Social Media, no pickles, extra onion, with an egg, cut in half, Peruivan chocolate mayo....

Ramblings Post #313 

I just want to go someplace quiet, have a few drinks with some friends, tell some stale jokes and tell some lies about how good things used to be....without somebody pulling out their phone to check something. They're hanging out with us checking twitter to see if something better is happening. It has become tiresome. I once went to club and only ten of us were there. They had to kick us out at closing we were having such a good time. Sometimes you have to forget what's next, and do what's now. (in all fairness that was before cell phones, or else I would have been out!)

 

I have long enjoyed the basic format of the vast majority of social media that I do employ. I don't snap, spotifizzle, swipe or wheezle or whatever the new hot verb invention of the moment might be. My last Facebook post might have been last year. But, I do like them updates. Six asinine inspirational quotes? Yes please. Three pictures of your cousin I don't know? Of course. An article that you didn't read either? Gimme. One of the grand benefits of the basic look of Facebook -  of the reverse-chronological feed that has been the staple of how we get most of our social media - is that keeps me updated. I get the new stuff first, and then if I want to dig deeper I can. It's convenient. And now it seems to be headed the way of the pay phone and selling you a complete computer game. And I for one don't like it. 

You see, for me one of the underlying problems with social media in general is that you only see what you've specifically selected. For record I'm the kind of guy who while watching TV flips through the onscreen guide and occasionally ends up on a channel I didn't even know existed. And while social media is an opt-in sort of situation, the self selected isolation that this technology allows however, puts you in a kind of awareness bubble, with data you MIGHT find stimulating or mind expanding being filtered out because you didn't select it when you signed up. Because you didn't know it existed yet. It's why I flip channels and actually still surf the web and not just hit the round about of my favorite familiar sites. Avoiding this personal sequestration is also one of the reasons I've always tried to keep at least one conservative friend in my Facebook feed, if only to remind me that everyone doesn't think like me. Because while I do see the value in safe spaces, the problem comes when we start to want to live in this comfort zone as though the rest of the world doesn't exist. Or get upset when we find out the rest of the world isn't just like our own little slice of heaven. 

Which brings us "curated social media," the new eyeball sticking technique where all that behind the scenes monitoring of what you're looking at on whatever app you use means you'll get more of exactly that content. Facebook already does it, first by limiting my feed from all of my friends to just the few I've clicked to like their stuff. I like to think that more than 20 of my friends regularly have something to share. And the damn thing also makes me switch from Highlights (i.e., ads) to Most Recent every time I log in, which is annoying. You would think that with all the tracking they're doing, they should know I prefer Most Recent by now, ya think? And now Twitter has just changed over to it as well, and my feed time line jumps from 3m to 16hrs and back again as though I'm stuck in a revolving time machine. Even after I changed the settings. I am less inclined to use both because of these "sticky" features. 

My fear is that as my interests are tracked and analyzed, those things I will be fed by my personal media aggregators will become more and more limited, more and focused on bent on turning me into one those media zombies who look at their phone every two minutes. I will assume the algorithm will be setup to keep the final number of feed items from going all the way down to one, and that it will occasionally interject the new source just to keep it lively, but this whole process sounds sad. And dangerous. Because if you think we already live in little echo chambers now, and this will only make it worse.

 

We already aren't listening to one another, and constantly trying to turn each others positions into unreasonable evil. In a world where we've made the "compromise" a bad word, allowing us all to ensconce ourselves even deeper in our own social ghettos, fed only those stories things that reinforce our naturally myopic viewpoints and personal biases, one can't help but think maybe this isn't in our best interest.   

Ferguson, Missouri 2014 (2)

This is a political post.

I don't really go to the movies, because a) I really don't want to go alone and b) I be broke. But I do take a few minutes every few weeks to read up on the reviews, so that eighteen months from now when it ends up on cable, I'll know what I'm getting into. By the way, why hasn't the Avengers made it to cable yet? Even FX which is where Thor ended up for some reason. But I digress, this isn't about those movies, it's about a movie I read the review for, or rather a premise from that movie that I think could have been used...and still might be used...for something other than YA romance...stuff. 

The film is If I Stay, which is based on the novel of the same name and is about a young shy cellist who has been in car accident, falls into a coma and has a series out of body experience/flashbacks. She reviews her life where she's found the perfect teenage boyfriend who just gets her and listens to  pleas for her to just wake up.

My idea is to adopt the premise, the flashback/out of body experience part to the story of a young black man who has just been in an incident with the police and now is in the hospital or dying. To me, and I say this without having read the original story or seen the movie, but to me I think that properly used by another filmmaker this premise has the opportunity to show a conflicted character on all sides and tell a much more socially relevant piece of fiction.

Here is my idea. Open with the scene of the incident. It's all flashing blue lights, bodies moving in the dark, before we focus on the body of the black man in the street. Then the title comes up.

At the hospital, we get the cliche race through to ER, and we see the main character's face, and the camera then pans up to the same face, as the character's spirit watches the activity surrounding his body. We see him flashback to his first day of high school then to maybe to Sunday morning with his parents at church.

His "spirit" visits his mother and father who have gotten the news, and their expressions of rage and anguish. We flashback to see him arguing with mother. His father making suggestions at odds with his own plans for the future. The flashback continues to show him doing silly, possibly illegal things with friends - smoking, underage drinking. His "spirit" listens to his mother tell his grandmother what has happened.

He flashes back goes to his childhood, where you see him interact with grandmother and extended family, children at play, adults socializing. This leads into a seen of him socializing with friends now, then plays back to him at the playground as a child.

His "spirit" visits his friends, some of whom lament his situation, others who feel he deserved it. He visits the neighborhood, hearing how people he didn't even know thought of him. He flashbacks again, but this time to the start of this day. To moments with his girlfriend, with his friends. We see him basically living the life of an ordinary teenager. 
 

I don't have the whole thing fleshed out, there would be a lot more flashbacks, his spirit hearing the police officer describe the scene, hearing his friend talk about the same scene, etc. The idea just struck me earlier today as how to expand the original premise, but give both sides of the story in a generally palatable dramatic format. The whole idea of the film is to show the main character, a young black male, not as a thug nor as a choir boy, but as a whole person. And to show that one person's version of events can differ from another person's version, and that those differences are important when a life hangs in the balance.

And yes, this idea was prompted by my thoughts on Ferguson, which I'm having trouble expressing. Next week, I'm going with light stuff, not because this isn't relevant, but because my mind needs to be somewhere else for a minute.

I liked the Black Panther

Ramblings Post #222
The comic book world is funny about black superheroes. Let's just say that the National Assoc. of Superpowered Colored People could, in my youth, hold their meetings in a living room. You had Falcon, Luke Cage, Storm of the X-Men and um...well, the Black Panther. Technically, you could have had that meeting at the kitchen table. Maybe even in the breakfast nook. There are more now, but much like when the only TV was the basic three and today there is cable...you have no idea. 

The Marvel character the Black Panther is a problem. He is his country's version of Captain America, but with a genius level intellect and the resources of Tony Stark's Iron Man. He's Batman from Africa. He is the strong intelligent black superhero.

And Marvel just snapped his neck like he was a character called Paste Pot Pete.

No wait, Paste Pot Pete got upgraded in one of those Spiderman titles to the Trapster, so in fact they killed the Black Panther like he was faceless character number #147. In the back of a second rate villain's title.

Really Marvel?

I don't read comics like I used to, they had gotten to formuliac and rusty in many ways. And it seemed like the artists I liked enjoyed doing work on stories I didn't care to read. But I actually started reading the Black Panther series when it came out.  The Africans were depicted like, i dunno how to describe it...like "people". There was no use of dated slang or the accompanying paper thin one dimensional characterizations that so often seem to plague non-white characters. And the people of his country weren't living in huts on the African savannah, but in modern cities and with technology that looked just like that in every other comic book. It was on some levels nice to see that maybe when kids picked up a comic they'd get a better version of Africa.

But no.

Okay, it's a comic. People come back from the dead all the time. So maybe it's not the end of the world. Still, that a major character...who worked with the Avengers, defeated the Fantastic Four and served as one Captain America's pallbearers when they killed him off...well, you see my point. Death in comics isn't forever. Usually. Still, dying behind a villain like Ultron? Ugh.

Black people dress up like Superheroes too, if you give them a good reason.

 Barkeep, a fine African Red wine to soothe my troubled spirit, for the possible loss of one of my heroes.

Shoulda just cut it all off

Ramblings Post #95
Despite our best efforts, life is about minutiae. No matter the heights we achieve, we must still bathe, and eat, and shave - in some for or another - and clip our nails, and etc and so on. These things can't be avoided. And since "little things mean a lot", when I came to the realization I'd been neglecting something important, and then it turned on me, I knew it was time to get right with myself...and the guy who cuts my hair.

I'm not a barber snob.

For the past few years, more and more guys I know are forgoing the barbershop and cutting their own hair. Those are to some degree, barber snobs. I, on the other hand, had stuck to the tried and true system however, not because I was too lazy, but rather because I'd tried cutting my own hair before and truly screwed it up so I'd rather trust a professional.

That said, usually any professional (who can take instruction) will do.

Typical barbershop - Black America.

As a kid, a trip to the barber meant our mother dropped us off at, I think it was at least, Professional Barbershop #3. It was in what would now be called a little strip mall, with a dirt parking lot. It was the original "men's hut". They were professional professionals, even now I remember that they were older than college students, who cut hair all day. The shop was big, had old magazines and smelled like what I imagined at the time Africa smelled like. And they had two huge mirrors facing one another, which gave this infinity effect which at the time I thought was sooo cool.

In college, I let my hair get cut just about anywhere. The barber's, a friend's house, my house, by this chick who swore she knew how to cut. On internship in Chicago I drove to the Southside to get my haircut, and on internship in New Jersey going in the barbershop and waiting let them know I wasn't from there. I probably wasn't as self conscious as I should have been, appearance-wise, so it was probably wild and woolly then. Looking back, a little grooming and discipline might have made a world of difference.

Now I've proscribed to the comment plight of the black male (who still has hair), finding a barber who I like. A good barber for a black man is sacred. I've changed barbershops because "my" barber moved, put off cut because he wasn't available and waited when he said he was running late. A good barber, who knows his customers, almost doesn't have to be told, only reminded how you like your hair. And he doesn't cut it so it looks good just for today, he cuts it so your hair grows into the shape you want.

I would have picked one a while ago I think, but at the place to close to my job they never have a lot of customers so I'm wary of riding by one day and finding them gone. But I think it's time to pick one of them - and a suitable back up.

Because yesterday, when I walked into my latest usual spot, where I ended up after my last barber disappeared (long story) and because its close to the job, I let them pick out the guy who would cut my hair. I gave him explicit instructions. How did he do?

- I don't like them to give me a "line" in the front. The hair is headed back fast enough, no need to encourage it. He touched up my line.

- For my head, I need the sides cut closer than the top, it grows faster. Otherwise my head looks like a wedge, like Grady from Sanford and son. He didn't understand "close".

- And because the sides grow faster than the top, I like the sides cut high, closer to a buzz cut than a fade. He started fading it out around the ears.

I paid him...even tipped him, headed home and broke out the clippers.

You shouldn't have to cut your hair after you gotten your hair cut. That and he sprayed some gook on my hair without asking, then told me it was black company and we need to support. Not really digging his flavor. So it looks like it's gonna be the bald guy in the back from now on, or the sister who cut it once and it wasn't too bad.

Barkeep...tell me the baldy is coming back!

Bar Chatter

Bar Chatter #12
Sometimes it ain't enough to make post, but it still needs to go out...it's just bar chatter.

Kiss my ass. Seriously. Why am I not able to get a movie deal?

Mega Piranha?

Are you kidding me?

I frequent a news aggregation site called fark.com, and one of amusing ways they refer to the industry's tendency for remakes, sequels, and cookie cutter films as "Hollywood is out of ideas". Here is the defining moment of that phrase-ology.

Mega Piranha. On Syfy.

It's a real movie! This is original programming! Somewhere, a Vice President of something at that network read the premise or treatment and thought "Yeah, this is a good idea." An ancient huge ancestor of a fish indigenous to the Amazon river is still alive - - - and attacks Miami? Really? I mean, from a basic biology standpoint of fresh water fish in salt water, I mean, really? This got a green light?

Does anybody know where I can submit my treatment? I think I'm going to send it in crayon.

Really? I mean...really?

Knowing is aging

Ramblings Post #66
This year I had a birthday I've always envisioned as something so far off it was always ages and ages away. And now that I am that age I used to laugh at, karma has come in from doing the yard and started pointing out all those little things I used to think should never have to me. Not the big stuff, the little stuff. What little stuff? Read on...

Wanna know how you know you're old?

When you hurt yourself, not playing basketball, or working in the yard, or slipping in the bathtub, but reaching for the alarm clock.

I have a horrible habit in that I've found out, or figured out, how to turn off my alarm clock in my sleep. Well, not turn off but hit the snooze. Which is kinda why my alarm is set for 6am, but I don't actually wake until well after 7am.

To combat this I move the clock around the nightstand, to the floor, to the other side of the bed, etc. I'm considering buying another alarm clock that requires more than a button tap to get to the snooze part. I've also considered sleeping with someone who'll actually get up when the alarm goes off. Let's just say there are plans in "flux".

But Monday morning, as the alarm went off for what had to be the 8th or 9th time I reached out this time semi-awake to get a few more minutes. The clock was just out of my reach. Apparently the previous time I'd hit the snooze when I rolled back over into the covers I had rolled a little farther away. I stretched out just a touch. Didn't make it. I stretched a little more...

...and my wrist popped.

I was damn sure awake then. I could move my fingers and all that, but it sure hurt like hell.

I hurt myself trying to turn off my alarm clock. I've been in car accidents, run into walls and doors, and nothing hurt quite like this. I mean this hurt like a mofo. I could barely hold a pen and doing all the things I normally do one handed really wasn't the move.

And hurt till this morning. Maybe it was a wrist sprain.

I started to get gray at 22, so that really wasn't a feeling of being old to me when the gray started coming in a little stronger. And I've been out running the streets since sometime in late 80's, from college to my hometown and finally in Atlanta for a decade, so my slowing down and getting a little weary of the "scene" didn't strike me as me getting old, I'd had my good time, and some of yours. But hurting yourself just moving? I mean damn. Is there another sign of being old?

Maybe I'll get me some vitamins or something.

Barkeep, let me get a Centrum Martini.

Alright, Enough Already...can we let this go?

Internet Fodder Post #4
This will actually cover more than just the internet, because this time more than just the internet is responsible for this lunacy. I wish we were better than this, that in some way we as the citizens of the world could recognize when things get out of hand, when things go too far. And at that moment, we stop, take a deep collective cleansing breath, and back away from the lunacy. We haven't reached that point yet.

Okay, I realize that Micheal Jackson was an Icon, beloved by millions around the world, musical genius and all that, but this is getting silly. Why is it still in around the clock coverage on a major news networks, no, let me strike that because I have no idea what's on Fox News, but why is CNN covering it like lives hang in the balance?

Mike's kids will not starve. This I promise you.
Mike's money is gone. And it ain't coming back.
Mike's family had some secrets. But then, we all knew that...so big whup.

The new major offensive in Afghanistan? Relegated to the crawl along the bottom of the screen. Larry King will be live from the Neverland Ranch at some point! Maybe I miss heard them, but I swear it was breaking news that they...were moving his body? Um...other than the family, do the rest of us really need to know that, and why is it news?

CNN needs to do better. I live maybe fifteen minutes from CNN center, and I'm tempted to go down there and throw a brick at a programmer. There was a coup in Honduras! Amjabaa-bitty-boop boop or whatever threatened us again. They're still killing folks in Iran for talking back. Our own government passed climate legislation and CNN has a nurse who says Mike couldn't sleep. They will hiring at CNN soon, because there will be some firings shortly. Or at least there needs to be.

And lo, I wish it was just CNN. The number of Micheal Jackson stories I have read this week:Mike was fine, Mike loved his kids, Mike was broke, Mike was sick, Mike couldn't speak, Mike got duped into the comeback concerts, Mike knew what he was doing, Mike was a pawn, Mike had a gay lover whose got pictures to prove it, Mike's accuser lied, Mike was frail, Mike was practicing for this show, Mike has a million songs stashed away, Mike was on meds, Mike thought he was going to die, etc and so on from Newsweek, The Huffington Post, the Daily Mail, and every other junior bootleg site is ....well, seriously..has anything else happened?

For the sake of the family, who actually lost a brother/son/father...can we all just let this go? Please?

Let the Jackson's mourn in peace.

I saw this movie right...

Ramblings Post #36
There are things probably best left unsaid. I mean there are certain things when you say them that cast a certain light upon you now and forevermore. Like, admitting you're scared of ballerinas. It might be because your older sister used to beat you up after ballet practice, but if you don't explain yourself, the first admission is probably better off a secret. So what does that have to do with this post? Nothing. Just thought I'd say that.

This is a movie rant. I have to get a few things off my chest.

First, I have a bad movie habit.

This weekend, on one of the pay movie channels, I watched Tropic Thunder. For the first time. Ever.

Now, this is interesting because I already have a copy of Tropic Thunder that I have never watched. I had thought about going to see it, but the only movies I'd been to in the past five years had been with Sporty, so I gave it a pass, even though I'd heard it was hilarious. Some months later walking through Blockbuster, I spotted the movie on a rack and decided to buy a copy because I'd never gone to go see it, but the film was supposed to be hilarious. Needless to say having paid for it, I couldn't find time to watch it until it came on TV while I wasn't paying attention.

And it was Hilarious.

And I can think of at least two or three other movies I've purchased and never watched. Okay, I watched the first half of Pineapple Express, but I can't think of another film that I've paid for and watched. I will eventually one day, but I think I did the same with "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins", "First Sunday", "Superbad" and "Smoking Aces", and I still have "Cloverfield", "The Dark Knight" and two or three others to go. All purchased, all never watched.

Why do I do that?

Sidenote: I don't normally like Tom Cruise. He is where Nic Cage appears to be headed film selection-wise: All his characters are heroes, or at worst badly written anti-heroes, and dimensionally as flat as they come. It's as though half of male Hollywood is all caught up in the Gary Cooper syndrome. But Tom Cruises performance as the ruthless studio head Les Grossman was inspired. You almost want his character to pop up in something else just so you can enjoy his scenery chewing performance.

Second, how exactly does the Academy pick the the Oscars?

I mean, the Oscar winners are for the most part, pretentious bullshit. How hard is it play the roles they pick for winners? No period drama should ever win again, and biopics of people alive in the last 25 years are self serving message movies not fit for viewing in most cases (I might own Milk, I dunno. It wouldn't matter, because I have not watched it). Playing someone, i.e., mimicking their mannerisms and cadences is hokey - see: Ali with Will Smith, whereas inhabiting them as a consciousness is harder - see Frost/Nixon.

But building a character from scratch? Wouldn't that be harder than simply trying to nail down an existing person? I mean you know when you've got a live character down, a made up one should be harder. How would you know when you're done?

I bring this up because in Tropic Thunder, Robert Downey Jr playing supreme method actor Kirk Lazurus remains in character at all times as the black Lincoln Osirus, in part playing as Samuel Jackson and convincingly...how is that not Oscar-Worthy? And the afore mentioned Tom Cruise, playing so far against type he might have run over himself coming back around.

What won last year? Okay, wait, I haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire either...so maybe it was better, but why does the Academy think comedy is easy? When is the last time a comedy won Best Picture?

Barkeep, I intend to shoot a movie one day, give me something to shut me up!

Cowboys Give Me Strength

This is a Sports Post
And if you ain't figured that out by now, I'm gonna pray for you.

I am, and have been since I was 5 years old (or maybe even earlier), a huge fan of the Dallas Cowboys. Seriously, my family will call and check on me when the Cowboys lose too badly. Boo and Hiss all you like, but I've been with the Cowboys through Danny White, a one win season, the firing of Jimmy, and every other way professional football haters, Joe Gibbs and commie spies have tried to destroy one of the greatest teams ever to suit up and play the game.

So last night when I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if a thousand touchdown passes had been dropped, I got up and turned to SportsCenter to see what had happened.

They cut Terrell Owens? Wait, What?

At first I was struck with disbelief. The Cowboys have just released him, just like that? Did anyone tell Jerry? I mean, Jerry surely would have gotten some value - traded him for some picks, a couple of DBs, a plasma screen TV, a bag of footballs, a box of doughnuts, something? I mean this is Jerry freakin' Jones, the deal maker! Jerry is who the other owners want to be when they grow up. Wait, Jerry told him that he was cut personally? Is this really happening?

What does a future Hall of Famer, whose acting out is basically just him really really wanting to win, do to be cut and have the team willing to take a MAJOR cap hit to get it done? Was TO tapping Mrs. Jones? I can't really see a reason other than that for letting his ass go. I mean if you make it to the pros, you can take isht talk in the locker room, so I would think he could only be so divisive. These are grown men for crying out loud.

At lunch, I wasn't surprised to find ESPN was basically The Cowboys have Cut Terrell Owens Story with commercial breaks for other sports news. I think they interviewed everybody on staff including the overnight cleaning crew as to what effect this would have on every aspect of football. I kept waiting for news on a statement from the White House about the crisis in Dallas. I think they reported that ego futures had fallen on Nikkei in Hong Kong, and the global economy might not survive another such shock.

The truth of the matter is we will know shortly is if Romo really is any good.
And if the running game is all we think it is.
And if Jason Garrett is worth a damn as an offensive coordinator.

The new Texas Stadium. Apparently Jerry is trying to go in Hoodoo free.

A great receiver, even one who drops a lot of passes can hide a whole lot of problems and deficiencies just by being a threat. With TO, the 'boys were in control of their own fate until about 3 mins into the last game of the season. Without him? I dunno.

I mean let's be real. You can love who you want to, but everybody on your team wishes they played for the Cowboys. Ask'em.

Barkeep. I think I'll have my one drink now. I mean what the fuck?

I Got Extras!

Vent Post #3
The following is a vent post, where for the purposes of venting some frustrations I will roll over a point in my mind that strikes me as silly and rant over it for a few lines. Breathe it. And for the sake of argument and in the interest of full disclosure, they'll usually be directed at one of the great mysteries of my life: women. If I happen to step on a metaphorical toe, it might means your mental feet aren't where you thought they were.

So Slim, who I hadn't spoken to in a minute calls with what else - man problems. All my women friends appear to have these issues with the men they choose, but Slim's seem to currently be more pronounced than the rest. Though Spanky is giving her a good run for her money.

So in the course of the chat Slim tells me that one point when the guy was supposed to call and didn't or sent a text for like the 100th time that day (damn an unlimited plan!) that she had left the country. Curious I asked and she told me she'd gone to Cozumel, Mexico for the New Year. Wowzers. She's going at it Big time. Then she hits me with that statement I hate:

"I had an extra ticket. I should have called you."

How do you have an extra ticket to Cozumel? You have an extra ticket to the movies. You occasionally have and extra ticket to a concert. You got extra coupons all the time. But an extra ticket to Mexico? Okay once in college someone had an extra ticket to Paris that could have been mine if they had known I was in town, but ...oh, never mind, but anyway, I told her I was going to pretend that she didn't just say that.

How do you have an extra ticket to a resort? That bugged me so much. I didn't bring it up again in the phone call, but that really really bugged me. Really.

I mean it bugged the shit out me.

A free ticket to Cozumel? I mean I know me and Slim ain't like that, but we're both grown. We could have shared a room for a week and nothing would have happened. Or I could have scooped a room when I was down there. I'm broke but ain't nobody that broke. I mean damn. Okay if she cooks - oddly for vegetarian she cooks meat all the time - if she cooks she will call for me to get a plate, so I shouldn't be complaining.

I shouldn't but I am. Cozu-freaking-mel? As much as need a vacation too? I only had how much time off?

I wish I was drinking.

Bartender, how about a big vanilla shake. Extra whipped creme.

Bad Day

They say God doesn't give you more than you can handle. I really hope that's true.

I really wish I could just want things. Things are simple. You work for them, save, plan and you get them. I really wish I could be happy having things. My life would be simple with things.

But my happiness depends on other people. I need relationships and experiences. And other people always seem to have other plans.

I really just want to go home, to my mother's house, go to sleep and wake up and be five years old. 1974. I really really wish I could. I'm not feeling very well. I don't want to play anymore.

Barkeep...I'm just gonna sit here for a while.

And then the Football Gods said no

One of my favorite columnists, Gregg Easterbrook, writes a weekly sports column for ESPN in which he regals in how the Football Gods reward or punish teams for the folly and hubris. My favorite is when he comments on how a team is punished when the cheerleaders fail to show professionalism. The man has a good eye, that's all I can say. I've appropriated his term for this update to describe my opinion of what happened in the oddly named University of Phoenix Stadium where the Rasputin-like Giants faced the unstoppable Patriots in their quest for football immortality.

A few days before the game in DC, a Senator (an Eagles fan) asked the question I've been asking all season. "Hey Goodell, what was on the damn tapes? And if you stonewall me, I might take away your anti-trust exemption." To me, this was the first crack in the wall that the NFL had whitewashed after the boys from Foxboro got caught. And cracks tend to spread, even onto the field.

"The champ is groggy. The champ is down."

I enjoyed the Superbowl at an acquaintence's party in Buckhead, chock full of women looking all sexy and guys being guys, with a fresh cup of Sprite in one hand and a girl on lap for most of the second half. I had another party in mind, but found out the brother was charging $30 a head (dudes) to get in. Now it was supposed to pay for catering, but for $30 I would have expected free drinks as well. And I'm not even drinking right now. So, I didn't attend.

At the party I did run up to, a three story town house, the crowd was mixed, although the girls I was sitting next to complained that there weren't enough men there. Enough tall men, who looked rich. I wish I was joking, but that's how she preferenced it. The women though, were off the chain. (And for the record, the girl in the yellow jersey and black stretch pants was reee-diculously fine. I didn't get her on my lap though.)

Enough of the ambiance..onto the game. The thing that impressed me most was how often the Giants got to Brady. At one point I think he had 17 dropbacks and was either hurried or knocked down on 10 of them, and was 5 for 11. What the NY has that a lot of teams don't is a strength coach from the 1950s and four legit speed rushers, and getting to Brady is the key to stopping the Pats. That and shutting down that way to obvious straight forward pass lane that nobody in 18 games seems to realize is there.

The wings by the way, were slamming. Old girl in the black top that she was bursting out of was even better. Sorry, the game.

Then, with his brother looking like someone's accountant, Eli Manning grew a pair. With two minutes to play I watched as he channeled Favre, Montana, and in a scramble that saw him dance out of the arms a defender and toss the long ball, Tarkenton. (Yes, I'm a Cowboy fan and I could have said Staubauch or Romo, but they're still the Giants, geez). But even as he floated out the go ahead touchdown pass, I looked at the clock and wondered if they'd struck too soon. As the room around me erupted in jubliation that the Pats weren't going to go undefeated (You'd be surprised how many folks hate the Pats now) I realized that they'd left Brady and Moss with 35 seconds and three timeouts. That's like 4 minutes in real time. And by NFL rules, the defensive coach would play prevent. Okay it's not a rule, but it they way they stick the mantra it may as well be.

So held my breath and waited for the English Miracle. Or Brady's March. Or whatever nickname they'd give it when Moss made a circus catch in the endzone with zero seconds left on the clock, because in the NFL you trust your DBs to cover and not your linebackers to blitz with the game on the line. Do the Giants know who there DBs are? Send in the linebackers!

Somebody listened, as whooosh!, they hit Brady so hard you could feel the impact in Atlanta. What's that? A coach who sends in the funk with less than minuted to play? Unthinkable!

And somewhere in Miami, the champange bottles popped. The Football Gods had made it right.

Barkeep....shots all around! Make my shot that Voss water though.