February 14, 2005

Happy Valentine's Day

    A few years ago, I wrote a poem called Being Single on Valentine's Day. This was in the days before
e-mail, so I had it on a piece of paper, and it's been lost. I only remember the first two lines
            You're single on Valentine's Day, so what do you have to lose?
            Instead of buying flowers you can spend your money on booze!

So clearly you can see where I was going with that. This is one of the most overhyped holidays in the
world, and it excludes a whole group of people. Think about it. Even St. Patrick's Day, you don't have to
be Irish to get drunk and act like an a$$hole. But if you're single Valentine's Day is just another day on
the calendar.
    So, with this being the first year that I've had a significant other on Valentine's Day in a long time, I
want to let the singles out there know that Weekly Mail stands with you. Go out and have a beer or two
tonight. If it makes you feel better, Tara's working till 5:30 PM and my shift starts at 5 PM.
Happy f--king Valentine's Day!

   
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    So because Paul McCartney is 62 years old, hasn't had a number one hit since the 80's, and didn't
curse, strip or tear up a picture of the Pope, nobody under the age of 40 would want to tune in to the
Super Bowl halftime show, right?
Not so fast.
    Go into any Beatle Internet chatroom, or check any Beatle related website. Check and see how long
the Beatles "1" CD was on the charts. And then see how many people between ages 14-29 bought that
CD.
     Ask anyone who was at the Super Bowl or even many who were watching on TV if it was dull watching
McCartney perform Hey Jude, which is like having the opportunity to watch Beethoven perform one of
his symphonies. Or Olivier playing Hamlet.
     What really cracks me up is that its the same critics who were so appalled at Janet "Malfunctioning
Breast" Jackson that are saying that McCartney's performance was dull. One idiot in the Daily News said
they should eliminate halftime shows all together. He may be right, but don't blame Paul McCartney. I
know plenty of people who didn't think he was dull.
   

R.I.P. St. Mary's Winfield- 1854-2005.

    Well, the parish itself isn't closing down, but the school is. What a shame. The alma matter for at least
10 of us is about to be combined with St. Sebastian's. It's not really a huge shock, seeing that three
administrations (Fr. Callahan, Fr. Berran, and Fr. Moynahan) ran the school into the ground. Indeed, these
guys made the Bush administration seem like pillars of financial responsibility.
    But I'm here to honor my old school, not to bury it. After all, St. Mary's shaped our early years. Many
of us spent 9 years there, how many of us have spent 9 years at a job? And at a job that had some of
the most miserable people on earth as our bosses.
    There were 3 principals in my tenure at St.Mary's. The miserable Sr. Theresa, who I believe may have
ties to Osama Bin Laden; St. Mary Anne, the Jimmy Carter of principals; and the tough but fair Sr.
Lenore.
    My kindergarten teacher was a nightmare, so was Mrs. Lopez my 6th grade teacher. I couldn't stand
Mrs. McArdle my 3rd grade teacher until after she was my teacher, and to this day she is still very good
friends with me and my family.
    My 7th grade teachers were my favorites, as well as my second grade teacher. I had two teachers quit
in 5th grade and one in 6th, which has to be some sort of parochial school record.
I played a Leprechaun in 2nd Grade, Fred, Ebeneezer Scrooge's nephew in 3rd Grade (Ray McGarvey
played Bob Cratchit) an Astronaut in 4th grade and the Pied Piper in 5th grade. I tossed my cookies in
room 212 in 5th grade, and missed my school safety award luncheon in 6th grade to watch my dad
march in a ticker-tape parade.
    When I was in 8th grade, a 7th grader upset my classmate Dave Robinson in a spelling bee, which is
still a bad memory, despite the fact that the 7th grader, Mary McGarvey DePuy, is now one of my
closest friends in the world.
    There were over 600 students when I graduated from there in 1987, now, its less than 200. Another
business, gone under.
If anyone has any memories about St. Mary's that they'd like to share, you can go to their website,
(http://users.erols.com/bvmqueens/) and reminisce.

THE NHL
    Sometime this week, the NHL will finally cancel the 2004-2005 NHL season. And the fact of the matter
is, they should have done it a long time ago. The owners had no intention of playing the season.
     I couldn't say this for sure until December 9. That's when the league rejected the union's proposal to
roll back 24% of their salaries, and to implement a luxury tax.
      The owners want to put in a hard salary cap that will make the NFL's cap look weak. They want to
ensure cost certainty in an enterprise in which nothing is certain. Most importantly, they want to break the
union.
       Now, I'm the first person on earth to laugh when I hear about professional athlete's unions. I've yet
to see any athlete walk a picket line, and few athletes have ever had to endure hardships that regular
union workers have had to endure while striking for what they believe in. If you're making a million bucks
a year, you should be able to squeeze by.
   But these NHL owners have set new standards for chutzpah. Their determination to break the players
union far exceeds any other motivation they have with this lockout.
    So why not just come out and cancel the season right away when that was their intention al along?
Well, by canceling the season, they are forced to refund season ticket money. By not canceling the
season, they were able to hold on to that money and make interest off of it. And since they didn't have
to shell out for any operating costs, they made that much more money.
    Meanwhile the fans get screwed, as usual. Alot of people said baseball would never recover from the
1994 strike, and the only reason it did was that Bud Selig used the last trick up his sleeve (inter league
play) and mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa took the sport on their steroid injected backs in 1998.
     I can't see what tricks hockey has. Unless they play without goalies to increase scoring, hockey as we
know it is probably dead.

I remember once watching comedian Rich Little impersonate Richard Nixon, and he said
"I never did anything wrong.....    and I promise I'll never do it again!"
    That's what I thought about watching Jason Giambi's press conference last week. It was like that
Thompson Twins song Hold Me Know, where they sing "I ask you forgiveness, though I just don't know
what I'm asking it for." He probably would have been better off saying nothing.

Lynne Stewart

    The story of Lynne Stewart should be a cautionary tale for all liberals (and even some conservatives)
who let their passions get the best of them.
     Stewart's story starts out admirably enough. A Harlem school librarian who was outraged over the
amount of black students who were unable to read, she decided to pursue a law degree in order to help
those that were being failed by the system.
     But her frustration at not being able to change the system frustrated her. Her frustration turned to rage
and hatred. And that rage and hatred led her to represent Sheik Omar-Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of
the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. And that led her to overstep her bounds as an attorney and aide
this animal in his terrorist activities.
       So she was found guilty this week and may spend the rest of her life in the slammer. And herein lies
the lesson. There's an old saying "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." People who hate the
government in general and the President in particular, may be inclined to hook up with organizations that
are naturally opposed to US Government policies. Even if said organizations condone terrorism. Sadly
that's what happened to Lynne Stewart. Let the lesson be learned from her.
I think that's all we got here.
Have a Great Week
Bill