January 17,2005

Happy MLK Day!

    Friday night I met Tara and Danielle and Metro 53. I had the chance to catch up with James and Marty
Tubbs, and get a good drink on. I also got to hear some good stories about the old Ryan McFadden's,
of which Tara and Jim are former employees.
    I know I told some of you about Father Pete, but for those of you who I didn't tell, Father Pete is a
priest at Holy Cross Church, across the street from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. To say that he's not
your average priest is the understatement of all time.
    Tara met him when she was working at McFadden's. He would come in for a drink or for dinner, or on
Ash Wednesday, to give out ashes. He and Steve McFadden were pals. He also has a time share in the
Hamptons.
    I first met Pete on the Friday before Thanksgiving. He had about 100 people to the rectory for dinner.
Tara told me that he goes to Elaine's every Thursday and Friday night. "He likes to go out and drink" she
told me. And you know what I say: Show me a priest who goes out for drinks, and I'll show you a priest
who keeps his hands off altar boys.
    Tara and Jamesy convinced me to head up to Elaine's to see Pete and McFadden, and to meet Elaine
herself. So off we went.
    Elaine's is one of the more famous haunts in New York City. It's a place where common folk like us
may find ourselves sitting next to a movie star. Tara and I stumbled in there around 1 am, and sure
enough there was Pete, at a table with about 10 other people, including the infamous Elaine herself.
Elaine gave me some long hard looking over and I was ready to get going.
    We didn't stay long, I'm sure we'll be back. We'll have to go for dinner. Supposedly it's a great place
for authors. so I'll definitely be back.

The Trouble With Harry

    Seeing all the uproar this week with Britain's Prince Harry having been photographed wearing a Nazi
uniform at a costume party, brought to mind one of the very first episodes of South Park I ever saw.
   In the very first Halloween episode, Cartman dressed up as Adolf Hitler, causing everyone in school to
gasp. He gets sent down to Principal Victoria's office where he is forced to watch an outdated filmstrip
narrated by Smokey the Bear, who says "Adolf Hitler was a very bad man.... So remember children,
dressing up like Hitler is not cool."
    Now I'm sure that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were trying to get shock laughs
here, but to me they also proved a point: Every knows that Hitler and the Nazi's represent bad things, but
nowadays, do people really know why?
     Every history class in the world teaches about the Holocaust, but as the years go on, and the
survivors start to die, it's possible that people are starting to lose grasp of how awful these atrocities
were. And if it can happen where 6 million people were killed, it could happen years from now when they
talk about the 3,000 people that were killed on 9/11.
     I'm by no means apologizing for what Prince Harry did, but I believe he was doing it as a prank. There
are some groups that dress up as Nazi's because they represent true hate. The Prince, I'm sure, like
Parker and Stone was going for shock value. It doesn't get him off the hook. He of all people should
know better
     One of the reasons his great grandmother the Queen Mum, was such a hero in Britain was because of
her refusal to leave London, even as it was being leveled by Nazi bombs. If anybody should know the
depths of evil that the Nazi's imposed, it should be the royal family.
     And according to the London Sun, Prince Charles is making sure Harry doesn't screw this up again.
He's sending him to Auschwitz to tour the museums and making him watch Schindler's List. I don't
consider Charles to be particularly bright, but this is brilliant. Because just yelling and screaming at
releasing press statements, as most of these politicians and organizations are doing, is not going to get
it done. Education, and real deep explanations of what happened, are what's going to ensure that people
Price Harry's age and younger understand just how awful the things that those symbols mean really were.

Bush's inauguration:

     Last week, Imus asked Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) if he was outraged over the excess money being
spent on the inauguration. Dodd responded along the lines of this being a symbol of a bloodless
transfer of power and it should be celebrated. I agree......  
for the first inauguration.
     The first one truly is a bloodless transfer of power, either from the loser to the winner, or to a
President who was term limited out of office, to a newly elected President. But if you get re-elected, I
don't see the need for a huge party. Especially at a time of war and with people still struggling. Bush
should just go to the Capitol, get sworn in, go have lunch, and get back to work. Knowing Bush, he'll
probably party so hard, that he'll need to take a few days off at his ranch in Texas when its all over.

The Jets  

    I know this is going to sound strange, being that I've defended him the past few years, but after
Saturday's loss to the Steelers, I wouldn't be too upset if Woody Johnson decided to send Herman
Edwards packing.
    Paul Hackett will most certainly be canned, and if I were the Jets, I wouldn't have even let him on the
plane out of Pittsburgh. And if Edwards goes with him, that would be fine with me.
    The Steelers are a great team, and there should be no shame in losing to them. Except they offered
that game up on a silver platter, and the Jets, because of Edwards and Hackett said no thank you.
    Chad Pennington is also taking some heat,but I actually thought he played fairly well. He completed
some clutch passes. But if the man upstairs calling the plays is too chicken-sh-t to have Pennington
throw the ball downfield, how can you blame the QB?
    Last week, I told Nisha I was thinking of sending a basket of fruit to Charger coach Marty
Schottenheimer for his unexplainable play calls right before Nate Keading missed his 40 yarder in OT.
But then Edwards and Hackett do the same thing at the end of the 4th quarter. Even worse, they have
Pennington take a knee on third down! Talk about having no balls!
    Edwards is a good motivator and a nice man, but his clock management and use of time-outs are
laughable. I realize that his is the best 4 year record of any coach who has ever coached the Jets, but I
can only see them regressing with him in charge.
     This game reminded me alot of the infamous Giants-49ers game a couple of years ago. The Giants
had a huge lead and blew it. The Jets didn't have a huge lead, but they did have two chances to win it.
The Giants have yet to recover from that game. Since that day, the Giants have gone 10-22. I could
definitely see this happening to the Jets. They won't have the cream-puff schedule they had this year,
and I don't think they have it in them to recover from this loss.
    This franchise is cursed, and moving to a new stadium isn't going to change anything. They may as
well stay out there in the Meadowlands, the good for nothing pieces of sh-t that they are.
    I'll forgive the Steelers if they can knock off the New England dirtbags, but they'll have to play a hell
of alot better than they did Sunday. A-holes that they are, the Patriots can play some ball. They're not the
Jets. And Weekly Mail says that the Falcons will knock off the Eagles next week as well.

That's all I have to say.
Have a Great Week
Bill