Did I tell you that I had a strange dream on Monday night? I was the Reverand Al Sharpton at an outdoor convention where I was getting ready to speak. I kept looking for a good place to smoke a quick one-hitter, but couldn't find anything secluded or inconspicuous enough. You know how bad the cops would love to bust the Reverand Al for taking a toke right before a speech. Anyhow, I couldn't find a place to smoke, so I just kept walking up to the stage, where the lady running the thing told me I was too late and I missed my chance. They knew I have a tendency to take more time than I should, and that I often go off the script, for better or worse. Anyhow. They weren't letting the next person up to speak for two reasons... one, because he/she wasn't there yet either; two, there was a problem with the top tech distribution (don't ask).

This guy walked up to the podium in a white dress shirt that was completely ubuttoned, exposing his hairless, ninny chest. He had one of those thin black ties on, but not tied, just hanging on one side of the shirt. A couple more seedy looking guidos approached the stage looking quizical.


So I says to the guys, I says, "You guys the geeks?"

then I woke up



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I was planning on writing my epic Hockey Lockout Kill Gary Bettman post, but it's late and West Wing has gotten me thinking about chickens and sounding Presidential.

Here's a short synopsis of my ire.

The owners are the ones responsible for letting players' salaries get out of control. They are the ones that negotiated them, signed the checks and introduced them at the press conference. The owners are the ones who were running companies in the red for who knows how long and they are trying to make the players pay for it.

How many public companies have you heard of that are allowed to run so far in debt that they have to change the rules to play by? I'm not talking about Chapter 11, debt protection, mergers or anything. I'm talking about screwing something up so bad that the only way to fix it is to pretend it never existed in the first place.

New York is the largest market for sports in the world. New York is famously successful for fostering profitable sports teams. The Islanders and the Devils aren't NY teams, but they are somewhat successful. Every New York sports team (Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, Football (not arena)) sells out most of their games, makes a profit and wins quite often. New York teams also charge more money for tickets than anywhere else. Why should the Rangers, who charge $150 for good seats, be forced to put mediocre product on the ice because Colorado overpayed for Joe Sakic, or Anaheim overpayed for Sergei Federov, etc? The Yankees argument doesn't work because they haven't won in a couple years and the Rangers, who have had the highest payroll forever, haven't made the playoffs in eight. But they have a great squad and sell-out every night.

Fuck Gary Bettman.

His arguments are a sham and ESPN and WFAN and all other media aren't free of blame either. The most people have heard about hockey and the arguments all year is when the season died. They did not push the discourse or explain the details... they trotted out Barry Melrose, Bill Clement and Darren Pang to tow the check-writers line. Bullshit.

The players should not be forced to compromise unilaterally because the owners have made terrible decisions, run awful businesses and erased the word 'budget' from their business models. Fuck all the owners.

This is not my post about the lockout.