As the campaign trail nears what seems to be Donner Pass, we're hit with the really important news that the GOP spent $15000.00 to spiff up Sarah Palin for the run for veep. I guess you can put lipstick on a pig, her cosmetics tab alone was over four grand at Nieman Marcus in St. Louis (now there's a fashion hot spot if there ever was one), and the rest must have been spent on hair extensions and stiletto heels from Fredericks of Hollywood. I wonder how much they paid Frances McDormand to teach her that Minnesota accent? Now less than two weeks out, I'll declare it officially over, again. This incident sort of makes that $4000.00 haircut Edwards supposedly got look a little petty. Hey, does anybody out there think these guys are going into their closets for their wardrobes and coiffures? Hell no, sartorial expenses take a huge chunk from those political war chests. Funny, I can't tell if they over spent or under spent in Palin's case.
Brett Favre is embroiled in his biggest beef since the percocet days. New York is all a twitter because Brett spent time on the phone telling Matt Millen and his pals how to beat the Packers. First of all Brett was really pissed when he threw six TD passes in a game, and the New York tabloids had the Mets all over the back page as they were circling in their NL death spiral. Then he tells Peter King the phone call to Millen was , "BS", via text message. During his press conference today the NYC media drilled him for fifteen minutes about his discussion with Millen. He came back finally that he had spoken with him, but it was about hunting. In the end, Harry Potter couldn't help the Lions win on any given Sunday. Packer fans are pissed that he'd diss his old team, and Jets fans are wondering why he isn't learning the new playbook instead of helping somebody beat his old team. If that wouldn't give you a headache, hey, see the team doctor, he might have some...
Cole Hammels will be the pivotal player in the Series. If he can't handle the Devil Rays at least two times, maybe three, the Phillies are history. The youth of Tampa Bay can cause some suspicion, but Philadelphia is not a playoff tested team either. I will stick with the Devil Rays in six, and Longoria as the MVP. Tonight's first at bat for the Devil Rays third baseman will tell a lot.
Colorado at Missouri this weekend, family rivalry, seems like the Buff's aren't quite the cupcake you'd want for homecoming. Missouri is coming off an asss whuppin' by Texas, so if I were a betting man I'd lay the 21 and 1/2...you know Missouri is going to score forty plus, let's call it 48-17...with apologies to certain readers. I know one reader is pulling heavily for Rice to be bowl eligible, Tulane this weekend, a solid maybe...and they still have Army on the menu. Four wins in the bank, I think they'll make it. For the serious gambler, and I'm doing better than the stock market since I started this, Alabama should handle Tennessee giving six and 1/2. Breeder's Cup selections soon. Remember it's now two days, with the distaff side running on Friday.
Went to a High School soccer game this afternoon...friggin' cold...later, biff
Showing posts with label palin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label palin. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Racism in New England
You know, New England, the home of American intelligentsia, tolerance and , well just good old superiority. I've lived here on and off since the forties. I've also lived in Florida and New Mexico for decent amounts of time, and travelled extensively in the lower forty-eight (I used to want complete my states list in Alaska, but I'm afraid to now) and Hawaii. I can say with impunity that New England is as racist as any place I have ever been. Karen went to fill up the car yesterday and saw a car with these two bumper stickers: NOBAMA, and a hand made one that read BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA TERRORIST. Did anyone ever stopped to think that Obama is half white? It's friggin' 2008 and the USA is still shackled to eighteenth century thinking. McCain tried to work that angle throughout last night's debate (hah!)...I thought he was close to crossing the line more than once. The land of the free, right?
Luckily my introduction to black people came at an early age. I had a gigantic black Nanny in Panama, Marina, and she hugged more than anyone else until, well I don't know when. At two people are people. I was also lucky to grow up in a family that for the times was very liberal...though they did vote Republican once in awhile. My step-father owned a gas station in uber-wealthy Greenwich, CT when I passing into puberty. In those days, the late fifties, you could work when you wanted to...despite child labor laws. I started my career in a professional church choir...five bucks a week in '54 was giant bucks for a kid. And, best of all it turned me off to religion for life. Then I caddied at the blue-blood country clubs in town. The highlight of that was falling in love with my bag (player) in a girl's national under eighteen tournament at the Greenwich Country Club. She had an asshole for a Dad, who called her every move. If he had let her play, who knows. When he paid me without a thank you I felt like a booger being flicked off a fingernail.
Then the time to work in the old man's gas station presented itself...a buck an hour, tax free, some of my friend's Dad's weren't making that kind of money. Although some were making millions, even then. But the benefit of working, the most important of all, didn't take hold until some time when I was in college. The reason, the pump jockeys (no self service then) I worked with were two black men from the south, who had moved north for opportunity. They were probably the two most visible black men (colored then) in town. Of course they didn't live there. But my step-father didn't have a second thought of hiring them. Their names were out of central casting, Jimi Pinnix and Otto Phillips. They taught me the moves for kissing ass on our self-important customers. It was a race against time then. You stuck the filler hose in the tank and then proceeded to wash the windshield, check the oil, water, battery and sometimes even the air pressure in the tires. Washing the windshield gained in prominence as the skirts of the late fifties started rising in the early sixties. I was too stupid not to make small talk with any good looking young girl driving Daddy's Caddie, I honed my mid-minor league flirting skills with girls while wiping their windshields, praying for a glimpse of leg before I had to check their tires. Hey, I even thought they liked me when they'd give me a quarter for the service. I couldn't have asked for a cooler job at the time. I wore a pressed uniform with a Texaco Star on it, can you beat that?
Can you believe we had a locker room? We all wore street clothes to work and went up to put on our uniforms, and slick our hair in place. Otto had a process, and wore a "dew rag" in every morning...part of a knotted woman's stocking, and placed over the straightened, pomaded hair style that looked like a shiny black birthday cake. Jimi sported the close cropped look, and I felt like the most special kid on the planet when they shot-the-shit with me before we hit the tarmac. The room resonated with James Brown, Bobby "Blue" Bland or the Temptations while we performed our morning ablutions. They manged to complete the change wile dancing around the room and singing exactly as the performer on the radio was. Slick as shit, we opened the place up before the mechanics and the manger got there; stacking quarts of oil in silvery pyramids, putting out the windshield wiping rags and filling the buckets of water for the thirsty radiators. I was a professional. Yes sir, "You Could Trust Your Car to the Man who Wore the Star", Texaco' slogan of the era. Sure I knew they were "coloreds", but more important, they were my co-workers..and they were teaching me to dance. (They also were teaching me to drink, but that's for another time.) They also talked about reefer, but that they never offered.Those guys were really special to me, the first people to treat me like a man, albeit, maybe a tad early.
So the enduring story of the time was the "whisk broom". My step-Dad, in the never ending battle to give MORE SERVICE, land on what he thought was the genius plan of all time for the summer. With a fill-up, along with the aforementioned services we were to whisk broom the beach sand out of each and every car. It was a bit much. Cars would be waiting while all they could see were green clad Khaki legs sticking out of the cars in front them, whisking the precious Greenwich beach sand onto the ground. It was evident this added feature was slowing down business rather than improving the bottom line. Otto and Jimi badgered me to approach my old man to have the sweeping jettisoned from or duties. Dad, being a reasonable man, said fine. "We'll drop it tomorrow."
It didn't cause many problems, we had a loyal clientele and a good location...but we did have one little snag. You see, Otto had some serious hearing loss from the war. He didn't talk too much to the customers so it wasn't generally a problem. Until a little old lady, typical over-bred, liver-lipped stockbrokers wife who asked "Where's the restroom?" I was at the next pump and heard Otto reply, thinking she had said whisk broom instead of restroom, reply, "Sorry mam, but if you pull over to the air pump, I'd be more than happy to blow it out for you."
She went all fourth of July fireworks on him, and I think she asked to speak to the president of Texaco. My old man cleared it up with tank of gas and an extra book of green stamps.
Leaving those guys to go to college was tough. They would smile from ear-to-ear when I came home for a holiday. They had gone from co-workers to friends. On those rare trips home we'd celebrate with Imperial and orange soda. I have to thank my Dad for one of the most important life lessons one can get.
You know, whomever you're voting for (especially if you're from New England) skin color issues were supposed to have gone away a long, long time ago.
So, on that note I hope the Red Sox get their asses kicked tonight, though if my wallet was involved...let's just say Kazmir will be gone by the sixth.
Great article by an Inuit (Nick Jans) in Salon on the Bering Sea Bimbo (Palin). He totally elucidates here shortcomings and tells us that you can only see Russia from a small island she's never stepped foot on.
Later, biff
Luckily my introduction to black people came at an early age. I had a gigantic black Nanny in Panama, Marina, and she hugged more than anyone else until, well I don't know when. At two people are people. I was also lucky to grow up in a family that for the times was very liberal...though they did vote Republican once in awhile. My step-father owned a gas station in uber-wealthy Greenwich, CT when I passing into puberty. In those days, the late fifties, you could work when you wanted to...despite child labor laws. I started my career in a professional church choir...five bucks a week in '54 was giant bucks for a kid. And, best of all it turned me off to religion for life. Then I caddied at the blue-blood country clubs in town. The highlight of that was falling in love with my bag (player) in a girl's national under eighteen tournament at the Greenwich Country Club. She had an asshole for a Dad, who called her every move. If he had let her play, who knows. When he paid me without a thank you I felt like a booger being flicked off a fingernail.
Then the time to work in the old man's gas station presented itself...a buck an hour, tax free, some of my friend's Dad's weren't making that kind of money. Although some were making millions, even then. But the benefit of working, the most important of all, didn't take hold until some time when I was in college. The reason, the pump jockeys (no self service then) I worked with were two black men from the south, who had moved north for opportunity. They were probably the two most visible black men (colored then) in town. Of course they didn't live there. But my step-father didn't have a second thought of hiring them. Their names were out of central casting, Jimi Pinnix and Otto Phillips. They taught me the moves for kissing ass on our self-important customers. It was a race against time then. You stuck the filler hose in the tank and then proceeded to wash the windshield, check the oil, water, battery and sometimes even the air pressure in the tires. Washing the windshield gained in prominence as the skirts of the late fifties started rising in the early sixties. I was too stupid not to make small talk with any good looking young girl driving Daddy's Caddie, I honed my mid-minor league flirting skills with girls while wiping their windshields, praying for a glimpse of leg before I had to check their tires. Hey, I even thought they liked me when they'd give me a quarter for the service. I couldn't have asked for a cooler job at the time. I wore a pressed uniform with a Texaco Star on it, can you beat that?
Can you believe we had a locker room? We all wore street clothes to work and went up to put on our uniforms, and slick our hair in place. Otto had a process, and wore a "dew rag" in every morning...part of a knotted woman's stocking, and placed over the straightened, pomaded hair style that looked like a shiny black birthday cake. Jimi sported the close cropped look, and I felt like the most special kid on the planet when they shot-the-shit with me before we hit the tarmac. The room resonated with James Brown, Bobby "Blue" Bland or the Temptations while we performed our morning ablutions. They manged to complete the change wile dancing around the room and singing exactly as the performer on the radio was. Slick as shit, we opened the place up before the mechanics and the manger got there; stacking quarts of oil in silvery pyramids, putting out the windshield wiping rags and filling the buckets of water for the thirsty radiators. I was a professional. Yes sir, "You Could Trust Your Car to the Man who Wore the Star", Texaco' slogan of the era. Sure I knew they were "coloreds", but more important, they were my co-workers..and they were teaching me to dance. (They also were teaching me to drink, but that's for another time.) They also talked about reefer, but that they never offered.Those guys were really special to me, the first people to treat me like a man, albeit, maybe a tad early.
So the enduring story of the time was the "whisk broom". My step-Dad, in the never ending battle to give MORE SERVICE, land on what he thought was the genius plan of all time for the summer. With a fill-up, along with the aforementioned services we were to whisk broom the beach sand out of each and every car. It was a bit much. Cars would be waiting while all they could see were green clad Khaki legs sticking out of the cars in front them, whisking the precious Greenwich beach sand onto the ground. It was evident this added feature was slowing down business rather than improving the bottom line. Otto and Jimi badgered me to approach my old man to have the sweeping jettisoned from or duties. Dad, being a reasonable man, said fine. "We'll drop it tomorrow."
It didn't cause many problems, we had a loyal clientele and a good location...but we did have one little snag. You see, Otto had some serious hearing loss from the war. He didn't talk too much to the customers so it wasn't generally a problem. Until a little old lady, typical over-bred, liver-lipped stockbrokers wife who asked "Where's the restroom?" I was at the next pump and heard Otto reply, thinking she had said whisk broom instead of restroom, reply, "Sorry mam, but if you pull over to the air pump, I'd be more than happy to blow it out for you."
She went all fourth of July fireworks on him, and I think she asked to speak to the president of Texaco. My old man cleared it up with tank of gas and an extra book of green stamps.
Leaving those guys to go to college was tough. They would smile from ear-to-ear when I came home for a holiday. They had gone from co-workers to friends. On those rare trips home we'd celebrate with Imperial and orange soda. I have to thank my Dad for one of the most important life lessons one can get.
You know, whomever you're voting for (especially if you're from New England) skin color issues were supposed to have gone away a long, long time ago.
So, on that note I hope the Red Sox get their asses kicked tonight, though if my wallet was involved...let's just say Kazmir will be gone by the sixth.
Great article by an Inuit (Nick Jans) in Salon on the Bering Sea Bimbo (Palin). He totally elucidates here shortcomings and tells us that you can only see Russia from a small island she's never stepped foot on.
Later, biff
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sarh Palin's gaff helps recovery...
I'm not too comfortable sitting at the computer yet, and this might be really old news...but Sarah Palin showed her extreme lack of intelligence/experience when she responded harshly and critically to a crowd that was chanting, oh my, "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah..." Who knows what was going on in her head when, after way too much dead air she said (I paraphrase) "I just hope all you protesters out there give thanks to our troops protecting your right to use the First Amendment." She has single handily set-back the feminist movement by about fifty years.
Really sad note, the Rangers (3-0-0) finally look respectable, and their number one draft-pick drops dead in the Russian League. Some irony to this tragedy; Alexi Cherepanov nineteen, had just taken a shift with former Ranger star Jaromir Jagr.
My knee is going well...look forward to sitting here longer soon. Congrats to those recognizing the Cuba hat...
later, biff
Really sad note, the Rangers (3-0-0) finally look respectable, and their number one draft-pick drops dead in the Russian League. Some irony to this tragedy; Alexi Cherepanov nineteen, had just taken a shift with former Ranger star Jaromir Jagr.
My knee is going well...look forward to sitting here longer soon. Congrats to those recognizing the Cuba hat...
later, biff
Sunday, September 28, 2008
biffinfo
Karen stunned me today when I asked her to tell me the five states that have produced the most NFL players. Her sports knowledge has put a lot of juice in our relationship for a long time. (I took a serious double-take years ago when Barry Bonds was making his debut fir the Pirates on TV at the Waterfront restaurant. She asked, "Could that be Bobby Bonds son?") Answer, from the Boston Globe, below.
So, I hope you all invested in Curlin yesterday. Last year's horse of the year slogged through the mud with with Wanderin' Boy nipping at his heels. All right, he only paid $2.80, but with the banking/market situation being what it is a forty per-cent profit in a couple of minutes isn't too bad. Curlin's connections seem like they're trying to avoid Big Brown at the Breeder's Cup, but kudos to them for racing this horse well into his fourth year. We'll see, but if the showdown takes place...my inclination would be to drop a bob or two on Curlin.
College football was nuts this week, 'Bama's rout of Georgia closed it out perfectly. USC's defeat (Thursday) puts them in a tough spot...they'll probably have to run the table to get back into the championship game. When the rankings come out later today Oklahoma will be number one followed in no particular order by Texas, Alabama and Missouri. There are already going to be be a boat load of one loss teams in the top twenty-five. UCONN's (5-0) Donald Brown, leading the nation in rushing after five games could be as big a surprise as any of the aforementioned.
Have you seen the Deadliest Catch? It's this reality show about crab fisherman in the Bering Sea, on the history channel. Crazy stuff, icy pitching boats trying to harvest the many legged delicacy for markets all over the world. I'm ashamed to admit that I've watched more than a few episodes. The crewmen are typical of the hard working hard partying men attracted to these kinds of jobs. I knew many of their ilk when I lived in Maine and was in the lobster shipping business. These guys have round table discussions hashing over their work while main-lining draught beer, cigarettes and maybe a few other brain-cell altering substances; you know, letting us in on the "life." Just remember, a vote for McCain puts the wife of one of those guys a heartbeat away from running the country. Mr Palin is one of these guys. When the First Dude's boys show up on the weekends in the winter the grounds around 1600 are going to take a beating from their snow machines. I think McCain's staff hired Tina Fey to play this woman in order to offset his charming personality. Has anyone seen Palin and Fey in the same room? No offense, but after the last eight years I'd like to have a president who's at least as smart as we are. By the way, the timing of this bail-out of the "economy" wouldn't have anything to do with the election...nah.
Looks like I'm going to have to dump the Hotspurs scarf I'm sporting at the top of the page. They spent a gazillion bucks and can't win a game. They'll be lucky to still be in the Premiership at the end of the season. Today's match in Milan (Inter v AC) will be close...you can double your money by betting on a draw.
The Red Sox will not beat the Angels. Can the Mets screw it up again? Tampa Bay would be a wonderful World Series winner...if only because they're excuse for a stadium is just a few miles from the cortex of the Yankees brain trust. Hank and Hal Steinbrenner show none of the business acumen that the old man (George) had when he was building his latest string of play-off appearing teams in NY. My favorite ending to the baseball season would be Manny hitting one over the Green Monster off Pap to lock it up for the Dodgers and Joe Torre. Girardi (the other Joe in NYC) started showing why he had such a brief tenure while winning with the Marlins. His relationships with the press, Cashman (Yankee GM) and his players are starting to sour like milk on the beach.
Looking for a good read? Non-fiction, THE MYSTERIOUS MONTAGUE, Leigh Montville. Golf scammer deluxe whose checkered past catches up with him in Hollywood in the 1930's. He was sort of like a true life Jackie Gleason in the HUSTLER. Fiction, A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO GRACEFUL LIVING, Michael Dahlie. A novel of manners about a sad-sack blue blood trying to overcome a lifetime of insecurities. He's so inept at life's small details his gobs of money are useless.
The five football states: (in order) California, Florida, Texas, Ohio and Georgia. Alas, she didn't get them in the correct order.
Take the Ravens and the six Monday night...biff
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)