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Lady Business: with The Continental

6/28/2013

The Continental

Alright, so the reason I never write about "sports" is because all of my teams are steaming piles of dog shit. Writing about them is tantamount to watching the dog shit: cool, harden and turn white on the corner every day when I walk to work. And Barrister has been begging me to write something for once in my life.

This thought process started with the Buffalo Sabres Twitter account tweeting about some Dancing With The Stars contestant. So turns out she's on Terry Pegula's record label (diversify yo bonds); mystery solved likely. I was sincerely afraid this was part of a "pinkification" operation to reach out to female fans. Because let's be honest, I'm sure no one has learned anything from While the Men Watch or the Ranger's Girls Guide to Hockey.

Hey, the Sabres account might not be on the same snark level as the Kings, at least they're not handing over the account to people I've never heard of who make shitty "jokes" about sexual assault.

What else really pisses me the fuck off? Keep reading.

This photo is called a "teaser"

4 Comments

Now you've got me defending guns because you're just that stupid.

6/28/2013

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The Barrister

What a crazy week. /understatement

Even putting aside the up and down big ticket decisions out of United States Supreme Court this week, and even putting aside that crazy filibuster down in Texas that had us all riveted in a way politics rarely does unless it involves dick pics and/or unruly ejaculate, and even putting aside a bereft Paula Deen trying to rehabilitate her image by lying and crying on The Today Show, it was a crazy week. Even just looking at what's happened in sports, and even just Boston sports, and even just Boston sports that are professional American football.

This is the story of the sports world this week. I don't care that the Hawks just won another title or that the Heat won another, too, or that Wimbledon has been nutty, or that the Washington Redskins continue to hold onto their logo and name in a way that is nothing short of astonishing. Oh, and I didn't follow the NBA Draft but I hear there was a lot going on and that someone ate some Mike and Ikes.

An NFL player - and a pretty high profile one at that - killed a man. And may have killed others. I know there haven't been any convictions yet, but I'm not willing to dwell on suspicions of innocence when the facts give me none.

Every reporter who covers football should care about this. Every fan of pro football should care about this. If you're talking about the story, there is plenty to delve into: explaining the potential motives, sorting through Hernandez's past, speaking with family and friends, digging for information about that 2012 drive-by. All of this comes with the caveat that "Hernandez as villain" is the story. Hernandez as apart from the rest of us - the people who haven't taken it upon themselves to take the life of another.

Sorting through it all is an exercise in trying to find an explanation for some terrible fucking things that have happened, and to adequately frame Hernandez as man and as killer.

This is how we get right. We can do it callously or patiently or quietly or any way we really want. We must respect the victim(s), surely, and hold them up in any way we can. But we owe nothing to the man and killer. He owes us - the society with which he had and broke a sacred social contract - everything.

An eventual conviction and sentence will return Hernandez, in a legal sense, to an equilibrium with society. In a social sense, though, our collective "working through it" is how we get that equilibrium to be real.

The accuracy of this exercise is important, too. It's important to ensure, as we sort through the facts and form opinions about the man and killer, that we don't get bogged down with items far on the periphery. That, in reaching our solution, we don't fall into the trap of bringing other issues into our criticism; other issues that are simply too dissimilar to merit comparison with Hernandez's act on equal terms. Indeed, making anything else the story now, and using the Hernandez case as a springboard, is beyond asinine. It is intellectually reckless.

So when Mario Williams instagrammed a "Grand Theft New England" picture with Hernandez's head photo-shopped on, there is a necessity that those who might comment on it do so in a way that respects the only acceptable frame: Hernandez killed a guy and the rest is just noise in comparison.

What we got, though, was an object lesson in how "journalists" get so wrapped up in finding and creating a story that the words they write are nothing more than alphabetic vomit.

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Music is Sports.

6/27/2013

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"What instrument should my kid play?"

not tuba. shit is gigantic.

@jambrones, Guest Contributor

The easy answer is, “The one they like the sound of.” But, that’s not the right answer in reality. The choice boils down to a finely seasoned stew of the kid’s personality, patience, work ethic, talent and physiology. Since the general public’s knowledge of music is exceeded in horror only by their lack of patience talking about it, I usually cut my opinions way short. However, the general public loves to talk about sports, take their kids to sporting events, team practices and games several times a week. Parents would probably benefit by realizing that learning an instrument and playing a sport are THE SAME DAMN THING. (Exception being the fitness aspect, which judging by the fitness of many parents, is not really a priority. Zing.)

Piano is Soccer.

Every child should take piano lessons for at least a year. It is an excellent beginner instrument. Kids don’t need to learn how to produce a sound on the piano…it’s automatic. Even a cat that scurries across the keyboard gets a purrfect tone. You can teach a 3 year old kid a simple song in 2 minutes. On the piano, you can play melodies, chords, 10 notes at once, super high and super low. It is easy to start, yet daunting to become great. The step by step patterns of Western Music are laid out on the keyboard like a map in front of the player. It’s all there. It’s like a musical abacus. Indeed, the piano is the KING of all Instruments.

And so it goes with soccer. Every child should play soccer for at least a year. It is the undisputed King of all Sports. Anyone can play it. Just kick. Even toddlers understand it. And yet…like the piano it’s a bitch to master, and really easy to be bad at.

ONE OBJECT: SCORE. Ball----> Net. Yay! Repeat. The net is HUGE, and it’s right there, on the grass.

ONE RULE: don’t use your hands. That’s it…go play. As a beginning soccer kid, there are no special super hard skills or techniques like skating or dribbling a basketball or hitting a baseball to slow the process down. It’s a great beginner’s sport; Instant success. YET…like the piano, mastery is evasive. There are advanced dribbling moves and strategy, and a few more rules, just like piano, but in order to get out there and play as a kid, you need not know these things. That is the beauty of it. Easy to learn, hard to perfect. Knowing this, it comes as no surprise that soccer is the most popular sport on earth.

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Because Sometimes You're Wrong

6/26/2013

2 Comments

The Outlander

I see it has been some two months since I last posted, which is utterly unacceptable especially given the fact that I have more "free" time than I had back then. Of course there's also little movement from both of our professional sports teams and even college football season is a full two months away. This is a time for outdoor drinking, golfing and camping, not sitting around complaining about the Sabres and the draft or the Bills schedule. However, I'd like to think we won our little Trending Buffalo vote for reasons that didn't involve going months without posting, and when The Scizz even finds time to make a couple of posts, it's time for me to step it up, even if this disjointed post turned into complaining about the Sabres draft.

I'd like to talk about a team; a team with only a couple aging veterans with any memory of playoff success; a team filled with prospects barely removed from the minors; a team forced to cut ties with it's most loved and most successful coach, a team for which 2007 seems exponentially farther in the rear-view mirror than it has in six years; a team chosen by the local and national press, not to mention its die-hard fans, to find themselves chained to the basement of the division for years to come. This is a team that claimed to make offers to the top-flight free agents but for whatever reason continued to be turned down, as most speculated that the team brand had been tarnished, or at least that other franchises held much more appeal. Although the stars of this team are still capable of showing their brilliance when not struck by injury, it had become apparent months ago that those players were unhappy with management as well as the direction they felt the team was headed in. It's a team that is coming off their most disappointing season in well over a decade, whose fans were approaching this season just hoping for any reason to believe the team was heading in the right direction and maybe, two or three years down the row could simply return to the postseason. As for success there, well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

As if you couldn't tell, this is obviously a post regarding the American League-leading Boston Red Sox.

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Bucky Gleason is a Droning On and On Twat

6/24/2013

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The Commander

So hey there! I learned this morning that I’ve “graduated” from my trial period and will soon be getting my name on the little sidebar thing over there full time. I’d like to thank everyone for the opportunity, and I hope to do them proud until I graduate to Deadspin or Trending Buffalo!

I had no plans to write anything until at least the NHL Draft because I heard once you get a full time gig here, you don’t actually have to write, you just sorta hang out and make fun of people on Twitter. But then Bucky Gleason decided to regurgitate his annual GM For A Day column and I couldn’t resist busting into the old blogger standby and giving it the Fire Joe Morgan treatment. I also want you to know that after doing this, I clearly hate myself and I’m apologizing in advance for making you read part of a Bucky Gleason article.

Let's get on with it.

1 Comment

I'm Too Old For This Sh*t

6/19/2013

2 Comments

I love Lethal Weapon

The Scizz

This will be short and probably not very entertaining. I'm actually embarrassed that I'm even about to write it, but I have some time to kill, and it's been annoying me so screw it, here we go.

I'm only 32. I'm not really "old" by your standard definitions. I have no major medical concerns, nor unexplained grumpiness towards specific demographics of people (except Canadians), and I'm still known to stay out until the sun comes out on a weekend, getting way too drunk for anyone's well-being. I'd like to think I still live a pretty "young" lifestyle, but there is one thing that keeps bothering me lately; unless it's a weekend, I can't stay up late enough for any major sporting event. I just can't do it.

This poses a problem for somebody like me who decided years ago to make sports a major part of his life (like so many others in this country, of course). Game times never used to be a huge issue for me. Sabres on a west coast road trip with 10pm starts? Of course I'm watching. NCAA tourney games starting at 10:45? Let's do it. Monday Night Football Jaguars Vs. Raiders? Sure, why not? None of this used to matter to me, even if I had to be up early the next morning.

Now? I haven't made it to the end of a MNF game in almost three years. I'd like to say it's my lack of interest in these games and larger concern for sleep, but now that's even been disproved from this year's NBA Finals. Once the Bills were obviously headed for another playoff-less season and the Sabres showed what a bunch of losers they were, I began investing myself in the NBA. Not just my New York Knicks mind you, but the league in general. What followed has been a huge appreciation for a league that I truly feel is the most entertaining of the big four (Basketball, Baseball, Football, & Women's Lacrosse. I gots hockey jokes!) The NBA playoffs have been wildly entertaining in both conferences and at the beginning of these finals between the Spurs and the Heat, I could not have been more excited....then I fell asleep during the 3rd quarter of game one.

I mean I tried to stay awake, I really did. I had every intention of making the long haul even though I had to be up at 5am. I just couldn't do it. Luckily, I managed to wake up with four minutes left in the 4th quarter and didn't miss one of the most amazing, clutch shots in the history of the league, but my point still stands. If I can't even stay awake for a game that I'm beyond legitimately excited about, am I getting too old? At first I was in denial worse than people who still think Darcy Regier is doing a good job. Old? No way, it's these God damn late starts, it's not my fault! Back when I was a kid, the NBA Finals started at 7pm, this 9 o'clock bullshit is the media's fault. They keep pushing the games farther back to hit the key demographic for advertising to twenty-something douche-bags who actually drink Bud Light and think it's good. As I think back to the 1993 finals when the Bulls beat the Suns, I was definitely not 12 years old staying up to midnight to watch the series every night!

What's that?

Most the game times were at 9pm then, too?

Oh. Well.....shit.

I am getting old.

That's all there is to it. Most the time when I'm picking between more sleep and a sporting event, I'm going with sleep. And now, even when I think I'm staying up "late" to watch a game, I can't even do it. Shit, I don't even have kids yet! At this pace, by the time I'm 40 I'm not even going to make it through pre-game warm-ups (which isn't necessarily a bad thing if Bill Simmons and Mike Wilbon are still employed). Of the six complete games of this series, I have successfully made it through only half of them in their entirety. And honestly, that's only because both Sunday games had 8pm start times, and last Friday I got to go into work later than usual. That's why despite my hopes and dreams of the Gregg Popovich's Spurs topping the Heat and sticking it to David Stern last night, I'm a little glad they lost. Thinking about it, I would have missed the final game of the season AND would have been a zombie the rest of the week. Now with the final game in the series on Thursday and a day of nothing at work on Friday, I can go balls-to-the-wall for the big 7 and worry about catching up on sleep over the weekend. This is what I've become. Planning my sleep patterns days in advance if I simply want to stay up and watch one stinkin' game. This sucks.

Ah fuck it, pass me a metamucil and vodka and let's get the party started....but leave me alone from 4 - 5 in the afternoon, that's my catnap time.

2 Comments

The Legal Limit - Episode 11: Drunk at a Mets Game

6/18/2013

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So we got drunk at a Mets game last week. They lost. We recorded banter.

Honestly, we talk about enough bullshit with no real direction that I should probably give you some sort of road map but absolutely have no desire to be of such assistance. You'll love it all the same.

Appearances from, as usual, the Barrister and the Apologist, and guest spots from our friend who is a Red Sox fan and my buddy JB who split sometime in the 7th inning. Musical interludes from Jefferson Airplane, The Beastie Boys, Ozomatli, Walk the Moon and Radiohead.

Oh, and we talk about my homie Rabbi Darkside (from Buffalo, by way of Brooklyn) who just came out with an album. Order that shit on iTunes now!

For the podcast, bitches, download here or here (choices!), hit the iTunes button below, or the stream from the player. Booyah.

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The Friday Evening Dump.

6/14/2013

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The Barrister

Wow. Weekdays suck. I started my week with a crapload of work all jammed together like the Buffalo News Sports staff trying to ride an elevator together, then followed it with a bunch of exhaustion, and now the week is almost done and I figured I'd scrap together a few thoughts to impart to you before the weekend. Why? Because fuck you that's why.

Join me. And imagine me saying that in as non-creepy was as possible.

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Enter the Douche-Nozzle

6/12/2013

2 Comments

Hey folks, the Scizz here. As you may have noticed over the last few months, the founders of this lovely blog have been mostly M.I.A. as life has beckoned them away to other important things like weddings, work, and extreme alcohol consumption. Although we have added a few new team members to keep the ball rolling, keeping up with content is always an issue when you have no real deadlines or detailed editing process. Therefore, when a certain gentleman from WNY whom was just fired from his job contacted us to write a quick post, we desperately said yes BECAUSE WE WILL DO ANYTHING FOR PAGE HITS.

Enter the Douche-Nozzle.

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Oh When the STATES.... Go Marching In....

6/7/2013

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The Barrister

Fuck it, I'm live-blogging this shit tonight. This tropical storm/further evidence of climate change/lots of fucking rain and wind is all keeping me from driving up to Boston this evening, so I'm staying in and watching this. And since Time Warner Cable did something right by carrying beIN sport and since I like cursing and drinking and expressing such on the internet for all to see, and since someone on this shitty website has to write SOMETHING now that we're the award-winning part of the Buffalo bloggerati, I'm going to ramble here tonight over some Racer 5 IPAs while the wind and rain throws itself against my windows and a country full of patriots yearn for that World Cup birth.

COME ON, YOU YANKS.

I may even toss in one of those embedded chat things so the cool kids can gather here and ignore twitter and the fucknuts who like to make fun of soccer because man oh man baseball is better and traumatic brain injury is better and sports involving needless suckage of fossil fuels are certainly better. Whatever. I'm not even drunk yet and I still can't see straight.

Just fucking beat Jamaica, boys.

Be back in a few hours.

- Dubs

AND I'M BACKKKKKKKK

LET'S DO IT LIVE!!!

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<<Previous

Lady Business: with The Continental

Now you've got me defending guns because you're just that stupid.

Music is Sports.

Piano is Soccer.

Because Sometimes You're Wrong

Bucky Gleason is a Droning On and On Twat

I'm Too Old For This Sh*t

The Legal Limit - Episode 11: Drunk at a Mets Game

The Friday Evening Dump.

Enter the Douche-Nozzle

Oh When the STATES.... Go Marching In....

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