Change I Was Personally Involved In

Readers of The Sherman Avenue Block Party!

It is my pleasure to announce that the Disciples of Clyde NBA Podcast is back for a whole new season.

Not only that, but we have a whole new web site. That's right, a new web site! Check it out.

And, wait, there's more!

We even have a new logo. Look at this:

Pretty cool, huh?

We're back to doing weekly podcasts. We'd sure appreciate it if you listened.

Thanks!

Oh, and one more thing:


(hat tip to The Sporting Blog for the sweet Undrcrwn pic)

Here Come The Warm Jets: Week 9 2008

Winning in Buffalo is huge. The Jets needed a win on the road against a good team, especially in the division.

I gotta say, though, while it was happening, this was not a confidence inspiring win.

The offense struggled in the red zone, settling for short field goals instead of touchdowns.

The defense, in the first quarter, looked completely out of sorts, and seemingly unable to cover anyone who ran on a pass pattern.

There was a stretch in the first half where the Bills had the ball for something like 30 consecutive plays, a result of them driving deep and then the Elam interception return for a touchdown. That just seemed wrong.

Then, of course, Favre threw another horrible interception returned for a touchdown.

And yet, there were many positives. Especially as I thought about it after the game was over.

The run defense was again spectacular. Kris Jenkins has been an unblockable monster, and was particularly so against the Bills.

The offense came up with two huge, clock-eating drives when they needed it most.

The first came after that strange sequence where the Bills had the ball for 30 straight plays. First, the defense had run back the touchdown. Then, the Bills drove deep again, and the Jets stuffed them on fourth down. If the offense had gone three-and-out there, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Bills would have scored. The defense would have been exhausted, and the Bills wouldn't screw up a third time. Instead, though, the Jets put together a long drive that just about killed the rest of the half. Yes, Feely missed a short field goal, but the offense had to stay on the field at that point in the game, and they did.

The second came after Favre's interception. The momentum at that point was all in Buffalo's favor, the crowd screaming, the score close. If they go three-and-out there, or give the Bills the ball back with too much time, there's no way the Jets hold on. Instead, they put together an 8 minute plus drive, that ends in a field goal that put the game out of reach. That drive was all about the running game, the offensive line never looking better. And, yes, Favre made some key third down throws, that a confident veteran has to make.

It is heartening, after the first half of the schedule is done, that this team can go on the road, stop the run, run the ball in crunch time, and recover from a bad mistake to win a key game.

5-3, tied for first in the division, is not bad.

Now, if this is truly a different Jets team, they'll build on this win and take care of business at home against St. Louis next week.

And, hey, on this day, if ever, I can believe in change.

Go vote!

Using familar phrases

Whether the World Series is a done deal or just getting started is of little concequence to me. I admit to having it on, but only as background noise (and picture to be truthful).

Regardless the clock has shifted in my mind, partly to move away from the FCA (Flushing Choke Artists) but mostly to give my full and undivided attention to the defending Super Bowl champs and with that comes an admission.

I'm really scared about this week's game against the Cowgirls.

Yes, they are overrated. Yes, they may start Brooks Bollinger or Brad Johnson and neither one can outrun a Man a.k.a Justin Tuck.

But the Girls are playing for their season. A loss drops them to 5-4, 1-2 in the toughest division in the land. At best, they would be playing for the final wild card spot or fourth place in the NFL East.

The Giants never play well in games like this, ones they are supposed to win. Just look at Cleveland. They could lose and still lead the division with the Skins facing a pissed off Pittsburgh team. This is a game where the G-Men would put their foot on the throat of the Boys and end their season for good, which is exactly why I'm scared...

I'm scared for the life of Mr. Obama and that's why I joke he's the Anti-Christ. I don't believe he's in league with the Devil but that doesn't mean he couldn't bring about the end of the world.

Maybe I've read a few too many graphic novels on long truck rides recently, but it's not a far grasp and there is precedent. The Great War or World War One started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. Retaliation activated a series of alliances that set off a chain reaction of war declarations. Within a month, much of Europe was in a state of open warfare.

If Obama were elected president and, God forbid, killed and the Palestines were blamed, wouldn't a pro-Israli president like Joe Biden set about finding the culprits with force and the backing of the American public? Would that not set off a series of alliances and we watch history repeat itself, but instead of trench warfare, it would be the last time nuclear weapons were deployed...

Just a thought.

Here Come The Warm Jets: Week 8 2008

The Jets won the game, but there is absolutely no reason to celebrate. That happens when you look that bad, barely beating what many consider the worst team in the league, who are playing their third-string QB and backup RB.

Favre keeps throwing ugly picks. The play calling is inconsistent - conservative when they should be aggressive, fancy when they should be conventional. It's like the coaching staff is outsmarting itself. On top of that, the team never plays a full and complete game. All three areas rarely execute well all at the same time.

To sum up how Jets fans feel, let's take a sampling of the text messages sent between me, Matt, and Greg (Jets fans dispersed across the country):


MATT: One year we'll gt a kicker, but we'll be 0-16 w/ the best kicker in the league
DAN: We should draft one in the second round ... Oh, wait


GREG: I don't even want to watch the second half
DAN: Tyler Thigpen! Fuck me in the face with a hammer.
GREG: He is 15 of 20 for 179 and two TDs. I'm glad I bought that gun yesterday.


GREG: I have nothing to say. They are getting worse as the year is going on. I can see 5-11 at this point.
DAN: I am getting tired of this shit. Can Favre not throw into double coverage? Is that possible?
GREG: Fucking bench him.


MATT: What kind of a play call was that? ... Favre's a moron bring Chad back!
DAN: Bring back Glenn Foley
MATT: I quit
DAN: The season is over


GREG: How can you not laugh at this point? It's all just too fucking typical.
DAN: Same old Jets


DAN: Way to not lose to the shittiest team in the league
MATT: I feel like I just fucked an ugly fat chick


And they won this game! This is what Jets fandom is.

And yet, here we after week 8 with as many wins as they had all of last year (and as many wins as the two years of the Rich Kotite era combined, lest we forget from whence we came.)

The next four are rough - at Buffalo, home for St. Louis, at New England, at Tennessee. They have to go 2-2 at a minimum to stay in the playoff race. After watching this team barely beat Cincinatti and KC, and lose to Oakland, do I feel confident in this? No. I'd be surprised if they weren't 0-4 during this stretch.

Then again, maybe this wakes them up and they pull together and go 3-1 or 4-0 in that stretch. Of course, if they did that, then they'd lose their last 4 games and miss the playoffs.

At this point, with this, team, anything is possibe. Especially mediocre football.

War and music

I haven't posted in a while, not that anyone missed me crying about the Mets or other such things, but I'll get onto off-season plans for the Choke Artists from Flushing, the happiness of another college basketball season, thoughts on religion and something about the Anti-Christ that is Obama but I was running with this thought during my job this afternoon...

Listening to "Grown Folks Radio", i.e. R&B and soul from the 60's, 70's and 80's and the lyrics from yet another love song, I noticed that the lead singer was asking for love, it was a far cry from the singers of today who demand it and tell hoes to drop it like it's hot and the like.

It got me to thinking, something you have a lot of time to do when your job entails of moving files from one location to another. This is still a work in progress, one that could easily die with a Tampa Bay win tonight (and who's really rooting for the Phillies? I mean, how can anyone root for a team that isn't even loved in their own city?)

Anyway, as I thought it back through my head, it seems that the major wars in US history from the last century has forced changes in the music of the day. Like I said, this is all off the top of my head and could just be an idiot savant with too much time to think.

AFTER WORLD WAR I, music was lead by the conductor and big bands ruled the day. While Lawrence Welk didn't have his syndicated radio show at the time, he "performed with the Luke Witkowski, Lincoln Boulds, and George T. Kelly bands, before starting his own orchestra."

The US involvement in WORLD WAR II creates a new black man in this country. He realizes that the rest of the white world doesn't view him like their white American counterparts. That freedom, from the soldiers that returned home to those planting the roots of the Civil Rights Era, led to rock and roll and white people like Elvis Presley who "went to blues as well as hillbilly venues. Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African American composers and recording artists, including Arthur Crudup, Rufus Thomas and B.B. King."

With the Army's interest in the Asian theater, i.e. KOREA AND VIETNAM, the music would change again. As white bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and the Beatles whose "initial musical style was rooted in 1950s rock and roll and homegrown skiffle, the group explored genres ranging from Tin Pan Alley to psychedelic rock."

Just like the style of warfare changed, from trench to guerrilla, the music moved with the times. Bands like The Who varied from early sounds like "My Generation" to conceptual work like "Tommy".

As the Vietnam War came to a close in the 70s, so did the music once again. While groups like Pink Floyd took conceptual music to new heights, Motown's artists that took rock and roll into rhythm and blues and morphed it once again into soul, funk and disco.

The latter from both genres introduced technology and the late 1970s/early 1980s brought about another change. Rock would get real 'interesting' with groups like Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I could get into New Wave and Synthpop but what's the point?

At the same time, the Second Cold War between Russia and the United States was reaching its height with Afghanistan, Beirut and Grenada. I could get into all of this but what's the point?

The late 80s/early 90s actually becomes a split as original rock bands like Van Halen and Aerosmith turn pop and the roots of Heavy Metal (1986 - Master of Puppets) and Grunge music were planted and began to thrive.

On the other side of the spectrum, Hip Hop had become the dominant music force in the "black community" and it would take a change of its own. From its roots on the streets of New York City to low-budget production on Video Music Box, rap would take a split in 1986 with Run DMC's release of "Walk This Way" with Aerosmith. It's not that rappers hadn't been using rock samples throughout, but this was the first time they put a visual to the process.
Not Run DMC, but rappers became either about the music and the message or about the money. That's how you have groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A on one side of the velvet rope and Kid-N-Play and Kwame on the other.

The Cold War officially ends in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the focus of the US government was split from one enemy to multiple ones around the world. Think Panama, Columbia and the war against Drugs and of course the first invasion of Iraq.

With the original Bombs over Baghdad and the New York Giants' Super Bowl victory, rap split yet again with the introduction of a new age that combined the pursuit of money through quality music with a message (of sorts). From "The Low End Theory", Nas and the Wu-Tany Clan to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg...

The latest chapter of this seems to go with the sign of the times. The music and the politics of the country both suck, whether you think of Limp Bizkit and Nelly or the second invasion of Iraq and the ongoing search for Osama Bin Ladin, it sucks right now and I'm left to wonder what world-altering event needs to happen next to allow better music on the airwaves?

NFL QB Rankings

The other night I phoned my father for no particular reason and in the midst of the conversation Ron D commented on how he has been watching football for the better part of 50 years and he can’t believe how many terrible Quarterbacks there are in the league right now, and we only talked about starters. We decided to go team by team and I let Big Ron give his assessment and slot them into a category.

Now, this survey was by no means scientific and there is no factual data to back this stuff up, just 50 years of watching football and coaching it on various levels. Our categories, like this survey are not very scientific either, they are; Elite, Above Average, Average, Below Average/Terrible and then just plane Stinks.


ELITE- Clearly the class of the league, guys you would take on your team any day any time!!

Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, and Donovan McNabb.

I know some of these guys may not be having their best seasons, but the fact remains they are the Hall of Famers of their generation


ABOVE AVERAGE- The second tier of QB’s, guys who can pop uo into the elite category every year or two. These guys make and win playoff games and have a chance to be a Hall of famer

Eli Manning, Kurt Warner, Jake Delhomme, Jeff Garcia, Phillip Rivers, and Ben Roethlisberger.


AVERAGE- Guys who can look good one week and look terrible the next, some have some potential but at the end of the day they are .500 QB’s (you know, like Michael Vick).

Kerry Collins, Tony Romo, Drew Brees, Matt Hasselbeck, Jay Cutler, and Carson Palmer

TERRIBLE- Just look the word up in the dictionary.

Jason Campell, Vince Young, Marc Bulger, Kyle Orton, and Chad Pennington


STINKS- Guys who should probably be playing arena league football.

JT O’Sullivan, Anyone QB’ing the Chiefs, Matt Schaub, Derek Anderson, Dan Orlovsky, Tavaris Jackson, Matt Cassell, Gus Ferrote, Seneca Wallace and David Gerrard.


Now there are a bunch of 1st and 2nd year QB’s who the verdict is yet to be out on, but we will put them in the category we think they will eventually fall in to.

ABOVE AVERAGE- Matt Ryan and Aaron Rodgers

AVERAGE- Jamarcus Russell and Trent Edwards

STINKS- Joe Flacco

Here Come The Warm Jets: Week 7 2008

If I had a child, and this child was with me watching this Jets game, I could say to my child, "Child, this is what it is to be a Jets fan."

"Child, your team will play uninspired and barely competent football for most of the game. Their supposedly good quarterback will play like a washed-up old man. They will find themselves losing to a team that committed fourteen penalties, and that is playing for an interim coach that no one ever heard of."

"And, child, you will despair. You will brood and mutter foul things under and over your breath. You will probably drink heavily."

"Then, child, lo and behold, the team will wake up towards the end of the game. You will be given hope, ever so briefly. You will think that it is possible to steal a win, despite their worst effort. You will be happy, child, despite your instincts telling you not to."

"And just as you allow yourself to believe again, child, just as your spirits might be lifted, they will find the most cruel and brutal way to crush you. Get the ball three times in overtime, and do nothing with it. Lose on a 57-yard field goal. Walk away with nothing but dizziness and regret."

"Child, get used to it. It probably won't ever change. You are a Jets fan."

Weekend Thoughts

David Price is a fucking man. If you are an AL East fan, and AL fan in general you better starts shaking in your boots because he is going to be around and mowing people down for awhile. He was 12-1 in the minors this year and then with little major league experience Manager Joe Maddon went to him in the biggest spot in franchise history, and he shined.


Check out my column from early in September when I made 10 outlandish NFL predictions. While plenty of them are crazy there are a few that look pretty good right now, for instance; the predicted demise of the Cowboys, the emergence of Kyle Orton as a prodigy, the success of the Buffalo Bills, the injury of Tom Brady, and Kurt Warner leading the Cardinals to the playoffs and a possible MVP for himself. Like I said there are just as many predictions in there that are horribly wrong, but don’t pay attention to those.


I had a friend of mine call me Saturday night and wanted to know if the Sawx were the first team ever to bat a Jew and a Canadian back to back, when in Game 6 Kevin Jewkilous and Jason Bay batted back to back. I really couldn’t think of another circumstance where that happened, can anyone else?

Tonight We Are All Rays Fans

Tonight, let us root for the Rays.

Because yet another "improbable, miraculous" comeback by the Boston Red Sox would make the fans in that city even more insufferable, not to mention what they'd be saying on ESPN about them for the next, I don't know, forever years.

We don't ask for much around here on this blog. But we will ask for this - no more success for Boston sports teams, okay?

Go Rays!

Here Come The Warm Jets: Week 6 2008

I don't want to hear anything about ugly wins or uninspiring wins or shaky wins or retarded wins.

The team won 4 games last year. They've won 3 already this year.

Read that sentence again.

Sure, the offense looked pretty bad at times against the Bengals. But, let me tell you, from where I was sitting (at the Newport Bar and Grille, full of coffee and eggs and bacon and vodka, like usual) the Bengals defense came to play. Credit where it's due - they were pursuing the ball well on misdirection plays, and they made a lot of solid tackles, especially on third down. It wasn't just that the Jets had an off day - the Bengals contributed their share.

Also, keep in mind that on a bad day for the offense, they scored 26 points.

Read that sentence again. If you can score 26 points on a bad day, you're not in the worst shape in the world.

Also, the run defense was again spectacular.

Read that sentence again. Then go read the Here Comes The Warm Jets columns from last year, and see if you can find an instance of me actually praising the Jets run defense.

Yes, this one was against one of the worst offenses in the league. But we all know that in other Jets seasons, Chris Perry or Cedric Benson would have had 135 yards and two touchdowns, for the best day of his career.

The bottom line is this: the Jets haven't had a lot of wins like this, where they didn't play a perfect game but had enough talent to pull out a win anyway.

They're 3-2, they play Oakland and Kansas City the next two weeks. In other seasons, I've felt a lot worse at this point. Shoot, in other seasons, it's been over at this point.

Right now, it may not be pretty, but it sure as hell ain't over.

Read that sentence again.

More Reasons To Get Excited About The NBA

How about some preseason dunks?

DeAndre Jordan dunking on Chris Mihm (always fun to see big goofy white guys get dunked on - we miss you, Shawn Bradley!)



Bill Walker on Theo Ratliff (always fun to see Theo Ratliff get dunked on, because it's Theo Ratliff)



Wilson Chandler on Jermaine O'Neal (Knicks! Kris, I think you were wrong about Chandler, he's going to be a player)



Only a couple of weeks away...

A Yankee Fan's Quandry

Even though I have spent the better part of the last two weeks pretending that baseball ended when Mike Mussina recorded his twentieth win, apparently baseball has continued on without the Bronx Bombers. So with this new found awareness I must figure out who to root for?

Red Sox - No way in hell, no other explanation necessary, simply baseball's version of the anti-christ.

Devil Rays - A great story no doubt, but their success is always juxtaposed against the Yankee failure because of the salary disparity. With the teams slated for 19 games next year the last thing I want to hear ad nauseum is World Champion Devil Rays. However, they are preferable to the Dodgers or Red Sox

Dodgers - I would love to see Manny beat the Red Sox at Fenway. The ultimate F U, however, I am not willing to risk the Red Sox in the World Series. I also have no desire to see Torre and Mattingly win in a Dodger uniform. I respect everything Torre did for the Yankees but his part in the downward turn of the franchaise should not be ignored. Joe ruined the arms of many a bullpen stalwart and refused to integrate younger players until they were forced down his throat. I have no personal ill will against the man but I also could do without the hours of talk radio/espn nonsense that would follow a joe torre world series victory.

Phillies - by default are my team. However, a Phillies win solves all of my problems, a. the red sox don't win and b. its a giant f u to mets fans, which is always a big bonus. Besides how can you root against a team with players named shane, cole and chase. If they lose they could always start a boy band.

When you break it down, as a Yankee fan, there is only one option if you choose to believe that a playoffs without the Yankees really exists, and that is to root for the Philadelphia Phillies.

My Life Is Soon To Be Consumed

Just a quick reminder, everyone, that the NBA season approaches. Soon.






Time to order League Pass....


UPDATE:

Kris wanted a non-Knicks video to get excited about the NBA.

How about 10 dunks from Darryl Dawkins?



NBATV comes with League Pass...

the G men

I have to say, I know its early in the season but how can you not be impressed with the Giants. Forget about who they have played, though Washington and Cincy have looked good in the last few weeks, watch how they play. They are a team that it is a pleasure to root for. They play hard and smart and entertaining football. This isn't a team that got drunk on the elixir of a Super Bowl and forgot how to work. They have had reasons to take a step back but refuse to make them. All you need to know was shown by Management in their suspension of Plax. It was an internal team issue, it could have been handled with a fine, but they chose to make it public and send a message that nobody is above the team. For that I respect the organization and its leaders.

I admit I was wrong about Eli, he has matured into the QB I never thought he could become. I do believe that the Super Bowl was more about the Defense, but it has seemed to imbue him with a new swagger and elevated him to "man" status amongst the team. There is no more Tiki or Strahan, he is the man. A lot of credit needs to go to the scouting department and the development abilities of Coughlin and his staff. They have turned a lot of lower draft picks into meaningful players and sculpted one of the best offensive lines in the game out of some rough material.

Obviously who knows what the future may bring, but it will no doubt be an enjoyable ride.