Black-Eyed Pease

Hockey Trade Deadline Wild Speculations

2009-03-04T18:54:00.001-08:00

My beloved Pens stood (mostly) pat at the deadline, only acquiring old man Bill Guerin from the Isles for a conditional draft pick and claiming energy winger Craig Adams off waivers from Chicago, plus a swap of AHL D-men.

Along with the acquisition of Chris Kunitz and a top prospect for struggling D-man Ryan Whitney, the Pens now have a bit more grit and skill up front. I think they can roll out 4 lines and wear teams down, if their D can hold up. Brooks Orpik is still the only D-man they have who is physical AND can skate, so we'll see. I foresee the lines something like this:

Kunitz Crosby Guerin
Fedotenko Malkin Sykora
Cooke Staal Kennedy
Dupuis Talbot Adams/Godard

Gonchar Orpik
Eaton Letang
Gill Scuderi

If I had my druthers I would do the following:

Fedotenko Crosby Guerin
Adams Malkin Sykora
Kunitz Staal Kennedy
Dupuis Talbot Cooke

I would keep Kunitz with Staal and Kennedy because they have great chemistry right now, as does the Dupuis line. Malkin and Sykora are great together, so it doesn't matter who plays on their wing (even enforcer Godard!), while Fedo has some chemistry with Crosby and Guerin and Crosby are friends. With this lineup, the Pens WILL wear teams down for sure.

Gonchar Scuderi
Orpik Letang
Gill Eaton
(Wozniewski Goligoski in reserve, though I would consider having them being the 3rd pairing. Gogo has proven he can play at the NHL level, and Woz, the new AHL guy acquired today, was a plus player for a bad Toronto team last year in nearly 50 games. He's big and probably more mobile than Gill...who isn't? and Blysma wants a more uptempo system.)

The Pens did make a few moves in the past week that made many people think something big was brewing. It is typical for teams to hold out players from practice or games who are about to be traded. When they traded Ryan Whitney, the Pens scratched him from the lineup and said that he had returned home to Boston for a family issue. Apparently his mother had undergone surgery, but it was an odd coincidence when the team he was traded to was in Boston at the time of the trade.

The Pens then waived two players, such that they were below the roster limit, as if they anticipated adding multiple players.

So the Pens made room for multiple players, and they had a player out with an injury that was day-to-day...who was it?

Yep.

Superstar Sidney Crosby! Were they gonna trade him?

I entertained that notion for a second...but the fun thing about the deadline is that you can play around with silly notions like this. So...let's play!

Who would want him? Let's say Chicago, they need a center to complement Toews.

C Sidney Crosby
D Hal Gill

for a HUGE return:

RW Patrick Kane
RW Jack Skille
D Brent Seabrook
D James Wisniewski
1st Round Pick.

The Pens lineup becomes:

Skille Malkin Sykora
Kunitz Staal Kane
Dupuis Talbot Cooke
Adams Kennedy Guerin

Gonchar Seabrook
Orpik Letang
Scuderi Wisniewski

The Pens get Kane and a decent Power Forward prospect in Skille, plus a top pairing D-man (Seabrook) and a good puck moving young D with a mean streak

OR, I imagine the only reason Chicago wants to make that trade is to play Kane and Crosby together...so:

RW Sharp
RW Brouwer
D Brent Seabrook
D James Wisniewski
1st round pick

Replace Kane with Sharp and Skille with Brouwer

Brouwer Malkin Sykora
Kunitz Staal Sharp
Dupuis Talbot Cooke
Adams Kennedy Guerin

Gonchar Seabrook
Orpik Letang
Scuderi Wisniewski

Here the Pens get a Top 6 winger with 36 goals last year and 23 this year, plus a more legitimate Power Forward prospect instead of Kane and Skille. Maybe instead of Wisniewski they could pry away Barker (a restricted FA, however) or their touted Swedish D-man prospect Hjalmarsson.

How would the Blackhawks look?

Brouwer Crosby Havlat
Versteeg Toews Sharp
Ladd Bolland Byfuglien
Eager Fraser Burish

Campbell Walker
Barker Keith
Johnson Gill

OR

Skille Crosby Kane
Versteeg Toews Havlat
Ladd Bolland Byfuglien
Eager Fraser Burish

Campbell Walker
Barker Keith
Johnson Gill
(in reserve: Hjalmarsson/Henddry)

I do feel like the Pens should have traded Malkin over the offseason once they lost Hossa and Malone. Championship teams win with scoring balance and skill at every position, and it was clear even then, with the losses of Ruutu, Laraque, and Hall, the Pens lost out on a lot of grit that new FAs Fedotenko and Satan are not known for bringing, and it was a legit question whether those two would equal the scoring of the guys they replaced.

I would have traded Malkin to Chicago for RW Sharp/D Seabrook/LW Rene Bourque (who was signed away to Calgary as an RFA, but for peanuts, and had a breakout season until he got hurt)

Bourque Crosby Sharp
Fedotenko Staal Sykora
Dupuis Talbot Cooke
Kennedy Thomas Goddard

Gonchar Seabrook
Whitney Scuderi
Orpik Letang

While Whitney and Gonchar are out injured:
Goligoski Seabrook
Orpik Letang
Gill Scuderi
(Eaton Boucher in reserve)

And now, the ten best Penguins of all time:

I Am The Rectifier

2009-02-27T06:16:00.001-08:00

“Yeah, so I’m married, got a hot wife, a kid. I live in New York City. Life is nice. It’s a little boring, to be honest. But there’s one thing that makes my blood boil…Car Alarms. They are so LOUD! And they make me so mad.

How mad you ask?

Ten times madder than Michael Moore ever got. Mad enough to develop an alter ego and run the streets at night busting up cars whose alarms go off.

Funny thing, though, you become a folk hero, even if your name is stupid, I tell you what. You get lots of trim. Damn, do you ever.

Since I started running around the city, I got this hot European girlfriend, and she likes to bring home her hot European friends and we have threesomes. Then, afterwards, they talk about our beautiful pussies while I get high. And my wife, well, she’s cool with it. She understands the nature of my obsession, and while she can’t really live with me right now, every time we meet up, she wants to jump my bones!

I tell you, this whole Rectifier deal has been the best thing that ever happened to me. Five weeks ago, I was a tall, awkward, gawky nobody, and today, the whole city loves me, and I get laid like, I don’t know, all the time!"

This is what you get when you take Tim Robbins' smug prick from High Fidelity and base a whole movie around him.

From the Department of Yes, Apparently People DO Get Paid to Write This Shit:

You only come when we attack cars, not when cars attack us!

You can’t stand the noise but don’t want to move where it’s quiet!

You love the noise, you hate it, but you love hating it!

What to Think About Whilst Making Art

2009-02-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money," Samuel Johnson used to say.

A non-annoying Slate article reviewing new biographies of the ugliest, unhappiest, most prodigious writer this world has ever known.

Oh, wait, my bad, it does get a little annoying:

Reading about his life makes clear that Johnson's hard-won independence was something different from the much-celebrated freedom offered by the Internet, which allows any literate person a platform in the form of a Web site or blog. The democracy of the new medium is a good thing, of course, but like our democratic society itself, the Internet tends to encourage amateurism and atomization. It is hard to see how a writer like Johnson could arise in a future when writing is something done casually, in brief blog bursts in one's spare time. And it may not be long before the kind of professional confidence and expertise that Johnson cultivated over a lifetime of paid work will appear as regrettably obsolete as books and newspapers themselves.

This notion of “independence” means what, actually?

Until he was granted a modest royal pension, at the age of 53, he was never financially secure.

Oh, so independence means “being paid by the Queen.” I’m guessing you won’t find too many attacks on the monarchy in his oeuvre. But what were the economic conditions that enabled him to write so much?

Only one thing allowed Johnson's "struggle" to end in a victory. That was London's thriving print culture, which allowed a man like Johnson—a man without connections, good looks, or money—to make it as a writer. Being a professional writer allowed, and compelled, him to turn his indolence into industry: to read and learn about every subject imaginable, so that he could write about them; to try his hand at any genre that would sell; to find the demand in the market (for a dictionary or a biography or a periodical) and meet it.

Hmmm… “find the demand in the market.” Sounds like some version of capitalism, a key element of our democratic society, which seems to be the EXACT conditions under which we are now with the Internet.

So if any of you are ugly or unhappy enough, looks like the job of the “next Samuel Johnson” is open!

Now Look What They Gone and Did

2009-02-26T06:13:00.000-08:00

Took the world’s most perfect Action B-Movie, Crank, and made a sequel…

What are the criteria for a perfect Action B Movie?

Ludicrous premise: Man injected with deadly poison must keep adrenaline jacked to stay alive.

Optimal running length: 88 minutes

Crazy stunts/hijinks that keep you in your disbelief suspension coma: Having sex in a public place / standing on a motorcycle while the theme song from Midnight Cowboy plays / car chases / etc.

(see Transporter 2 for crazy stunts/hijinks that shatter your willingness to accept a movie on its own terms – like flicking a bomb off the bottom of your car by nicking the top of a bridge while the car jumps over it. Until the sequels, Transporter was up there in the Perfect Action B Movie sweepstakes. Especially with the ludicrously named villain: Wall Street (also the villain in Torque, another enjoyable B movie)

A willingness to kill off the main character that still doesn’t spoil your desire to still see the movie: But I guess with this sequel that shit flies out the window.

Oh yeah, and the most perfect criteria: NO FRICKIN' SEQUELS!!!

Plus, Crank features a cameo from It’s Always Sunny’s Dennis!

(Hat Tip: The Onion)

Jesse James and That Dude from American Chopper Would Like to Have a Word with Slate

2009-02-24T13:26:00.000-08:00

Yet another puzzling entry in the Perpetual Counter Intuitive – Off that is Slate:

Ah, the men's magazine reader. He's standing in line at Barnes & Noble with Men's Journal, Maxim, Esquire, and GQ stacked against his chest. Tonight, he's learning how to order a single-malt scotch in a way that sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Maybe reading up on chiseling those abs or seeing who's a hot pick to draft for his fantasy football league, capping it all by studying a graph detailing erogenous zones so he can "Pleasure Her Until She Can Stand It No More." Look out, ladies: It's that hail fellow who is oft-awkwardly met—the carbon-copy representative of American machismo in an age of nonstop chest-thumping and self-infatuation.

Really? That’s American Machismo? Isn’t that metrosexual?
Mr. Fleming goes on to state his thesis:

But you're also likely to stumble upon Top Gear, which the network airs constantly, both in new episodes and repeats. In principle, it's a car show, hosted by three middle-aged guys—Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond—who review the latest automobiles, test them out, and give you loads of details about vehicles you will never be able to afford. But Top Gear also offers a whole new slant on machismo, at least as we know it in the States.

So what does this more authentic British machismo entail?

Clarkson, May, and Hammond act as emcees, with a car or two on the soundstage. Most of the action takes place in various film clips—which document the trio's races and assorted madcap schemes. A race between a $1.4 million Bugatti Veyron,* for example, over a mile of track, and a Royal Air Force jet going a mile into the air and then exploding downward to overtake its four-wheel challenger. Or a soccer match with a giant balloon ball getting bashed about by cheap city cars to test their handling abilities.

Okay. Cars and racing and bashing things. Got it. But what else?

These pyrotechnics provide the show's obvious hook, but the real appeal is seeing how these guys tear into each other. Good naturedly. With, dare I say it, love. Ruthless love, but love, still. It's not scripted. Way too much overlapping dialogue for that, and I can't really imagine that this trio would sit down, Mercury Theatre-style, for endless rehearsals. It's all ad-libbed and occasionally surreal.

Unscripted, good-natured, ruthless mockery. How nouveau!
So you can see how different British machismo is from American machismo. Because in America, we would play football with our cars, not soccer.
But what REALLY is the difference, Mr. Fleming…come on, out with it!

The thing about British machismo, as you see it in Top Gear, is how understated it is. And, in being understated, it becomes like that person who doesn't talk with their hands all flailing about, but rather the one who knows exactly what five words to put into a given conversation and, boom, just nails them, so that everyone else stops what they're doing and starts to think. Or laugh. Loudly.

Oh, so real machismo = pithy + hands at sides. I’m so glad I read this article.
Oh, and by the way, the British have NEVER been accused of being understated before, so a big Plus One to you, Mr. Fleming.

You would think in an article about a TV show featuring British men and cars, the author would have picked as a point of comparison, I don’t know, a TV show about American men and cars, maybe—rather than someone he made up while waiting in line at the bookstore.

P.S. I watched Top Gear once and it seemed liked dumb fun.

Most. Pretentious. Movie. EVER.

2009-02-19T15:24:00.000-08:00

For those of you who, in a chance meeting with a celebrity, would like to embarrass them by yelling out, “I loved you in INSERT SHITTY MOVIE!”, you now have some potent ammunition. With a bad cold and not being able to sleep at night, I caught ¾ of the movie, “Investigating Sex,” which is by far the most awful (but enjoyably so) and pretentious movie I’ve seen, like, ever.

And, even better, it features a buttload of well-known/respected actors:

Dermot Mulroney
Julie Delpy
Neve Campbell
Robin Tunney
Nick Nolte
Terrence Howard
Alan Cumming
Jeremy Davies

Investigating Sex takes place at the estate of the most philistine art collector ever, played by Nolte, right around the time of the 1929 stock market crash.

Mulroney is conducting a silly study exploring male sexuality, so he collects some friends to hash over sexual banalities while hot stenographers Campbell and Tunney take notes.

Mulroney also has a strange obsession with the Succubus, a mythical she-demon who visits him at night and totally prevents him from hooking it with the virginal Campbell.

Jeremy Davies stops by to film things and claim that he and his partners come simultaneously 75% of the time.

Alan Cumming mopes around and paints badly, which also involves using his body as the palette. He’s also not very good at concealing his homosexuality. (duh!)

Terrence Howard drops by to leer at the ladies, and if his dialogue only consisted of saying “How Deeeelightful” his character would make more sense.

The movie culminates with an orgy of sorts, as Cumming’s wife learns that vaginal intercourse is more fun than the sodomy she’s only ever known, while Nolte and wife Tuesday Weld paw at each other like old hands. And because earlier, the movie featured a dissolving glimpse of Mulroney’s White Shadow, we are treated to bare breasts, and nice ones too.

Despite the title, not much sex gets investigated. Apparently sex and love are different, sort of, and sometimes we are overtaken by passion. Also, sometimes, we prefer a she-demon to pleasure us at night than a Neve Campbell that totally wants to do us.

Other highlights:

Terrence Howard profusely apologizing to Campbell for masturbating profusely to her image. Of course, she has no idea what he's talking about, but we the audience do, unfortunately.

Nick Nolte talking in great detail about bestiality…but is it a joke? Only the close watcher of the move will know!

Smoldering glances by the thousands, nay, tens of thousands!

Julie Delpy speaking this memorable line: “You mean he put his cock in a donkey’s pussy?” Trust me, said with a French accent, it’s hot!

This Week in St. Mary's Today...Online Edition!!

2009-02-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

Wonders of wonders! God DOES provide…St. Mary’s Today, the Southern Maryland weekly, is online! The site’s layout is so jumbled and haphazard the Internet Fire Marshal should shut it down immediately.

Allow me then to provide you with a brief guide to the top stories:

What This Article Really Needs Is a Helpful Graphic

In Which Speed Strikes Again!

No, the other Speed, the one Rednecks in Maryland have a need for!!

Why are you still confused? He couldn’t control the speed, obviously! It’s like it controlled him.

Man, this word “speed” keeps tripping you up!

It’s like he was addicted to the feeling Speed gave him…Oh, okay, I see the confusion now.

What this article needs is some lyrics from an Arthur Brown song. Hmmm…which one should it be? Fire? Too obvious? But it's not our fault that his only well-known song is appropriate to this situation, right?

The Battle of Wanat

2009-02-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

In July of 2008, American paratroopers were building a small base outside the Afghan town of Wanat. They were attacked at dawn and 9 soldiers died. Tom Ricks, the author of Fiasco, has a six-part blog post about what went wrong:

At 4:20 a.m., just before sunrise, volleys of rocket-propelled grenades began to hit the base. There were approximately 200 attackers, according to the Army investigation. They began by concentrating on the American's heavy weapons -- a 120 millimeter mortar, a TOW missile system, and a .50 caliber machine gun. It felt like "about a thousand RPGs at once," Spec. Tyler Hanson later told an Army interviewer. With the first two heavy weapons knocked out, the Taliban moved in to fight just feet away from the Americans, making it difficult to call in air strikes against them. Enemy fighters threw rocks into their Americans' fighting holes, apparently hoping they soldiers would mistake them for grenades and jump out, exposing themselves to fire. Enemy fire was coming from every direction. "The whole time we were thinking we were going to die," said Spec. Chris McKaig.

...It is an interesting case to study especially because of the discrepancy between what is known about the incident and what has been learned from it. In other words, the facts gathered by Col. Mark Johnstone in the Army investigation are compelling, but the conclusions drawn from those facts are not. Rather, the Army appears determined to shy away from the lessons indicated by those facts. Here is what the Army concluded -- basically that we did OK, we should have had a Predator overhead, and that we shouldn't have trusted those lousy Afghans. And then let's talk about how brave our soldiers were.

Read the whole thing. Small fiascoes like this seem to happen alot to the U.S. Army. Not a Good Day to Die, the story of Operation Anaconda, reads like a manual of how not to conduct a military operation:

1) Seize the low ground
2) Don't bring artillery
3) Ignore the tactical intelligence provided by Special Forces soldiers positioned on the very highest ground, above the al Qaeda forces
4) Use a patchwork force composed of 3 different units and 3 different commanders
4) Land a reconaissance patrol right on top of a known enemy position

So while American paratroopers are pinned down in the valley, Delta Force and SEAL teams can see exactly where the fire is coming from, and can call in air strikes to destroy the enemy positions--except for the fact that they have to wait in line behind the pinned down soldiers, whose calls for fire take priority; unfortunately, they are only guessing where the enemy is located.

The crazy thing about Operation Anaconda was that NO U.S. soldier died--UNTIL a general in Florida ordered a helicopter to drop a SEAL team onto a mountain peak known to be occupied by al Qaeda forces.

Huh. I Didn't Know That Was Funny Now

2009-02-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

Last night on The Daily Show, correspondent John Oliver did a piece on Obama's father's birthplace, Kenya and interviewed the ambassador. Oliver, who is British, then began offering to "take Kenya back" under the mantle of British rule causing the ambassador, after overcoming his incredulousness, to become amiably angry, something I didn't think possible.

Certain comedians can get away with saying racist-type things, as long as they portray themselves as obvious buffoons. Borat can do this, and the French James Bond spoof OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies (hilarious, btw) is a feature-length version of this joke.

John Oliver did not do this. His personae's haughty British stereotype was put to ill use haranging the Kenyan ambassador about the awesome things that the British colonial occupation left beind, like railroads.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being too sensitive...judge for yourself.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Oliver's Travels - Kenya

Daily Show Full Episodes
Funny Political Videos

Important Things With Demetri Martin
More Funny Videos

SixBurgh!!!!

2009-02-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

Growing up 40 miles west of Pittsburgh, in Steubenville, Ohio, we had our share of yinzes and yunzes, and the peculiar ability to mispronounce the city "Picksburgh" (and "pasghetti" for some reason), which inadvertantly, but accurately, reflected the poor quarterback play from the mid-80s on. I'm glad now that a generation of Eastern Ohians and Western Pensylvanians will be mispronouncing it "SixBurgh" from now on!

Game Thoughts:

Throughout the season the Steelers O has struggled and the D has played well except for isolated series when they play soft coverage and generate zero pass rush and give up points.

The Steelers O started out strong, really moving the ball, running well-designed roll-outs, hitch passes (exploiting the soft coverage of the AZ corners) and tight end routes. But then the Steelers couldn't capitalize in the red zone. Just like they refused to run the fade route to Plaxico when he was here, the Steelers in 2008 just refuse to run a play action pass to the tight end on first or second down in a goal to go situation. Even though this play was particularly effective in 2007.

The Steeler O stagnated in the second quarter (as per usual), and the Cards O started to show signs of life. But, driving down to the 1 yard line, Kurt Warner got picked off and then the BEST PLAY EVER TO HAPPEN IN THE SUPER BOWL!!! happened. Instead of 14-10 or even 10-10 Cards, it was 17-7 Steelers at the half.

The Steelers then drove down in the third quarter thanks to some iffy/ticky tack Cards penatlies and stalled in the red zone (again!!!), and then got a gift when Cards safety Adrian Wilson ran over the holder, a blatant foul. With 3 more cracks at the endzone from 3 yards out, the Steelers gained, uh, like 2 maybe. They settled for another field goal.

Then the wheels came off. The Cards solved the Steelers D, partly because the Steelers reverted to form and played soft coverage and refused to blitz or otherwise confuse Kurt Warner. 20-14 Cards. The Steelers offense again couldn't move the ball, the Cards got it back, the Steelers stopped them, but the Cards punt pinned the Steelers back at the 1 yard line.

Then the roof fell in. The Steelers held in the end zone, which is a safety by rule, and in the Cards ensuing possession, the Steelers lined up with the safeties 20 yards deep and 30 FRICKIN' yards wide...basically the middle of the field was an 8 lane autobahn that Larry Fitzgerald strolled down on a basic slant play to take the lead.

The Steelers won, of course, on the strength of Big Ben's comeback ability and Santonio's big plays. However, there are some lessons to be learned:

Get rid of Offensive Coordinator Bruce Arians. Sure, they won a Super Bowl, but they struggled on offense all year, and their inability to score from inside the 10 yard line--a seasonlong problem--made the Super Bowl closer than it should have been. The offensive line can't handle even the most simple of defensive stunts, stuff that is taught in high school, and they can't run the ball when they have to. There are offensive line problems with personnel, of course, but it's the coaches who refused to play Max Starks until they had to, despite him being transitioned tagged for $7 million a year...it's the coaches who refuse to move right tackle Willie Colon to his natural guard position. They can't call a good game and they can't put the best personnel in the best positions. Unfortunately, a Super Bowl ring is a big resume enhancer, and the Steelers will be loathe to fire him, even though they should.

Get some GD offensive linemen!!! See post above. In particular an offensive guard and right tackle. Resign Max Starks.

Re-sign Cornerback Bryant McFadden. Despite playing well during the Steelers Super Bowl run in 2005, since then the Steelers let him rot on the bench until this year; now he has proven himself and can get some big money on the open market. The Steelers need to offer him a contract within 10% of other teams' offers.

When Keeping It Rhetorical Goes Wrong

2009-02-03T14:38:00.000-08:00

Unlike what seems like most people, I hated In Bruges, in part because Colin Farrell plays a retard that is mystifyingly loved by other characters (and thus we the audience are forced to find his idiocy endearing) and the movie has more tone shifts than a bi-polar manic depressive—but mostly because the movie indulges in Cockney accented dialogue, which goes like this IN EVERY FRICKIN’ MOVIE!!!!:

What did you say?

I said I don’t know.

What did you say? I didn’t quite hear you there.

I said, I don’t know.

You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know?

I’m telling you I don’t…

You don’t know? You don’t know? I can’t believe I’m fucking hearing this You don’t know. What do you mean you don’t know?

I said I…

I heard what you said. I heard it loud and clear. But I don’t understand those words. What do you mean, you don’t know?

I am just trying to…

All fuck off then. Of course you know. You know. You know.

I don’t know.

You don’t know??? What do you mean you don’t know?

Repeat for 10 minutes. And to think this movie got nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

In any case, apparently that’s how Limey’s speak for real, if Christian Bale’s blowup is to be considered.

I love how he asks rhetorical questions, then gets angry when they aren’t answered. Great stuff. The transcript doesn’t quite capture the pauses in between his outbursts…after a while you get the sense even he is getting tired of what he’s saying.

In Which A Slate Writer Counter-Intuits the National Mood

2009-02-03T14:37:00.000-08:00

According to Stephen Metcalf of Slate, Bruce Springsteen misread the national mood by playing crowd favorites during the Super Bowl halftime and not going spare and dismal. And by "national mood" of course Stephen Metcalf really means "Stephen Metcalf's mood":

Nothing will ever compete for sheer tone-deafness with Paul McCartney playing a zealous Super Bowl rendition of "Live and Let Die" at the height of the Iraq war. But Springsteen would have put America on its ass—its mind shortly to follow—had he strolled out with a Martin and played "The Wrestler." (And how about a nice "This one's for Danny," aka Danny Federici, the recently deceased keyboardist who was with Bruce for more than 40 years?) The national mood is sober bordering on a galloping panic. Lively as he was, I wouldn't say the Boss did much to either banish or capture it.

Yo, Steve, didn't you know that since January 20, we are in a time of hope and change! Hope and Change!!! But Steve is just another person reaching for his own personall Glory Days, and you know the jig is up when he writes:

Pardon me if I don't hear a note of true reciprocity in these words. Springsteen concerts, when I first attended, were Atlantic Coast joy fests for a small community of like-minded fans. To discover that many other people share a taste for something oddball is a source of true shelter from the agglomerating powers of the mass. A Postmodernist would scoff and say nothing has changed, that Springsteen was always only merchandise. True, but in every possible way, Springsteen holds himself out as a force against such Postmodernist sophistication—on behalf of meaning, sincerity, and authenticity!

By the way, Steve, ol' Bruce was never an "oddball"...he played straightforward American rock n' roll from Born to Run on...his music was intended to be heard and enjoyed (and was) by millions of Americans, not a niche audience of hipsters or whatever they called themselves 30+ years ago. So suck it.

If only The Boss had shown up at Stephen Metcalf's door for an intimate reprisal of the Nebraska and Ghost of Tom Joad albums during the halftime, I think all would have been forgiven.

Why Not More Reverse Cover 2?

2009-02-03T14:36:00.001-08:00

During Super Bowl XLIII, John Madden correctly noted that the Steelers were running a “reverse” Cover 2 defense. The Cover 2 defense has the cornerback funnel the wide receiver to the safety, lined up off the line of scrimmage. The cornerback tries to (legally) slow up the WR when the ball is snapped, and tries to make sure he doesn’t get outside or inside, whichever way the defense wants him to go.

In the Super Bowl, the Steelers switched the safety and the corner. Strong Safety Troy Polamalu lined up over the wide receiver and bumped him, then released him to the cornerback to cover him deep.

Safeties tend to be bigger and slower than cornerbacks. Many defenses are designed to feature run-stopping safeties, the proverbial “8th man” in the box. As a result, safeties are not as good in coverage, yet are expected to be the last line of defense against the other team’s speediest players.

Thus, it makes sense to put them near the line of scrimmage to provide a physical presence against both wide receivers and also in run support. By keeping corners 10 yards off the line of scrimmage, you enable them to take advantage of their smaller, quicker frames. The Indianapolis Colts, the leading Cover 2 team in the NFL, does this sometimes.

The scheme makes so much sense I wonder why they don’t do it more. I’m guessing because when running other coverage schemes the safeties and corners would have to know too many different positions and coverage responsibilities.

Locker Room Pet Peeves

2009-01-28T11:18:00.001-08:00

For some young men, the locker rooms of yore were joyous places, where you could roughhouse, horseplay, and flaunt your accelerated maturation. The only danger was the occasional testicle-splitting wet towel snap.

In my high school football locker room, there was the famous game, "Soap Eyes", in which you had to jealously guard your place under the limited number of shower heads or a teammate would barge in yelling as if he had soap in his eyes and push you out. Then there was the game "Fake Prison Rape" in which some teammates would mock rape you...good times, good times. (I'll have you know I recorded a successful Soap Eyes block and also managed to elude my fake-prison rapers with a nimbleness that belied by status as a non-skill position player.)

But those days are gone, alas. Now all of us have gym memberships, and we change in fancy health club locker rooms with carpeting and enclosed showers and stalls with doors on them. Because men of all social standings and fitness levels use these facilities, you would think that a basic code of etiquette had been nailed down. Unfortunately, not. Most men do keep their exposure to a minimum, though you have to account for old farts, who grew up in a different time with different rules, and the strange impulses that propel some men to venture naked into jacuzzis or splay themselves out on the upper benches of saunas wearing nothing but their birthday suits.

But there is one issue that REALLY bugs me: PUTTING LOCKS ON LOCKERS

There are two primary roles of the lock. One, it preserves your valuables while you work out. And two: IT LETS ME KNOW WHERE THE FUCK YOU PUT YOUR STUFF!!

When I enter a locker room, the first thing I look for is an uninterrupted block of 5or more lockers. I then choose the middle locker and place my stuff in it, and I lock it up. Then I work out and come back, retrieve my stuff, lock it again, and take a shower. Then I return to my locker and get dressed.

About this time is when some dude also gets out of the shower. He proceeds to walk over RIGHT NEXT to my locker, and open up an unlocked locker to retrieve his stuff. DUDE! WHAT THE FUCK?? If I had known that your stuff was there, I would have not set up camp here!! Now we have to awkwardly share 4 feet of bench space, taking care to stagger our turning times so that we neither see nor bump into anything by accident. Meanwhile, THERE'S ACRES OF LOCKERS OUT THERE THAT YOU COULD HAVE CHOSEN!!!!

Some people might say, why don't you check the other lockers, to make sure no one has surreptitiously taken one...GREAT IDEA, BECAUSE OPENING UP LOCKERS AND SNIFFING AROUND AROUSES NO SUSPICION WHATSOEVER!! Besides, the whole point of this is--Men: You should know better!

The worst is when some guys actually choose the locker right next to you and don't lock up, AFTER I HAVE ALREADY CLAIMED MY LOCKER!!! Again, for some reason, personal space must not have existed before before 1980, because it's always the old guys who do this.

This gets me so mad, it makes me want to mock prison rape someone!

DC RollerGirls Are Awesome!

2009-01-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

After helping put out an issue of Barrelhouse with Roller Derby-themed art, essays, poems, and fiction last summer, and having a great party with the Roller Derby girls to boot, I finally got around to seeing my first Roller Derby bout, between Scare Force One and the Cherry Blossom Bombshells this past Saturday…and…it…was…AWESOME!

The rules to Roller Derby confused me, but seeing it in action, it’s quite simple—in essence, one girl on each team (the jammer) must pass the pack to get points, and each team’s pack is trying to block the other team’s jammer from doing so.
The action was fast and furious, with my favorite (increasingly rare) hockey move, the hip check, being thunderously employed about every 10 seconds. In the end, Scare Force One was too fast. Scare Force One’s Lois Slain stood out in the jammer role, slipping through holes in the pack like a running back, while Dr. Skabs dominated the physical defensive play. Ringside Announcer Diamond Derby Dave was the right mix of informative and hilarious, and his co-announcer was funny when you could hear what he was saying.

Besides the bout itself, which included a co-ed exhibition match, the whole event stood out as a cool slice of Americana. It was almost strange to witness Roller Derby in metropolitan DC; the event seemed more appropriate for somewhere in flyover country, the weird, eccentric America that too often gets forgotten in these days of broad, unhelpful dichotomies: Red State vs. Blue State, urban vs. suburban, Wall Street vs. Main St., etc.
The halftime performances reinforced this fact—an all-women percussion band, Batala got me all pumped up like before a football game in high school, and also semi-pumped because, you know, they’re all women. The other performers were the Jim Moyers Circus Club, an impressive group of local kids doing acrobatics and juggling (some of the kids were under 10 years old!)

There were a few minor issues at the event, held at the DC Armory. There was quite a line to get in, mainly because the security checkpoint and the ticket area were scrunched into the foyer, and there’s no advantage to buying tix beforehand—you still have to wait in line to get into the venue, and the Will Call window doubles as a ticket window. And of course, there’s the absurd Ticketmaster surcharges, so you are better off just buying at the door. There was quite a line at the one beer vendor, for those wanting to imbibe, but you can’t have everything.

Pulling off an event like this takes a lot of time and effort, and kudos to the DC RollerGirls for putting on a great show! We have 4 more opportunities to see the DC Roller Girls in action!

• February 21st, 2009
• March 14th, 2009
• April 18th, 2009
• May 9th, 2009—League Championship

Your Wish Is Troy Polamalu's Command

2009-01-27T19:26:00.000-08:00

According to Sports Illustrated, Steelers Strong Safety Troy Polamalu is really into obediency:

"The leaders on our team -- James Farrior, Deshea Townsend, Hines Ward -- they understand what it takes to be successful, and what it takes is obediency," Polamalu said. "We're a very obedient team. You could tell us to tell anything, we'll do it, if our head coach tells us to do, whether it's good or not. That obediency allows us to be closer together."

Whatever you do, Troy, don't look into Kurt Warner's God-filled eyes. His captivating gaze will lead you astray.

Also kind of strange because Polamalu is known for freelancing.

Oh-Ver-Rate-Ed Clap Clap ClapClapClap

2009-01-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

I am losing my faith in Bill Simmons. It wasn't sportswriter-love at first sight, mainly because the first column of his I ever looked at was back in Ought Two, and he was gloating over the Pats recent win over my Steelers 30-14, when Brady threw it 25 times in a row--setting the template on how to shred the Steelers defense--and Kordell Stewart expertly ran the two-minute drill in the waning seconds to tack on a meaningless second TD.

His columns became a must-read for me since then, for all the obvious reasons. I bought his book, albeit after it got a hell of a lot cheaper. I never really got into the Deadspin-spawned backlash when Simmons moved into the "absurdly well compensated, hang with celebrities category", mainly because he was pretty much the first to do what he did, as far as I know.

But his last two columns are hopefully not a sign of things to come. When sportswriters have nothing more to say, they start devoting whole columns to matters of the ultra-personal. Like a dead dog. I don't begrudge the man's love for his dog, but how many high-profile sportswriters out there have descended into maudlin crapitude? Peter King, Rick Reilly, Mitch Albom--isn't Bill Simmons supposed to be different?

But this blip on his otherwise stellar record could have been forgotten, if not for his most recent column, regarding who is truly "underrated" in the sports world. I expected new, insightful information about players flying under the radar in the NBA, but instead got a rehash of his love for Kevin Durant and Manny Ramirez. Maybe those two individuals are underrated by general fandom, which I doubt. The problem is that they have never been underrated to Bill Simmons, who has written thousands of words about each of them in multiple columns. Those of us who follow The Sports Guy certainly don't think those two are underrated, mainly because of Bill Simmons. So it's disappointing that he's telling us things we already know.

Whatever Bill's criteria for "underrated" is, I don't think they can include "2nd overall pick of the NBA Draft" or "Slugger who has won 2 World Series and is paid in excess of $18 million a year".

I would hate for Simmons to start descending into mediocrity while so many of us still hold his work in such high esteem.

Why Black Eyed Pease?

2009-01-27T09:51:00.000-08:00

That was a nickname bestowed upon me in high school by teammate Iko Culbreath. Iko was no good at the foosball, but he sure was funny. Back then, I had black circles under my eyes (do I still? I'm told no). And a last name of Pease (I do, still). In my unbearable whiteness of being I had no idea that black-eyed peas were also a food until college.

Sure beat my other high school era nickname: Gargamel.