yesterday's news .:. jan 16

New Year! New Post! Hopefully not the only one of 2014!

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If you felt a large exhale breezing across the Toronto skyline, it may have came from Mayor Rob Ford's office at City Hall. Alas, another large politician who is making apology after apology for Bobby Moynihan to portray on a weekly basis has entered the squared circle. Chris Christie, current New Jersey governor and potential presidential candidate, (well.. not now) may have had someone on his staff shut down two of three lanes providing access to the George Washington Bridge from September 9-13 causing chaos for commuters and emergency vehicles alike. Pretty annoying for everyone involved but even more so for the poor guy who died because the ambulance couldn't get to him. Why would he do this you ask? Political revenge obviously. The target: a small town democratic Mayor, a Mr. Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee who hadn't supported him in the 2013 New Jersey Gubernatorial (Governors') Election. Emails from Christie staffers even referred to Sokolich in a derogatory manner knowing the highway closure would affect him. On company emails boys? Come on. I expect a bit more from politicians sleazy wise. I didn't think he'd completely deny and blame then fire staffers, though he does look like the type of bloke who would encase someone in cement and dispatch them to the bottom of the lake. And hot on the heels of the "highway gate" (did I just coin that?) CNN learned that a federal inquiry on the advance made by Christie from Hurricane Sandy relief funds to fun his campaign for the 2013 Gubernatorial Election has begun. Kind of a douche movie.  I don't enjoy reality TV, never have… but if these two guys hooked up on some kind of Canada vs USA fat mayor show, I'd tune into the pilot (ahem… Fox). Speaking of hilarious crack smoking mayors; it's been almost 24 years (January 18, 1990) since Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington DC was busted smoking crack in a sting operation orchestrated by the FBI and his ex-girlfriend Hazel Diane 'Rasheeda' Moore. During the videotaped arrest Barry noted that the 'bitch set me up,' and makes for outstanding YouTube watching.

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Aloha from Hawaii! I'm not actually in Hawaii. I wish..But it's been 41 years since the broadcast of the 'Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii' TV special. Elvis performed two benefit concerts for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund and recorded them both, the second of which was broadcasted via satellite to millions of viewers live become the first global concert satellite broadcast. The first show was recorded and ready to air in case the satellite technology still in its infancy failed but the show aired without interruption as scheduled on January 14, 1973. Ironically, the special didn't air in the United States until April 4, 1973 because it aired the same day as Super Bowl (Miami beat Washington if you're keep score) leaving Americans anticipating the first 'live broadcast' concert 10 weeks later. Good call! Oh, as for the actual show, here's a recap: Elvis wore an elaborate outfit with an eagle on it, he did play "Hound Dog," and ran through some other rock & roll standards like 'Johnny B Goode' and 'Long Tall Sally. Not long after the show, Elvis' divorce was finalized (he and Priscilla had separated in February 1972) and his health went downhill faster than a bottle of quaaludes at, well, Elvis' house. 

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I haven't been to a music festival in a long time. Well, Riot Fest two years ago, but I was only there for a couple hours. But Lollapalooza, Warped Tour, Hellfest were all insanely fun and it was some of the most eye opening times I've ever had as an impressionable youth (is it still pronounced 'yout'?). But every time I'd have a conversation with some random person they were always true, real, fairly good folks. When I picture a music festival now I picture three days of overcrowded camping areas, overflowing portable lavatories (not to mention the rivers of piss everywhere from people who have stopped using them), and endless conversations that go like this:

Maybe I'm just getting old and curmudgeon. Maybe it's funny and horrifying all at once. Maybe I'm becoming Grandpa Simpson.

Homer: Come on Dad, you are just not with.

Grandpa Simpson: I used to be with it, until the changed what it was. Now what I am with isn't it and what is it seems scary to me. And the same thing is going to happen to you, mark my words!

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Brian Griffin is/was kind of dead. That is what we know of the death of pretend dogs. Basically, they just stopped animating the drawing of a dog for an episode or two. It caused quite the uproar when the animated canine was killed after being hit by a car in November. But knowing full well they can't kill of the best character on the show, Stewie went back in time in the Christmas episode to prevent his death and the absurd 'normalcy' of the show had been restored. Did they kill off that weird dog that was voiced by Tony Sirico? Anyways, always a genius with a master plan, creator and the voice of Brian, Seth McFarlane revealed why he did this (obvs on the Twitters): "You didn't really think we'd kill off Brian, did you? Jesus, we'd have to be f***ing high. And thus endeth our warm, fuzzy holiday lesson: Never take those you love for granted, for they can be gone in a flash." Well, there you go! Seth proves conclusively that he isn't just a dick and fart joke factory, but is giving you something to think about. The talking bear movie guy showing us what's up. 

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Is Andy Kaufman alive or dead? Weird dude, never the hugest fan in that he never made me laugh out loud (lol as the kids say) but what he did was always interesting, whether he's lip synching along to a "Pop Goes the Weasel" 45 on SNL in the 70's to almost getting clocked out by Michael Richards on "Fridays" for not reading his lines… like at all. He thought it would 'be funny.' Kaufman was also obsessed with the idea of faking his own death, constantly talked friend and comedian Bob Zmuda's ear off about his brilliant scheme. Fake your own death, pop out twenty years later and yell 'Surprise!' would be the ultimate prank. He 'died' May 16, 1984 putting the twenty year mark (get out your calculators) at 2004. The years roll by, uneventfully on the Kaufman front although in 2013 a one Stephen Maddox of Greenwood, Indiana claimed to be Kaufman's son, and that his step father and Andy had switched places so he could be relieved of his mid-level fame. There was another incident in November 2013 at the 9th Annual Andy Kaufman Awards where a woman who claimed to be Andy's daughter went on stage and said her father wanted 'to live a quiet life and raise a family.' As it turns out, Andy's brother Michael Kaufman hired the woman to play Andy's daughter for the night. Too bad because I'd love Andy to just show up somewhere and do something weird. 

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The Toronto Maple Leafs have hit the winter version of baseball's 'June Swoon' after a horrific December and a not-so-great November. The new year started off auspiciously enough with a win at the Winter Classic against Detroit with Tyler Bozak clinching the victory in the shootout. Still hungover from the Ann Arbor air, the Leafs soldiered through a stretch of games where they were absolutely abysmal, the low point being a 6-1 drubbing at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh. The cracks really started to show from habits established early in the season that were masked by superb goaltending. You can't give up forty shots a night and expect to win in any league higher than Junior B. The sub-par play of late can't be attributed to the goalies. They have looked weak at times, a Bernier trapezoid miscue here, a Reimer softie in a tie game there, but goaltending is the least of our issues right now. Giving up forty shots is all well and good if they are from the outside but you can't give up these grade A chances to NHL players… Just hanging Reims and Bernie out to dry. Fortunately, the Leafs currently find themselves on a three game winning streak, seemingly righting the ship (the canoe) with shootout wins against the Devils on Sunday and the Sabres Wednesday, and a huge emotional win over the Bruins in Boston sandwiched in on Tuesday. The modest streak vaulted the Leafs from their season low position of eleventh to fifth seed in the tight albeit weak Eastern Conference setting up a showdown with their oldest rivals, the Montreal Canadians, for a Saturday night "Hockey Night In Canada" tilt. Montreal currently sits in fourth place in the conference, six points up on the Leafs.

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Team Canada. Roster has been announced. Seabrook should be on the team. All I'm gonna say. Oh, and make Toews captain. Here's the Canadian team:

The Swedish,  Finnish, Russian, Czech, and American teams are equally frightening. Check out the other rosters HERE.
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Songs.

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Game on 2014.

don't call it a comeback

Alright, alright, alright. Summer time is over and by proxy so is my sabbatical from doing the blog. Not that it was official, but I just had a busy summer.Between baseball games, patio beers, cottaging, amusement parks and capping it all off with five days in the desert (Vegas) it's been a hell of a, if not bumpy, ride. I did go to work there as well. But school is back in and since everyone has to learn I might as well help everyone regress with news stories that no one cares about. Anyways, I'm back, so hopefully you're as excited or at least as indifferent about that as I am.

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The city of Detroit has no cashola. The city filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy on July 18 with a hearing date set for October 23. It is the largest city in the United States to file for bankruptcy. The story of Detroit's decline has been no secret for years. Initially, the White flight sent scads of folk to the suburbs leaving a ridiculous amount of abandoned structures around the city which gave more power to the street gangs who overran the streets, then by proxy even more folk took off from Detroit. Detroit was recently described by the New York Times as "home to 700,000 people, as well as to tens of thousands of abandoned buildings, vacant lots and unlit streets." It also suffers from one of the highest crime rates in the United States. Then as competition grew in the auto industry, they had a monopoly at one point on automobiles built in the United States, the city tried to deindustrialize itself as much as it could with more car dealers taking their remaining production to other locations. The population had decreased to 701,000 in 2013 down from a high population in 1950 of 1,850,000. Pretty tragic stuff, just across the way from Windsor, Ontario is a virtual ghost town these days, some areas in the city centre are described as so abandoned they look like farmland. 

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Don't you hate it when you leave you keys at work and you have to trek all the way back to get them, or pull that embarrassing move when you ring your landlord at 3 am trying to get them to unlock you door for you? (That happened to me by the way).. Anyways, stand by, I am going somewhere with this. Frank Laviguer a 57 year old Oregonian bank robber forgot his keys at the bank he had just robbed, then tried to elude the cops by hiding behind a fountain where a four year old pointed him out to the cops who were in pursuit and promptly arrested him. Laviguer had robbed three banks and two motels in a three week crime spree must have had a nice hangover when he went into a Wells Fargo branch on September 8 when he screwed up, which led him to forgetting his means of escape. One website mentioned that maybe during Mr. Laviguer's criminal career he should have learned to hot wire a vehicle. Point taken. Study up all aspiring criminals. 

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Batfleeeeeck! Ben Affleck has been chosen to star as Batman along side Henry Cavill, who will be reprising his role as Superman from this summer's "Man Of Steel" in a new buddy cop flick. It not a buddy cop flick? Crap, well, the hash tag #batfleck went gangbusters upon the announcement, and I mean whatever. People hated the idea of Michael Keaton, a predominately comedic actor at the time of casting, as the Caped Crusader as well, and quite frankly he's still my favourite one. Christian Bale was bad-ass as Bruce Wayne no doubt, but holy crap was his voice grating when he donned the costume. That why he's a close second to Keaton. But for every decent Batman there is a brutal one. See Val Kilmer and George Clooney. And the crazy part is neither one of them were the worst part in their respective Batman flops. So much care is taken in every frame of this franchise these days, that I'm sure the production team, who ever the hell it is (I haven't googled it yet) know what they are doing and maybe we should just relax and let them do their thing. There plenty of room over on the Disney website to complain about the new Star Wars films and maybe we should put our focus on that for now. If Mickey Mouse shows up as an older Han Solo in episode VII, I'm gonna be so miffed.

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It's Elvira aka Cassandra Peterson's birthday. She was pretty awesome in her day. Totally just dated myself. As non Elvira roles she showed up in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure as a biker girl ("Why do you let me have him first?") and showed up as a showgirl in the Bond flick "Diamonds Are Forever," and showed up on the album cover of Tom Waits' 1976 gem "Small Change." She was part of the legendary improv troupe "The Groundlings" in 1979 (Groundlings alumni include Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Phil Hartman, Lisa Kudrow, Edie McClurg, Maya Rudolph, Laraine Newman and Paul Reubens) before her signature character Elvira made her debut in 1981. She hosted a late night show that aired B horror films, with comments from the hostess in the middle of the picture only to be called by "The Breather" who tells her… strange jokes and lame puns. She released a feature film in 1988 which she co-wrote which, well, wasn't without its charms. Definitely a dated 80's movie, but good campy fun nonetheless. Happy B-Day!

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Hockey is back! It's been just four short months since the Chicago Blackhawks won their second cup in four seasons after dispatching the previous two champions, the 2012 winning Los Angeles Kings in the Western Conference Final and the 2011  champion Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final. The Hawks eliminated the Bruins in six games and enter the 2013-14 season with much of their Cup winning team intact (unlike their 2010 team that lost at least 10 players very shortly after their win), and look every bit as dangerous as they did last year. The only major loss for the Hawks was that of Cup winning goal scorer Dave Bolland who took off to the Toronto Maple Leafs. (How's that for a segue).. 

The Leafs welcome the addition of Bolland as well as free agents David Clarkson and Mason Raymond (who looks like he belongs on the opening night roster) not to mention acquiring probable #1 goalie Jonathan Bernier via trade from the LA Kings. After the Leafs dropped a heartbreaker to the eventual East champion Bruins in game 7 last year, the Leafs hopefully learned from the experience and are ready to make some noise in the realigned east. Cautiously optimistic is all I can say at this point. I like our team, and I think theyvare a better team this year so lets just see how it plays out. But for reals, how nice is it to play Detroit again on a regular basis? AND added bonus with Detroit; we still get to boo and hate Daniel Alfredsson, longtime Senators captain who took off to Motown for a chance to win as his career winds down. And Detroit moving to the East makes them automatic contenders. The Bruins and Penguins, as always, will ice great teams, but be wary of the Red Wings. Puck drops on October 1 with three games; the Washington Capitals visit the champion Blackhawks, the Winnipeg Jets are in Edmonton to face the Dallas Eakins-Craig MacTavish led Oilers and the Leafs start off their season against the Canadiens in Montreal.

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Great time of year to be a sports fan. With the NHL and NFL seasons starting up that can only mean one thing; Baseball playoff races are heating up! Before I go on about the good teams lets talk about a bad one.. The 2013 World Series favourite Toronto Blue Jays. Before  the  season began GM Alex Anthopolous went out and got every player he could to make the Jays a contender overnight. Apart from the Marlins deal which netted them Mark Buerhle, Jose Reyes and Josh Johnson the Jays also picked up defending National League Cy Young winner RA Dickey to bolster their rotation. While Reyes and Buerhle came as advertised, Johnson has been abysmal compiling an 2-8 record with an ERA north of 6. Dickey started off rough and despite being among the league leaders in home runs allowed has been much more consistent of late, and looks much more like the pitcher the Jays counted on to the their ace. J.P. Arencebia has had a historically bad season from a defensive and offensive stand point and I'd be shocked if he was the Jays starting catcher next year. The Jays currently sit dead last in the American League East, 23 games back of first.

As for the teams with non-made up post-season aspirations, most of the divisions are locked down with about 10 games left for most teams; the Boston Red Sox lead the AL East by 9 games after having finished dead last last season, the defending American League champion Detroit Tigers have a 6 game lead in the AL Central over the surging Cleveland Indians and 8 games over the young KC Royals. There was a dog fight in the AL West for most of the season between the Oakland A's and Texas Rangers, but with the Rangers slumping hard the A's have built up a 6.5 game lead over Texas. Texas is still clinging to the second Wild Card spot while the Tampa Bay Rays are holding down the top one with the Indians, Orioles, Yankees and Royals breathing down both their necks. In the American League the World Series favourites would have to be the Detroit Tigers so long as last years Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera is 100% and the Boston Red Sox who have played unbelievable baseball lately with a balanced offence, outstanding rotation and a never say die attitude that has permeated the entire bearded clubhouse in Beantown. Look for the Sox to do some damage in the American League playoffs.

The National League East and West are all over but the crime. The Atlanta Braves have a 10 game lead over the Washington Nationals and could be the first team in the majors to clinch a playoff spot if they can sweep a double header in Washington today. In the West, the Los Angeles Dodgers righted the train wreck that was the start to their 2013 season to go on an unbelievable tear, building a 9.5 game lead over the Diamondbacks after being 10 games back as late as June. Although they have cooled down recently (3-7 in last 10 games while losing 4 in a row) they are going to be big trouble for whoever faces them in the post season, especially now that perennial All Star Matt Kemp is off the disabled list.  The National League Central is where things get really interesting. Total dog fight between three teams, two of which, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals are tied atop the division as of this morning.  It's not so much a battle for the playoffs but a battle for home field since the Cincinnati Reds hold the second Wild Card spot and the non-divisional winner will get the top Wild Card spot, either way, anyone of these three teams could get scorching and can do some damage in the playoffs so don't count any of the three out.  The favourites in the National League is the Los Angeles Dodgers would have to be the front runners but don't count out any of the team in the National League since every team in the running has great pitching and offence. 

Not gonna lie, would love to see a Dodgers-Red Sox World Series. When the Red Sox were spiralling out of control last season, drinking in the clubhouse and putting up with Bobby Valentine, they sent Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, Nick Punto and Adrian Gonzalez to LA in a blockbuster trade. Gonzalez has been the Dodgers most consistent hitter all season and Punto has been the surprise of the trade. A utility man at best in Boston, Punto has appeared in over 100 games for the Dodgers, playing stellar defence for the team and hitting at a .260 clip. The Red Sox, instead of banking on expensive free agents went for character guys and career winners such as Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino and Johnny Gomes, not mention picking up former Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy from the White Sox at the trade deadline, filling out a team that could be called 'the Idiots II', in reference to the 2004 World Series team (the 2013 edition resembles the 2004 team on the field and in total beard/hair length). 

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Norma Jean uses up a lot of milk in a video from a track off their new album "Wrongdoers"

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