First, the weather went bad … literally raining on mine and my bandmate’s plans to get shot for promotional purposes. So I stayed in all day, whiling away the time until my 11:30 hockey game. I spent the bulk of the time working on our band’s webpage. It’s more or less ready, now. We could probably move forward if we had the photos. But we don’t.

I walked to the train at 10 p.m. last night, huge bag of hockey equipment over my shoulder, it’s cold and raining out … but not until I get to the station, three blocks away, and DOWN the STAIRS, do I realize I don’t have my fucking wallet. Yeah.

So, I walked home with all my equipment, got my damned wallet and walked back to the station. When I got to 23rd Street, there were no buses in sight, so I then had to walk the four avenue blocks to Chelsea Piers and then the rest of the way into the complex to the end of the pier, which comprises about another city avenue block.

I’m fit. I’m in good shape. It wasn’t a problem, but it did start to nag at me as the game wore on. My knee isn’t quite back to 100%, though it’s pretty damned close. My team played like shit. I couldn’t score despite a bevvy of great chances … I even got stoned on a sliding two-pad stack save. That was some old school goaltending … but, fuck, did I feel snake bitten; I got great wood on the shot, lifted it too, but all it hit were the pillows. Fuck my life.

(more…)

I dislike Roger Federer. I don’t like his beady eyes. His raptorish nose. His floppy hair.

I don’t like his steamrolling dominance in his sport. Don’t mistake me; I admire a great talent and he is certainly that. I respect his ability. I think he has great skill and he uses it incredibly well to be so indomitable.

But I still don’t like him. In fact, I dislike him most of all because of his dominance.

In my professional duties as a soccer blogger I once wrote that rooting for Manchester United is like rooting for the A-Bomb. You know it’s going to decimate its opponents. Is it really that much fun to witness total devastation? Would it not be a much more uplifting and human story for the target of such a rending catastrophe to survive and prevail?

(more…)

I saw ‘Slap Shot’ a year or so ago, in a bare apartment into which I’d just moved, during the throes of a shit break-up, as if there are good ones. So, there’s the mood: stark walls, a microwave box for a coffee table and constant, bitter acrimony. It has led me to commit sacrilege.

Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood for the movie, which was — in some ways — quite brilliant, but not in the way I expected. I think of it more as a tragedy than a comedy. It is a dejecting snap shot of pathetic losers bound for nowhere, their dysfunctional lives and relationships in a bleak, working class hellhole of a town.

I think the movie’s crucial flaw is that it is purveyed as humor. It is not funny. At least, it wasn’t funny to me. I thought the cheap attempts at comedy were either cringe-inducingly brilliant examples of how unfunny real, boorish and uneducated people are … or just shit writing that fell flat.

(more…)

Find me a mainstream, reputable retailer that is selling a blank NFL jersey. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. Frankly, I can’t believe one doesn’t exist … but on the Internets, it seems there is nowhere else to find a blank football jersey than on eBay. Not Dicks, not Sports Authority, neither Modell’s nor Cosby’s sells an unmarred jersey.

Not to spill any beans, but there is a plot to nab a Giants jersey and customize it with Plaxico Burress’ nom de guerre, Harris Smith. Sadly, finding a jersey to which this can be done in a timely manner is proving rather difficult. Yes, it can be done by buying a jersey from any of the aforesaid retailers and having them send it out to be customized … but there is a time constraint and the retailers’ time tables (two fucking weeks) don’t get the job done in time.

One would think it would be possible just to buy a blank jersey, some iron-on red numbers and letters and voila! … but no. What a racket. The NFL must be trying to capitalize on every customization of their apparel. Why else would they not retail blank jerseys?

As a kid, I had a real love of personalized hockey jerseys. Sadly, the players I liked were not New York-area players and I had to get my jerseys customized with names of the Norris division players I admired. But it was possible, at least. I still have a Roenick, a Chelios and an Yzerman jersey to prove it. As far as I know, it is still possible to buy blank NHL jerseys, and blanks of other professional sports uniforms … just not the NFL.

Again, what a racket. Fleecing the consumer and depriving them of their liberty to sport a blank jersey or to customize it on their own.

Kind of fascist, isn’t it?

It takes me a long time to get to hockey. I live in the sticks of the Greater City of New York. Thankful that I’m not in Mill Basin or Fresh Meadows or Woodlawn; I’m still on a major subway line and not at the terminus of one, either. Still, I live fucking far away from Manhattan. It takes me 20 minutes to hit downtown if everything is moving well. Midtown is a pretty constant 45 minutes from my apartment. Getting to Chelsea Piers is a special kind of hell because not only must I take the 30-minute subway ride to 23rd Street, I must then either walk or hope the M23 bus is coming (it never is) which adds another 20 minutes plus to my trek.

So, 50-plus minutes with a bag full of hockey equipment on my left shoulder. That’s about what it took tonight and after getting dressed and hitting the ice, one of the guys that works at the rink comes skating on and tells us to get off the sheet and go home.

Excuse me? I pay how much to skate at this shithole and you’re telling me to bugger off before I’ve ever had a chance to play the game you scheduled for me at the asinine hour of 10 p.m. on a Wednesday night?

It wasn’t a joke, though. The rink’s GM came out behind the guy and told us all to go home and fast. The reason: the structural integrity of the pier was failing.

Seriously. What a fucking shithole.

Forget that the rinks were built above a parking garage, ensuring that the ice is heated from below during the summer months, guaranteeing that we’ll never get a good sheet until late fall rolls around … and even then, the ice at the Piers is NEVER good. I’ve skated on ponds with better ice, and I mean after hours of use. But yeah, quality of ice aside, how about quality of construction? The fucking place is only 13 years old and it’s in danger of falling into the fucking Hudson? And the money we gout to play there … where does it go? The place is obviously falling apart and there’s no way, even in this financially insane city, that we’re merely covering the costs of operation when a team has to shell out $8,200 to play each season.

So, tonight, I got to skate from the rink door to the bench before being told to go home. It took me about an hour to make it back, so I spent my Wednesday night lugging my equipment around for no reason.

I really hope the whole complex falls into the fucking river tonight. I’d like to see it tank so badly. Yeah, I’ll have nowhere to play for the moment (though I’ve got an invitation to play in Westchester and there’s a rink here in Brooklyn at Floyd Bennett Field), but it would be worth it for all of those crooked bastards that suck us dry to have to cope with the aftermath of their poorly run and built place of work meeting a watery grave.

Fuck you, Chelsea Piers. God, you fucking suck.

I was down in one of my old ‘hoods last weekend (maybe two weeks ago, now, I can’t remember; every day bleeds together) and I was taken aback by how much had changed. I’ve only been in Brooklyn for six years, so I wonder how many things lifelong residents have seen, the ebb and flow of “progress.”

One man’s progress is another man’s ruination. Sure, everyone would rather have new and nice bars and eateries, maybe even a Starbucks or a generic, mom-and-pop facsimile thereof. But with all of that comes higher rents and more stuck-up white people who think, because either their parents or their trust funds are paying their rent, that they’re better than everyone else.

It galls me that the price of a brownstone in Bed-Stuy has topped a million dollars. I’m dumbfounded that people will plunk down $400,000 or more for 400 square feet. And that — for my brand of white person (that is, one who has to pay for everything himself ) — an apartment that’s more than a grand per month apartment is a “bargain.”

I’m grateful I found a place affordable on the ridiculous scale of NY affordability, and when I first came to Brooklyn, some dipshit renting a place south of the Prospect Expressway and west of 4th avenue wanted $1100 for a basement apartment that’s not even as big as what I’ve got now. So, things weren’t hugely reasonable when I first came here … but if I’d looked where I should have back then, I’d be paying less than a grand right now.

But I don’t. And the ridiculous thing is that my place is the cheapest — and one of the biggest — of those rented by everyone I know. Soon enough, I’ll be priced out of this neighborhood, though, just like every other one in which I’ve lived. At some point, the critical mass of uppity whites is reached and the rents explode skyward.

Video Edge, that blessed alternative to Blockbuster, my old stand-by on Flatbush Avenue, is gone. The Prospect Cafe is vacant. Lorena’s is a taco stand. Christie’s is still around, but they moved to the north side of the street because Crunch gym bought out their old space, just like they’d bought out the independent gym that had been next to the Flatbush Pavilion theater which is now a clothing store.

To me, that’s all ruin. The theater is gone. The independent businesses are gone. A shitty, modern condo went up around Prospect and Park places.

Still, Gran Castillo is still around (the one not evicted so that a Duane Reade could go in), and though she’s not all that, Li’l Miss Muffin and her Stuffin’ is still right up from the train at 7th Avenue. Brownstone Billiards, from what I could tell, is still in business.

Yeah. So, things come and things go. I’m still here, but other things have either died in my tenure, been born and died, or were just born and have yet to die. Some businesses are going to fail, others are going to thrive. It’s always the way. Gorilla Coffee is responsible for killing the .25 cent Ms. Pac-Man upright I used to play. Some people wouldn’t have it any other way. I couldn’t care less about GC; I’d rather have an old ducan with an upright arcade machine.

Enough nostalgia and sour grapes for one day, though; I’ve got to eat. I’ve got a hockey game to win tonight.

I’ve already gone over tonight. Tomorrow is the first full day of two without work and I’ve got a couple things slated, watching Newcastle United in the morning and playing hockey at night. That leaves doing taxes during the day or, more likely, grabbing some groceries.

My girlfriend was watching “The Secret” while I puttered around the web, checked my work email and tried to fill the time between the end of the Rangers game (a disappointing loss) and going to bed (as much as I enjoy sleep, a different kind of disappointment).

It’s a captivating premise, that all you have to do is believe the world is yours and so it is. Believe you’ve got money coming and there you have it. Believe you’ll get the hottest chick to lay you and, bingo, she’s in your bed. It’s easy for anyone to dismiss such a philosophy as crackpot-ism and snake-oil salesmanship, but who’s really to say that having it all isn’t just a result of knowing you’ll get what you want?

To me, it’s asinine that only Scots and Britons (and the Dutch, etc.) had the opportunity to get rich in America. By and large, they’re the one’s who did it. Inventing things, starting companies like U.S. Steel or Standard Oil. How does one have the foresight and the wherewithal to do that kind of stuff? I seriously doubt that John D. Rockefeller or Cornelius Vanderbilt had some intricate knowledge about oil and shipping and that’s how they began their businesses. I’m willing to believe they simply knew they’d be big-time and decided “I’m going to do it this way” and so struck out and did it, wooing people with their confidence and charisma into investing in their ideas and buying their products.

Confidence and charisma are the currency of all human interaction. Rich people amass their wealth through whatever variable means, and there are people getting rich all the time. It’s a cop-out to say “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” because it’s a half-truth. Rich people are getting richer because they know how to make money and their money makes them money whether by investment or just accruing interest. Poor people either fiscally stand still or lose money because they have no idea how to better their economic situation, and some know only how to worsen it.

Back to confidence and charisma, it sells things. Anything really. Gatorade. Infomercial wares. From the top-shelf to the bottom-shelf there is psychology behind the method of sale that entices someone to buy. Those with money tend to keep toward the higher-end items and avoid the lower ones, but those without money are susceptible to all forms of coercive vending. In essence, those with high-value are secure enough to avoid being attracted to low-value merchandise while those with low-value are desperate for anything; they’ll take the lowest thing and pine for the highest.

People are still making themselves, even now … despite talk of “it’s impossible to get rich today” or “all the good ideas are already taken” … it’s just that the bulk of people are mired either in the middle or at the bottom and the negativity that festers there is infectious. It serves a main purpose of undermining the ambition of anyone who desires something greater by shattering their aspirations.

Looking back on almost every moment in my life, I have been a negative, choleric individual. It’s easy to be. It takes very little effort to loathe everything and everyone, and it’s a simple cop-out, a way to avoid trying and to placate lethargy. I’ve been told a million times that being a downer really doesn’t hurt anyone but me and those closest to me. The rest of the world wants me to be down, wants me to be miserable; it’s less competition for them or it feeds their schadenfreude to see someone stuck in a depression. Unhappy people revile the contented and the happy. It’s a cocktail of jealousy and rage. No one wants to be a miserable piece of shit, but those who can’t figure out how to be anyone else want everyone else to feel as much like garbage.

So, too, though, do those at the top want to keep down anyone without the right kind of attitude. Someone who doesn’t evince all the characteristics of go-get-em-ness is an undesirable to those with the means of including an aspirant in the culture of wealth and prominence.

As I read somewhere, it’s not about selling out so much as buying in. And, honestly, what would most people rather be: a sellout with a nice home and nice things who is confident and happy and therefore a positive, attractive force … or someone who didn’t sellout and touts their integrity while they claw through life practically destitute and perpetually desirous of more and better things while at the same time resentful of those who have “it all”.

Sometimes it really does seem like there’s a secret to life and that some folks really know what it is, while others just don’t have a clue. Take Mike Bloomberg for example: he knows nothing about computers, but computer security is how he made his fortune.

Chew on that for a while and tell me it isn’t easy if you just know how.

I’m not a huge Easybeats fan, but I recognize their place in musical history and that album title is apropos of today. Not thinking about Friday, but it is Friday and I’m thinking. Close enough.

Rangers take on the Islanders tonight at the Garden, the second game of a home-and-home between the teams. I’m a Red WIngs fan but I can’t bring myself to buy the Center Ice package and I like hockey too much to avoid watching it so I’ve adopted the Rangers to have a team to watch and for which to root.

It’s been an interesting season so far. A lot of parity in the league, but my Wings have stormed to another President’s Trophy. I think they’ve got a great shot at winning the Stanley Cup this year, but the team that wins the league isn’t always the team that wins the Cup.

Rangers, I’m sad to say, don’t have a chance. They play a boring brand of hockey to begin with, but their offense is anemic and their defense is laughable. Their goaltending isn’t consistently reliable (not that the Wings have the best goaltending; they don’t) and I don’t think the Rangers have the character to persevere and get 16 post-season wins out of four best-of-seven series.

Still, tonight there’s a game and it’s something to watch. Tomorrow, Newcastle United plays Reading. I’m hoping the Magpies can manage their third straight win, but the Royals have been looking good of late. It should be, as the Brits say, a “cracker”.

Tonight just wasn’t my night. Both of the hockey teams I play for each lost their semi-final hockey playoff games. We’re done. No championship bid. Same as the previous three seasons. My Frozen Four bracket is toast. I went with my Alma Mater, like I did last year (which paid dividends then), but they blew it this year. And the team I had them beating in the championship game got knocked out tonight, too. It was just a bad night for green.

So, a good hour after I left Chelsea Piers, I got back to my apartment. First thing I did was bust out the Boar’s Head and make a killer sandwich. I’ve been eating Whole Foods cold-cuts for ages because my celiac disease essentially forces me to shop there. But today, I just didn’t feel like making the trip. I went down into the subway, but it refused to come, so I went back above ground and walked over to the friendly neighborhood Foodtown.

I hated Foodtown when I first moved here. It was grossly overpriced and it made shopping locally practically impossible. Lately, though, they’ve got this “low-price guarantee” … I guess I wasn’t the only one screaming highway robbery.

Anyway, it was great to have Boar’s Head again. I love cold cuts. I grew up on deli sandwiches from the Deer Hills deli and they whipped up some paper thin BH cuts that were simply delicious. I got the kid at the Foodtown to cut me some decently thin provisions and he did a pretty good job. Nobody in the ghetto really appreciates deli meat, in my experience, so it takes a lot of compliments and encouragement to get the deli guys to accommodate my white-boy expectations … that is, not slice it slab thick.

After losing the NCAA hockey pool, two hockey playoff games at the Piers, and other of life’s little battles, this sandwich really hits the spot. Ovengold turkey, genoa salami, muenster cheese and some serious greens on brown rice bread with mayo. As my New York Post reporter buddy says about my homemade sandwiches: “That looks like a sandwich a white person would pay a lot of money for.”