Ever since Brenda & I moved to Boulder there has been one glaring omission from our daily lives, and that is settling down to read a good local newspaper. Back in Jersey, the Star Ledger was an excellent paper that originated from the local county where we last lived in that state. We got great reporting and writing, on everything from the international to the very local. The sports page was phenomenal. Molly Ivins’ column was printed regularly, and we had almost no use for the New York Times and its holier-than-thou masthead font (and pricing).

Here in Boulder, we have the Daily Camera.

Now, being a Boulder newspaper, the Camera boasts some interesting and fun features that definitely pander to the local culture. There is a “trail dogs of the week” section, where reader-submitted photos of their dogs out on the many local trails are featured; there is a rock climbing column, as well as what has to be the highest percentage of sports section coverage devoted to cycling and running in all their forms. And of course the letters to the editor section—replete with outlandish requests and complaints from both ends of the liberal-conservative continuum—never fails to entertain. But the editing of this newspaper has been sub-par from day one, and pretty much every single day I can spot at least a couple of grammatical and spelling errors in what is supposed to be a professional newspaper, and one of the articles in today’s business section encapsulates this dilemma so well I just had to share the first paragraph:

Camera’s Circulation Falls
By Alicia Wallace, Camera Business Writer

New statistics show circulation at major US newspapers continued to tumble, and the Camera does not appears to be immune to the trend.

‘nuff said? Thought so.

Well, my silly little piece on “green” email signatures is in the news again, this time in the L.A. Times. When I wrote that, it was cathartic because I was so frustrated by a particular co-worker and his sanctimonious ways, and his mindless insistence that we all preach to our clients this message that I felt went without saying. Who knew it would become the single most popular post on my website and the source for two newspaper articles on green email signatures (and a television interview that as far as I know landed on the cutting room floor)?

Of course the fact that I work in sustainable design and live in left-leaning Boulder Colorado made my frowny post on green email signatures the perfect ammo for conservative papers like the Wall Street Journal and the L.A. Times—here was a guy who supposedly cared about the environment and even he is saying these signatures are stupid! Co-workers (and strangers reaching me through my website) have accused me of being a hipocrit (sic), but I think they miss the point. These whiny, sniveling exhortations to “please consider the environment” make you look exactly like the stereotype the Fox News windbags are trying to perpetuate. I’m not playing along, and you shouldn’t either. Save that unbridled environmental enthusiasm for flipping the bird at the next Hummer you see.

Let me start with a quote, because I heard it in my head repeatedly throughout my (two) viewing(s) of ESPN2’s new miniseries “The Bronx is Burning“:

“Ahhh, 1978, there’ll never be another year like that, not in my lifetime.”

That gem was uttered by a co-worker from an old job, back in New York. The same guy who got me tickets to what ended up being Doc Gooden’s no-hitter against Seattle in ‘96, Joe is the quintessential Yankees fan: lifelong, diehard, one-sided, true. And he’s the guy I think of when I watch Billy Martin (expertly played by John Turturro) kick sand on the ump in this great, great show.

I was just a kid when the Bronx Bombers were running from their mediocrity of the early 70’s, and I really didn’t understand or appreciate baseball. Then. But, growing up in north Jersey, I dutifully watched the on-field antics of the 1970’s Yankees, and have the names and scenes of many Patented Yankee Great Moments burnished in my brain. You can’t help it, if you grew up in the New York City area back then, no matter your interest in the game. To this day, I do not understand Mets fans.

Today, I’d call myself a recovering baseball addict, having discovered a passion for the game when I was just getting out of college and living and dying with the Phillies (and Mitch Williams’ destruction of the season with a hanging 0-2 slider to Joe Carter, but I’m not bitter), and later on the Yankees’ amazing New Dynasty of the late 90’s. And so I was more than mildly interested in this new miniseries being trotted out by ESPN2.

Turns out, it’s pretty fun. Watching the on- and off-field antics of these adult kids in the Bronx that were going when I was a kid myself is pretty great, and it’s bringing back a lot of great memories of my youth.

Oh and by the way, I’m especially enjoying the portrayal of Reggie Jackson as an arrogant, egomaniacal douchebag. Remind me to tell you about the time I had great seats on the first base line at Yankee Stadium when I was a tyke and I saw Reggie Jackson give his glove to a kid who dutifully ran down to the wall and asked Reggie for his autograph every inning, only to ask for his glove back as he took the field the next inning. That little plot, along with the two drunk Irishmen seated a couple rows in front and to the left of us, created a scene that will never leave me. Reggie got his glove back, the kid got a brand new glove and two bats, and the drunks got to stay and watch the end of the game. And, as an extra bonus, Reggie heard all about how much of a dickhead he was. It was an awesome display for this eight year-old.

Anyway, if you have access to ESPN2 and you are at all interested in New York City history (Yankees, Son of Sam, Mayor Beame and the Mayoral race of the time), you should check out “The Bronx is Burning”.

Well, Sundays seem so empty now, with Tony Soprano gone and all. But I was pleasantly surprised when Brenda & I sat down to watch the premiere of Flight of the Conchords. Not really knowing anything about these two kiwis or how they were gonna make their “funny folk” act into a TV show, we went in blind. But fifteen seconds into the intro I was hooked. Exactly four minutes in though, the protagonists broke into song at Dave’s party and I was laughing so hard at the lyrics and the presentation that Brenda thought the neighbors were gonna call the cops.

And when you’re on the street,
depending on the street,
I’ll bet you are definitely in
the top three…
good lookin’ girls on the street!
(depending on the street)

The show revolves around these two guys from New Zealand who have a band and are trying to make it in the Big Apple, but it’s essentially a vehicle for their hysterical songs.

You’re so beautiful, you could be an air hostess in the sixties…

It’s very interesting to see how you take a very funny musical stage act and roll it into a TV series. So far, 30 minutes into the experiment, they are succeeding wonderfully.

You’re so beautiful you could probably be a PART… TIME… MODEL… (but you’ll probably have to keep your regular job)

It’s no Sopranos; but so far, the ‘Conchords are killing.

P.S.
Here; see for yourself:

So, after eight absolutely fantastic fucking seasons, The Sopranos run has come to an end. The finale was a mixed bag, and the salt in the wound is that the lame-ish ending is followed by the premiere of a fucking surfer show.

The Sopranos has entertained me on so many levels it will take much more than a blog post at this hour to explain it. Suffice to say, the lingo brings back memories of my youth and my quote database is proof of that. The first time Brenda & I watched the show we were in a hotel room with HBO and after 15 seconds of the opening sequence, where Tony drives through the Lincoln Tunnel, past the Hoboken exit, and then onto the NJ Turnpike and past the oil tanks in Linden (Drive Safely!), we were hooked. The show went on to document the North Jersey Italian-American experience, and I’m not (just) talking about the mob shit, I’m talking about the manigoot (manicotti). The lingo, the mores, the food, the clothes: when I watched The Sopranos it was like a visit to Aunt Mary’s house; the only thing missing was the pinch on the cheek.

But you can’t run a crew these days without some strife, and Tony made his bed, sure as shit. So after last week’s mayhem we were on the edge of our seats for the finale tonight. I haven’t been this upset since the end of N.Y.P.D. Blue, but Brenda & I pulled up a chair and dutifully watched the end of what is probably the greatest TV Show Ever tonight, and had a good time with it.

The finale was a mixed bag. (Spoiler alert, whatever…) Phil Leotardo’s demise was great theatre, and that cocksucker got what he fucking deserved. But the fake foreshadowing with A.J. was very annoying. When his car caught on fire I thought for sure he was caught in the crosshairs, and was gonna be the victim of a car bomb. But, no. When he started driving the BMW and backed up to the camera sporting a NJ license plate with the letters “RDX”, I thought for sure he was going out in a blaze of glory. But, no. Vague talk of indictments on the way led us to a final scene at a diner with a shifty patron headed to the bathroom and we have to assume he didn’t come outta there with just his dick in his hand. As Meadow heads for the door of the diner, some black dudes enter, another reminder of the gas station scene where Phil’s head goes out like a grape, aaaaannnnnd, scene.

Scene! Not even fade to black, just black. Black, credits, that’s it, thanks for coming, motherfuckers.

Draw your own conclusions, I have mine. Bottom line, The Sopranos is over, one way or another, end of story.

Fuck.

P.S.
I realize David Milch is behind the new series “John from Cincinnati”, which is being groomed as the Sopranos replacement. Milch is the genius behind N.Y.P.D. Blue, my last TV tragedy. But I’m thinking that “Entourage” and “The Wire” have more of a chance of retaining my HBO subscription money than this new surfer bullshit (that I’m about to watch).

P.P.S.
Is Frank Vincent like not the most typecast tragic mob guy in all of mob cinema?! Like gosh! And I even saw “Ten Benny”, so I know what the fuck I’m talking about.

What a bunch of idiots these guys are. With the Floyd Landis Show currently unfolding at Pepperdine University, complete with tales of Greg LeMond’s weenie and an obsfucatory defense that would make Johnnie Cochran proud, now it appears that Oscar Pereiro—the man who finished second to Landis in the 2006 Tour de France and the man who stands poised to claim a belated yellow jersey if Landis is proven guilty of cheating—is also mixed up in the Operation Puerto scandal, the scandal that has already forced Jan Ullrich out of the sport and brought Ivan Basso into the darkest point of his career (and hopefully will rid the sport of Tyler Hamilton once and for all).

Doping has been going on for years, this much is clear. For me, the wake-up call was in 1990 when I read A Rough Ride, by Paul Kimmage. Kimmage, a former pro, saw first hand what was going on and was one of the first to come out (after retirement) and say how dirty the sport of cycling was. But business as usual remains the order of the day, and it only seems to have gotten worse. The Festina affair and then Marco Pantani have come and gone, and then the biggest mess of all: Operation Puerto blows up the ‘06 Tour, and then Landis with the manufactured testosterone coursing through his veins.

Puerto is kicking some major ass; Ullrich, Basso, Hamilton. And now with Perriero implicated, we have the loser-was-doing-it-too scenario. Which begs the question, “where does it end?” It sure as hell seems like no one is clean in the sport. And what pisses me off is that they all take us for a bunch of fools, with their explanations for all these drug test failures. Landis has the Jack Daniel’s defense, Hamilton has the hilarious chimera defense. But so far my favorite is the latest from Pereiro:

“...if I have to use DNA to demonstrate my innocence, I will leave cycling, because it’s obvious that cycling like that isn’t worth it.”

Cycling like what? Like an honest competitor? Like a guy who has nothing to hide? Or do you mean cycling under a system that has an ironclad method of catching all the dopers? Yeah, proving you’re not an outright cheater (and a contract violator and a fraud) via a simple drug test, remaining in the sport you supposedly love, getting paid to race a bicycle—just isn’t worth it. What an ass.

I don’t know what the answer is—and cycling sure as hell isn’t the only sport that is completely suffused with drugs—but I’m just sick and tired of these guys offering lame-ass excuses for their results. In some ways, Ullrich has shown more stones by “retiring” than any of these other guys with their nonsense.

Well, what the hell do you know. One of my little old blog posts has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal!

Something tells me that a lot of WSJ readers who may ultimately ferret out my website will not be entertained by the majority of my content, however…

Much as I’m enjoying watching Alberto Gonzales go down in flames, the rabid scenes in the Senate last week were quite tiresome. Seriously; Nancy Pelosi with foam dribbling from her jowls is incredibly unappetizing. All these donation-collecting suit monkeys crawling around Washington are the same: they only show some stones once it becomes clear that the only idiot in town bigger than Gonzales is Bush. I’m sick of hearing them all talk, from both sides of the aisle. And I have a proposal to fix this:

If I can find a quote from a mob movie that fits the situation, the quote shall serve as hearing, trial, verdict, end of story. No op-ed pieces, no press conferences, and for damn sure, no Hillary. And so, here we go:

In the matter of All Concerned and Even Remotely Intelligent Citizens of the United States of America versus Soon-to-be-former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, I, mob movie buff Rob Guglielmetti, refer this entire dealio to a single quotation from the film “Casino”. I will make the opening statements, in the form of a scene synopsis, and then hand it over to Robert DiNiro, playing the role of Casino Manager Sam “Ace” Rothstein, who shall preside over this case.

The scene in question is the one where Don Ward—a real dope who was handed a job as slots manager because he had friends in town—was on-duty while three four-reel slot machines paid off huge jackpots in a matter of minutes. Mr. Rothstein is understandably pissed, feeling this had to be the result of a scam, a scam that Don Ward simply had to be in on. The People argue that this scam mirrors the firings that Mr. Gonzales is having such a hard time recalling precisely what he’s been told to say about the matter. Ace wishes to fire poor, dumb Slots Manager, and Don, understandably, resists, claiming ignorance. But all he can come up with in his defense is a simple “This is not how you treat people”. And with that introduction, I turn this matter over to Sam Rothstein. Ace?

Listen, if you didn’t know…, you’re too fuckin’ dumb to keep this job. If you did know, that means you were in on it. Either way, you’re out. Get out!

I believe this matter is adjourned. Al, pack up your shit and get the hell out of town.

Well, shit. Molly Ivins, my favorite Texan, has died. Losing her third battle with breast cancer, one of our greatest bastions of clear thinking and best practitioners of humorous-while-pissed-off writing is no longer around to comment on the bullshit that politicians do.

I still remember reading one of Molly’s editorials in the Star-Ledger, back in New Jersey, a few months before the second Iraq War began. I was struck by how clearly she distilled the issues, and how humorously she did so. I followed her syndicated column, and read her excellent book Bushwhacked, a book you should all read. One of her rants from last May even garnered a post on my website, for what that’s worth. Read the book, read her columns. While you’re at it, watch the movie Bush’s Brain for some great interview clips from Molly about the Evildoer in Chief currently taking up space in the White House.

Molly was great. In the style of Jon Stewart, and in response to the political realities of the day, she kept you laughing, to keep you from crying. She will be sorely missed.

Reading some of the pieces she wrote in past years that related to her battle with cancer reminded me of my dad’s losing battle with cancer, and my attempts to write about and reflect on cancer as an attempt to cope with the experience. Molly’s writing on the topic is just so good, it’s inspiring. And then you realize she’s written her last column.

Rest easy, Molly. You fought a great fight. Several, in fact.

Now head on over to Creator’s Syndicate read her obit, and then read her work. All her latest syndicated stuff is there: Molly Ivins’ Syndication Page.

There’s also a little about Molly in each of these obits and tributes below, all worthy of a read. The last link there is to the piece Molly wrote about cancer a few years ago.

Read this.
Read this too
and this…
this…
this…
and definitely this.

Here it is, folks. The State of the Union Address. Sadly, this is a rather accurate depiction of what we’ve got going on in Washington.

Watch: “The REAL State of the Union Address”