The Commander, guest contributor


Hi there, welcome to The DEEG. I’m “The Commander”, which is totally a play on Cobra Commander. Confession: I’m a giant GI Joe dork, I have an entire room full of action figures and shit. I’m a grown ass man and everything. I even have a job, and a girlfriend, and a shitload of cats and dogs. If you don’t know me, that’s ok I haven’t written anything long form in forever.  Basically, I’m a Twitter smartass and the people who run this place love that sort of thing so they gave me a chance to be funny and entertaining in more than 140 characters.

First a little background so that you guys get where I’m coming from when it comes to my relationship with Buffalo sports. I was actually born in Cleveland and moved to Buffalo when I was about 9 years old. Being too young to really care about the Cleveland teams, I latched onto the Bills and Sabres and grew up following them. The first Bills game I attended in person was The Comeback, so really It’s been all downhill from there. About 2 years ago I moved to California and jinxed the only pro team in my immediate area into moving to Seattle. You’re welcome Sacramento! Despite having a “9 to 5” I’ve been able to watch like 95% of every Sabres game this year…thanks to mobile devices and working from home occasionally. So now that you have an idea of the lengths I go to be disappointed in my sports teams, I feel that I can openly bitch and complain about them for you. The only difference between you and I is that at least when the Bills and Sabres suck unequivocal amounts of ass in November or December, I don’t have to shovel snow.

This is a terrible time to jump aboard the DEEG, Bills season is long over and another shitty Sabres season is behind us. But I wanted to take this time and reflect on the 5 things that I hated the most about the past Sabres season.

AS IF YOU NEEDED ONE, AMIRITE??

The Barrister


I hate having to write this, but I'm a sucker for accuracy and specificity and setting the record straight when it's been sullied by knuckledragging journalists who couldn't care less about accuracy, professionalism or personal hygiene, and today was a perhaps overlooked adventure in misrepresentation in media and the willingness of fans to fall down a rabbit hole of obfuscation.

How's that for a fun potshotting intro? You're hooked! You're blissfully unaware I'm just a hack, basement-dwelling blogger!! Success!


The good (great) news is that this isn't a fan piece on booing. It's a fan piece on why the #WhiteVanBrigade has failed us, again.  

Today...

NEWSFLASH: RYAN MILLER AND RON ROLSTON CALL SABRES FANS ASSHOLES FOR BOOING; FANS RETORT BY CALLING THEM UNDERPERFORMING PUSSIES

It's probably more fun to just believe that our favorite players and our coach are talking directly to us after a game, giving unsolicited comments about the game we just watched. It's more fun to think of just those comments, and not the context of those comments when assessing a game story because, among many reasons, Paul Hamilton and Mike Harrington are both creepy and weird looking and who wants to think that they're part of the scenario.  Hell, I can't be bothered to watch locker room interviews after a Sabres game anymore for fear of a walrus peeking out in the corner of the frame, voice recorder in hand, pastrami sandwich in pocket.

The Barrister

Back from a pretty long hiatus, the Deeg is back with another CrapTastiCast, and it's one some of you have been waiting for since Mr. White and I exchanged words over the NHL Lockout in October.  We spoke about having Jeremy chat record with us at the time, but daddy duties and Hurricane recovery put this on the backburner until now.  

Perhaps that delay was for the best since, in the month and a half that has followed that initial twitter fight (God I feel so stupid typing that), Jeremy and I have had a chance to talk more about the lockout.  While I wouldn't say we've reached any kind of consensus on those issues that got me so heated in October, it's become apparent that Jeremy is a civil dude (not always readily apparent on twitter... which could be said about many) and that civility plays itself out on what you'll listen to here.

My apologies if you came here expecting nothing but our unbridled asshole shtick. Frankly, we care too much about the issues of the lockout to cave into our sophomoric tendencies - at least this time - especially when we have a guest willing to look beyond the fact that I may or may not have called him a equivocating hack/dickhole back in October.  /rushes to delete Deeg archives /trips over beer cans /farts /forgets original task

Which isn't to say that this CrapTastiCast is entirely devoid of those tendencies you've come to know and love. Along for the ride are The Scizz and The Continental. In addition to the lockout, we talk Bills, Jets, Mets, Knicks and stumble through a few completely inappropriate conversations about drugs in closets and Scizz's love for our 43rd President.  

If you're only interested in our talk with Jeremy, cue it to 15:55 and enjoy. Also - give yourself the finger from us since we think you should listen to the whole fucking thing.

In addition to our usual intro, Deeg house band The Jambrones help us out with our first two musical interludes, while the rest is picked up by Audioslave and Brother Ali. 

Podcast page here. Direct download here. iTunes link below or Subscribe via our RSS feed here. And, of course, stream audio in the player below if you wish.

The Barrister

I don’t think my liver was really ready for that delightful mess of a game.

Defensive dominance? A special teams touchdown? Thrilling, last-minute interceptions? A 50/50 split of running and passing plays? Apologist buying round after round of preemptive victory shots, chased down by Lagunitas IPAs?

So. Much. Win.

As a new dad, and a Bills fan, I haven’t gotten many days or nights like that recently, and I’m not entirely sure I could handle it if one of my teams actually started to get good for once. I know the team is bad, and we’ll get to that, but fuck what a fun night. 

Which isn’t to say it wasn’t ugly.  After all, winning ugly – very ugly, mostly – appears to be the best we can reasonably expect from this enigma of a squad.  But, after putting together one of their most complete games of the year in Foxboro this past week, only to fall short when it mattered, the Bills took an early lead at home and cherished it like the rare commodity that it is. They ran the ball often relative to their track record, relied on their best player to get them the points they needed – albeit via field goals – and made sure not to disappoint a home crowd itching to get that primetime monkey off its back.

It honestly shouldn’t have worked, seeing as they’re a garbage team coached by a garbage Chan and owned by a garbage taint, but it’s not like the Universe doesn’t owe us a game like that every once in a while.  And even with the playoffs a supremely unlikely scenario for these Bills, a win is a win is a boy this team is not very good please god where is hockey?

Screw it.... On to the milquetoast takes!

The Deeg


What a busy week it has been at DGWU Sports! Between news of the NHL Lockout and our battles with the various personalities at WGR for refusing, as is their custom, to engage with viewpoints other than (a) their own, or (b) those of the mouthbreathers who call into WGR and make it their mission to express their vehement disdain for everything in the world, there was a LOT to discuss when we gathered Wednesday night. More shots were fired and kindling put onto the world of Buffalo sports media so that we can continue to watch it burn. Heh. Sports.

Oh, and there are those Buffalo Bills, too, which is actually where we started in segment one as we recapped the shit show that was Sunday with the Deeg. Bills @ Cardinals was by no means an enjoyable time, but recapping the fun times we had and the trainwreck of a game ended up being pretty fun/depressing/rage-inducing.

In segment two we welcomed Colin Bruckel, one of the founders of TheHosers.com, a site we have linked to for a while and which provides stellar insight about the legal issues surrounding professional hockey and, in particular, the CBA. Colin's assessment of the current CBA negotiations was as interesting and well-presented as any I've heard, and it is an understatement to say that we were lucky to have him on. I would note, however, that since our discussion took place before the NHLPA presented its own offers to the league (and before Bettman rejected them immediately), you'll want to keep an eye on his site for more hot legal takes. Or you could continue being ignorant and just keep listening to the superficialities of sports talk radio.

Segment three brings it back to our wheelhouse of inappropriateness and ill-conceived sports takes as we talk the USMNT's win on Tuesday, the NBA's new policy restricting pre-game celebrations, Apologist's suicidal ideations following the Orioles' elimination from the playoffs, and our predictions for the Bills/Titans game this weekend. I must add that we had intended to talk more about (read: make fun of) Shawne Merriman's return to Buffalo, but had to toss that to the back burner so we'd have time to talk about the more pressing issues of gloating about our intellectual superiority over talk radio hosts. It's a burden, really. In any event, I'm hopeful that Merriman's second tenure in the 716 will give us plenty of opportunities to point and laugh. 

Musical interludes this week are provided by Broken Bells, Gov't Mule & REO Speedwagon, as well as - of course - The Jambrones. 

Download here and stream below, or check out our Libsyn page or iTunes button below where you can get all of our archived podcasts and subscribe for future hot, aural takes.

The Barrister

Yesterday, following a night where I got little sleep due to fatherly duties and an ill-conceived desire to bait racist Obama-haters on the internets at 4 am, I awoke to a familiar theme in my Twitter feed from a familiar source.  Jeremy White, WGR morning show pocket rocket, was criticizing the NHLPA and players for their (alleged) insistence on portraying themselves as victims. He doesn't think fans - not most fans, but ANY fans - buy that kind of meme, and he thinks fans - not some fans, but ALL fans - will eventually turn on the players as a result.  In a stunning bit of word gymnastics, he criticized the NHLPA for a PR strategy while, in a subsequent response, claiming that PR is irrelevant. 

This wasn't the first time I heard something similar from him about how stupid the players are to whine about their situation and about how their "playing the victim" routine is bound to backfire. I haven't seen much about the owners "whining" (as if a forced work stoppage was anything other than a petulant tantrum in grownup terms) in his critiques, of course, so you're definitely right, before we continue, to question whether I chose a nonstarter and whether an employee at the "Radio Home of the Buffalo Sabres" would bother conceding any points about the quality of the players' position in this whole fiasco. (More on that in the future, I'm sure...)

Though, perhaps stupidly, I chose to engage. I had points to make, what with White's consistent anti-labor diatribes and my general sympathy for those wishing to adhere to contractual principles of fairness. Out of character for me, I had enough restraint to make my points without calling Mr. White a douchebag or fascist or idiot or any number of things that I thought then and have thought since. I'm a documented asshole, and these are the kinds of things I think sometimes.  I went to law school, in part, to channel my energy more constructively so people would like me more.  So, I tried to be nice, tried to be persuasive, and generally found myself colliding with a brick wall of contrarian nonsense in consistent support of NHL ownership's power grab. Huh. #StateSponsoredRadio

Using my conversation with White as a point of reference, Outlander talked yesterday about how disappointing WGR and the Buffalo News tend to be with their lockout coverage - something not exclusive to WNY - and how it's especially disappointing given the general sophistication (meaning attention to details, not necessarily expertise or general intelligence) of Buffalo hockey fans. Outlander made the point, long obvious, but no less true, that we deserve better.

Outlander also left the door open for future debate. And since the lockout may or may not be close to ending, and since my conversation with Mr. White, by it's nature on twitter, was character limited and, perhaps more importantly, unavailable to fans of the Deeg not on Twitter, I wanted to take an opportunity to flesh a few things out. 

And since I (and others) already did the polite discussion routine to no avail, I can't promise I'm not about to be a huge dick right now. You've been warned.

The Outlander

I really thought it was going to take longer than one week and what, two games before I’d tweak out and put fingers to keyboard about the NHL lockout. I mean, between the play-calling from the head coach, the defensive schemes of the mustachioed DC, the inability of the quarterback to throw anything aside from a screen pass, and the general douchebaggery of the CEO and ownership, the Bills certainly give us plenty to talk about, though substantively little to cheer about. There are our fantasy football teams, the baseball playoffs- which should certainly keep the soulless parasites that cheer for the Yankees and Cardinals fairly entertained, and a wildly engaging college football season which I have attempted to encapsulate to fill our hockey void. As for the frozen game itself, we got a team an hour down the Thruway stacked with Foligno, Girgensons, and McNabb, as well as numerous college hockey options both inside the area and- thanks to increased television exposure- outside the area.

In most conversations during the summer I anticipated I wouldn’t really give a shit until November and that my personal prediction (a season that starts with the Winter Classic) wouldn’t be too irritating anyways. After all, under such a scenario, you have numerous young players who have taken their licks in basically the AHL on steroids, and veterans who have played against each other in quality European leagues. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that this is just fucking stupid. There’s so much goddamned white noise being spewed at us from every direction; it’s enough to wear down even the most diligently informed fans, mostly because NO ONE is talking to the diligently informed fans. I’m not talking about those of us with law degrees or experience in contract negotiations, I’m simply talking about the many of us who like to stay informed on the negotiations, the developments. No one is talking to us. In that way it really parallels the non-stop squawking that so many tire of during the never-ending Presidential election cycle (yours truly not included, as any of my poor twitter followers are acutely aware). The candidates and their surrogates aren’t speaking to those who scour the internet for news or who have solid opinions on what the social safety net should look like, they’re going after the meathead in Massilion, Ohio whose brother got laid off in 2008 and needs someone to get angry at. It’s why juries never want too many educated people; just one or two who can be swayed and then sway their ignorant and apathetic colleagues.

_By @jambrones & @boner_shorts

I am a Jambrone. 
I write songs about Buffalo sports. 
I pump you up.
I make you nod your head. 
I make you sing along.
And yes, I give you “douche chills.” 
I get ‘em too.

Because of this rare gift, I have been relegated to the underground, where it’s dark, dirty and verbally violent.  While children are singing along to the sweet melodies of my annoyingly uplifting music, I toil in the shit, the blogosphere, the underground sports media, as one of…them.

It wasn't always like this.  I had a real rock band once.  We played in almost every venue available for original bands in Buffalo through the 90’s.  We also were able to play regularly in New York and Boston and even took a stab at a Midwest “tour”.  We got to open up for big nationally known bands that everybody knew.  However, we were and always will be, a “local band.”

To me, that label, “local band” is much like “blogger”, or “podcaster”, it feels the same: Subpar, subhuman, subservient, and often, subversive.

Through the Jambrones, I’ve come to realize a kinship with these fellow “CHUDs”, if you will.  We share ideas about teams we love presented in a hack-like yet charming manner with no "radio voice" and little regard for journalistic tradition.  And yet, we do it well enough that more than a few strangers have come forward and really like what we do.

We’re just dudes writing and talking about sports; just CHUDs...making songs, writing shit like this piece, rhyming players’ names, and ripping on Matt Ellis.  It’s <gasp> fun.  But ALL of us get squashed regularly by those with sports media power: The Buffalo News and WGR550.
_

The Deeg

Episode 22 of the CrapTastiCast started of with an explosion of NSFW nonsense, transitioned nicely into some solid sports talk, and then degenerated back into a long series of dick jokes and other bathroom humor. So pretty much just like every other episode of the cast.

No more apologies from us.

This week we returned to Beast Studios with a full house, as all four Deeg members finally attended, as well as the infamous Joe Pinzone of Buffalo Wins, and producer Jess (aka Scizzette). The chatter continued about who should stay and who should go on the Sabres roster, the Lindy and Darcy situation, and why we hate most WGR personalities and The Buffalo News. We also celebrate the engagement of a member of the Deeg with our lovely producer, discuss Occupy Nassau details, Yachtsman and Barrister talk Liverpool, and Joe learns what an Eiffel Tower is. Musical interludes come to you this week from Rush (Neil Peart!), Ted Nugent, and at Joe's request, Eminem.

Stream here, or hit up Libsyn or the iTunes button for a download. If you are having trouble with either, please let us know.