. 

My favorite was a story in the Post, where someone went on X (aka Twitter) and posted a video from a 2001 episode of the West Wing. This said the poster, is how Swift can make it from Tokyo to Vegas in time for the game.

From the Post....

In the scene, the characters — including White House deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), communications director Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) and  press secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) — are discussing the time difference between the US and Asia, debating, “So, it’s 14 hours ahead…we’re sure it’s ahead and not behind?” 

“Okay, so it’s almost 11 o’clock in Tokyo,” someone says. 

They continue arguing about whether that means 11 in the morning or in the evening, and how the time difference allows them to “buy a day.”

Sam triumphantly says, “He’s going to travel eastward from Tokyo, leaving at 7 p.m., so, when he crosses the international dateline —”

“He’ll have traveled back in time to what?” Toby asks.

“3 a.m,” Sam explains. 

“He’s going to land in Washington an hour before he took off?” Josh asks, and Sam nods. 

What they ought to do (and I'm sure someone is already working on this) is have an app like the NORAD tracker I download every Christmas Eve so I can tell my nieces and nephews where Santa is at any given time. Can you imagine? 

"Hey everybody! Taylor is flying over the Marshall Islands!" 

Oh Yeah? "When she's flying over Honolulu, let us know!"  

Someone in my family just took a long international trip, and I spent more time than I care to admit tracking their flight on Flightaware.com. Of course, they don't do that for private jets, but like I said, someone is going to figure out how to keep tabs on her travels. For better or worse, it's arguably the game's biggest storyline. 

We'll have a halftime edition of WM next week. 

POLITICS: The New Hampshire Primary and the Defamation Verdict

Another thing I couldn't bring myself to write about last week was Captain Orange's win in the New Hampshire primary over Nikki Haley on Tuesday, followed by the jury deciding on Friday that he had to cough up $83.3 million for all the icky things he said about E. Jean Carroll, the writer he was found liable of assaulting back in the 90's.

First the primary. Trump won the state by 10 points, not a blowout by any means, but still a solid win. Biden is already conceding that it will be him and Orange in a 2020 rematch. 

As for Haley, I do commend her for staying in the race. Especially since rather than quietly urging her to drop out, the MAGAt's are doing what they do best. Insulting and threatening her to drop out. 

Obviously for my sake I think it's good that she hangs in there, and to be honest, it would be silly to drop out before she sees how she can do in her home state. (South Carolina's Republican Primary is scheduled for February 24th.)  But having said that, if she doesn't win South Carolina, it's more than a fair question for her to ask herself what state she can win. 

As for the ruling in New York last Friday, that had nothing to do with the sexual assault he was found liable for. He's already on the hook for that to the tune of $5 million. 

No, this chunk of change he now has to pay stems from a defamation suit Carroll filed against him. In other words, had he just kept his big mouth shut and paid her the 5 mil, it would be over and done with. 

But since he can't let $hit go, (for example-that he LOST the election in 2020) he made it worse for himself by calling her claims of sexual assault a hoax and that she "not his type" 

All he had to do was STFU. That's it. Instead, he did what he does best, insult people. It cost him $83 million.

Hope it was worth it. 

Back to the New Hampshire primary for a second... Biden won it on the Democratic side, despite the fact that his name was not on the ballot. My understanding is that the DNC wanted to make South Carolina the first Democratic Primary, while New Hampshire wanted to keep their status as the first in the nation primary. South Carolina's Democratic Primary was held on Saturday. 

So Biden received the most votes, but no delegates have been awarded. And I hate to freaking say this, but I feel this is why many people don't vote and why people get fed up with politics. My pal Ed Robinson does a great job of trying to explain these primary rules, and while I'm not by any definition of the word a genius, I consider myself fairly intelligent and engaged in the process. But I can't give you a good explanation for any of this. I have argued against having one national primary day because I do feel there is something to be said for the process of having individual state primaries. But between this nonsense with New Hampshire and South Carolina, and the whole mess with delegates and super delegates and super-duper delegates, I am really starting to warm to the one big primary day idea.

BREAKING NEWS At 7:24 EST, the first poll results from the above referenced South Carolina Democratic Primary have come in. Joe Biden has so far won 97% of the vote. Weekly Mail is going to go out on a limb here and declare President Biden the winner of the South Carolina primary. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me in the behind. If it does, I will refund this week's subscription fee for everyone.  

MORE BREAKING NEWS 7:27 EST- CNN just declared Biden the winner. I beat them by 3 minutes. My refund offer still stands. 

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Was sad to hear about Carl Weathers passing on Friday. Of course I loved him as Apollo Creed in Rocky, but I Action Jackson was a great flick as well. I remember watching him and Billy Dee Williams in a TV movie in the early 90's and thinking, these two guys are way too talented and cool to be doing TV movies. He was doing those dopey commercials with Gronk for the Super Bowl and I heard he was part of the Star Wars mandalorian series. Another great one gone this week at 76. 

Weekly Mail at Halftime next week. 

Till then

Stay Safe

and Have a Great Week