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FJM-ing Craig Schaller because I couldn't sleep and, again, I do what I want

5/2/2014

The Barrister

Hey did you know Craig Schaller still exists? The guy who was fired from WHAM for being a racist asshole with no sense of decency? Well, like a bigot moth to a bigot flame, he's BACK, this time to defend the historically beleaguered, down-on-his-luck, the man keeps stomping on his feelings, Donald Sterling.

It really isn't surprising that this prick is back in the news - and by news, I mean DGWU Sports - since he's had such a tremendous career to date, what with being fired and then finding no work apart from guest-blogging here that one time (we paid him in bananas and he didn't get the joke). I imagine that Schaller has been waiting for a week of current events like this since he was let go from the world of radio ... if he's going to be known for a thing, he might as well run with it. And while one might think that I would let this lie - the motherfucker is just sad at this point, why bother? - a good friend of mine once wrote that we have to, in essence, burn the fucking idiots into the ground with our rebuttals. Not to mention it remains the Buffalo sports off-season, I am clueless about drafts, the Mets terrify me, Liverpool even more so, and the Red Bulls aren't worth talking about here until July, so here I am. Let's get after it.

2 Comments

Dear God We're All Ex-pats, Once Again

4/23/2014

8 Comments

The Outlander

Hi boys and girls. Before we begin, a quick disclaimer. This post is not all about sports. As a matter of fact, sports only cover a minority of this post. If that is a dealbreaker for you, I understand, and you can scroll down to the final third now. However, this post does contain the usual, if not an above average amount of vitriol, so it may be worth your time anyways.

Some two years ago, after a late night out, I shot an email to the deeg. The debaucherous, angry tone struck me as something I shared and wanted to lend my voice to. I get more ambitious when I’m drunk; some years ago I sent an email to the local paper declaring my intention to run for mayor around three or four am from my apartment in State College. A couple years back I ordered a bunch of shit on Vermont’s Long Trail because despite the fact I’ve never hiked once in my life I decided it was something I wanted- and more importantly could- do (an example of drunken delusion if there is any). There are other examples but the point is, some people text their ex’s or fight- and although I have done both- I tend to go in the other direction.

Some of these drunken undertakings were doomed to failure but the decision to lavish praise on my favorite blog and ask if I may participate- I hate asking for things- was not one of them. For the last couple years I’ve been the only contributor to a blog revolving around Buffalo sports that still lived in the Buffalo area. This has been helpful for a myriad of reasons not limited to the fact I was able to watch my teams play without having to order a special internet or television package or head to a bar with Center Ice/Sunday ticket. I don’t watch local news or read the local papers but there is just something about living in an area where the vast majority of local sports fans root for the same teams as you. Outside of the soulless front running jagoffs that reside on the opposite side of the Niagara River, there is something to be said about going out and having any sports conversation you eavesdrop into revolve around the same teams you follow and love yourself, even if those having the conversation couldn’t grasp a salient point if they had eight arms apiece. I enjoyed walking to the bar in Barre, Vermont as the Sabres made their playoff push in 2011 but I loved going to someone’s house or a bar around these parts to watch the same thing much more. But that luxury is no longer as the deeg will be an all-expat blog once again.

Like many of you scattered across the country, this move has nothing to do with desire as much as it has to do with cold pragmatics. I understand that 2013 was the first year in decades that the region’s population did not suffer a decrease; every elected official and news organization seems eager to discuss the region’s rebirth, facelift, resurgence, whatever word is on the teleprompter in front of them at the moment. More people are drawn to this growth and I couldn't be happier; my issue lies with what's underneath that. From last April until this February I read every single job opening within 50 miles of Tonawanda, which usually amounted to around one thousand new posts per week. I did not discriminate on salary, title, experience or education requirements, I read every damn one of them and what I discovered, and what anyone in this area who has been job searching recently already knows, is that the reason the quantity of new jobs is discussed so much is because the quality of them is often abysmal and inapplicable to anyone not in the infancy of their working life. In the average thousand openings, I would find anywhere between one and three that were applicable for me and in the 10 months I was searching I discovered three that were truly in my wheelhouse (My “wheelhouse” is not as narrow as one may believe). Still, I applied to dozens, hundreds of positions in this area, many if not all of which I was overqualified for, and for my trouble I got one interview.

8 Comments

Actually, This is Pretty Bad

2/15/2013

5 Comments

The Outlander

This evening the Buffalo Sabres host the Boston Bruins in what will be the fifteenth game of a forty-eight game season. With the season nearly a third complete, they find themselves tied for not the division, not the six seed, not the eight-seed, but for dead last in the Eastern Conference. I have watched the “L”s string along on the schedule I keep on the wall at work, next to schedules of other teams with their own impressive collections of losses. We’ve all grown accustomed to the Sabres being a fairly “streaky” team with no shortage of peaks and valleys throughout the seasons, of a team that will run out to commanding division lead only to go .500 the rest of the way and get bounced in the first round (09-10), or a team that will piss all over themselves like a bro after his first night out in Canada for four months and then become the hottest team in the league on the valiant run to eighth place (10-12). They are four points away from eighth at the moment, could conceivably find themselves there by the time I return to the office on Monday. But they won't, and that's why I'm here.

I don’t apologize often, for what I’d like to think are two reasons. The first is that in recent history, the words coming from my mouth that I regret the most have been apologies, apologies that were not warranted or deserved, even in abstract form. The second is related and offered with a grain of salt- I just believe I’m wrong less often than other people. Many fields demand that from those they employ, mine is no different.

So it is with gritted teeth but sincere repentance that I apologize for ever believing that this team, with these players, with this coach could ever put together a shortened season that could be described as anything other than a soul-sucking death march to the draft. We’ve spent many words here at the deeg eviscerating Ralph for not firing Jauron when it was called for, not firing Gailey when it was called for. I called him a “villain from a Dickens novel” and published it right after he had fired the coach I was ripping on him for not firing.

Ask how proud we are about "regionalism"

Ralph Wilson turned his franchise into a sideshow, an embarrassment. Perhaps they always were and we were just born at the right time to think otherwise. But I think at this point it is only fair to begin taking an objective look at those pulling the levers at the foot of Washington Street, because 2007 is rapidly disappearing in our rear view mirror and if all you need to do for immunity in this town is commission a bronze statue and plop an admittedly wonderful complex steps from the waterfront, then we deserve to be ridiculed by other fans, we deserve to be irrelevant.

The eeriness of the similarities is becoming disconcerting and I wonder if Ted Black follows Buffalo’s other hapless franchise enough to see those similarities, or if he is too busy digging through his thesaurus for new ways to explain “Terry’s” dedication to winning a Stanley Cup. We all love a good orator; myself probably more than most, and we cannot deny- especially in light of the last occupant of the owner’s box- that money talks. Throwing godfather offers at Richards and Doan, upgrading the arena, putting up the Harbor Center if for no other reason than we don’t have to watch Carl Paladino erect some lifeless structure only a 1970’s East German architect could love, mean something. But “something” is as far as I’m willing to go anymore.

Ted Black has emerged as Russ Brandon 2.0, with a wardrobe upgrade and a new fan interaction feature. The talk remains about the brand, about how dedicated the owner is, how they communicate daily, how passionate he is to win and how distraught they are about the losses. Now I fully believe that Brandon is shoveling shit while Black is being at least more sincere, but the similarities of listening to these two men offer red herrings and parlor tricks to a disgruntled and desperate fan base is insulting. I’ll enjoy the Harbor Center as much as anyone, but Pegula can take the flaming tap water from “Gasland” and turn it into the fucking Bridal Veil Falls if it means there’s a parade down Delaware. I won’t fault this owner for not dealing with the Buffalo media given their current bullpen of hacks and has-beens, but that silence, pious as it may be, has a consequence to the fan base and that consequence is assumptions.

5 Comments

The Legal Limit, Episode 5: A Triumphant Return

11/18/2012

0 Comments

Apologist and Barrister, feat. The Continental

Oh dear.... Craft beers. Whiskey. Vanishing dignity.

You may be aware that Apologist and I recently rendez-vous'd (not a word) for the Bills game Thursday night, using the time out at the bar as a perfect opportunity to revive the little-known Legal Limit podcast franchise. You also may be aware that new-to-the-Deeg Continental - of Smarten Up! mailbag fame - joined us, making her podcast debut.

You probably wouldn't have predicted this level of shit show, though. Good good, we are terrible. Actually, really, just the Barrister. He was most definitely over the legal limit, right guys? ... I'll show myself out.

We talk Bills/Dolphins, of course, but also take potshots at Al Gore, celebrate the Knicks move to 6-0 against the Spurs, talk about how the NBA may pick up disgruntled hockey fans during the lockout, commiserate Ryan Fitzpatrick's role in Bills franchise history, laugh about blunts and guns, and then bump into some Hurricane Sandy refugee Chicago Bears fans who happen to also love the Miami Heat. I'd claim it all makes sense in the end, but it most surely does not. Luckily, I'm pretty sure it's about what you've all come to expect from this embarrassment of a website.

Musical interludes include Jefferson Airplane, Oddisee, Bob Dylan and The Beastie Boys.

Stream below, download here, via the iTunes button below, or on our podcast page here. OPTIONS!

Cheers.

0 Comments

When You Gone, You Stay Gone

8/30/2012

0 Comments

The Outlander

For the last few weeks, I’ve been chomping at the bit for something to get worked up about and post about. I mean it doesn’t take much, but I’ve found the current storylines swirling around here in Buffalo have been so meaningless, so trivial, that to try and put some 1,000 word diatribe about them would be so transparently fraudulent - not to mention really difficult for me to do - that it would frankly unbecoming of me. I don’t have many standards when it comes to what I’ll write about, but faux-outrage (copyright: national media, November 2011) - or blatant trolling if you will - is the lowest point of blogging you can reach (Ed. Note: We've all been there). I’d rather read hot takes on what the French Connection statue should look like, or an in-depth post on whoever the other punter in Bills camp is. Vince Young? Who cares? Tarvaris Jackson? Ditto. The NHL lockout? That’ll be worth discussion in a month, when the first slew of games have been cancelled but for now, the two sides are speaking so far past each other they can’t even bother being insulted, and neither should we. Shane Doan? My once raging doaner is now flaccid and sad.

Garbage.

The one place I didn’t expect to provide inspiration was my baseball team, the pitiful (go ahead, drink that word in) Boston Red Sox. I wrote about them some thirty games into the season (respectful post on the Youk notwithstanding) and until a week or so ago, nothing had changed. They still sucked ass, their roster was still filled with a bunch of egomaniacal tools and, frankly, why subject you, our refined readers, to Red Sox garbage when this baseball season has been so captivating otherwise. God knows you’ve had enough shoved down your throat by ESPN about Pedroia v. Bobby V, and “can they turn it around” crap that attempted to take you away from the Pirates (!?!), the Nats (!!), the A’s (!!) and R.A. Dickey that I felt no need to pile on. You deserve a summer without Red Sox talk, and with the team wallowing in mediocrity, what better summer than this one?

0 Comments

Dusty Baker is a Douche

8/16/2012

1 Comment

Are you fucking serious?

The Barrister

Lost in the haze of last night's epic USMNT win at the Azteca was the circus, clown shoes shenanigans of Dusty Baker, as the Reds manager chose gamesmanship over common sense, and gave Mets fans another reason to hate his stupid, fat face.

Up 1-0 in the second inning against my lowly Mets, Baker successfully prodded the umpire to instruct RA Dickey to remove two bracelets from his wrist. Two bracelets that had been given to him by his daughters before he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro last winter, and which he has worn in every one of his magical starts this season - not to mention his All Star Game innings earlier this summer. Dickey complied - how couldn't he - later conceding that, well, rules are rules. Dickey would go on to give up three homers and the Mets lost 6-1.

Advantage DB, I guess.

1 Comment

A Rebuttal to The Niagara Falls Reporter

7/24/2012

2 Comments

Bigot.

The Outlander

I had hoped I wasn’t going to have to address this, but I suppose I will.

Last week’s Niagara Falls Reporter piece by former alleged stalker and current bigot Lenny Palumbo managed to rightfully stir up enough voices around the internet locally and nationally to shout down and condemn the rantings of an angry white man who longs for the days where he could oppress others to placate his insecure and disturbed soul. It appeared to me that Palumbo and perhaps the Reporter itself was hoping for this type of reaction in the way the author tactlessly shoehorned anti-gay rhetoric into a meandering bitchfest about the Sabres - or at least the past roster - being pussies. Their latest issue has confirmed these suspicions as Palumbo doubles down on the hate and publisher Frank Parlato puts on his ten-gallon hat and climaxes to the image of a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag while reciting the first amendment at the top of his lungs. (Editor's Note: This is true, we have video) As a fellow proponent of the Constitution, I feel I’ll take a crack at exacting my right to free speech as well.

Lenny Palumbo is a piece of shit. He is weak, hateful, little man. As a man I am ashamed to share my gender with him and as a Western New Yorker I am ashamed to share my region with him. However, there is no changing these people. One thing about this region that so many hateful souls like Palumbo love is that they can completely wall themselves off from the world and live in their own version of 1950 where homosexuals are synonymous with “deviants” and minorities have to call every white man that addresses them “sir.”

(I will not stoop to Lenny’s level here and make assumptions that he is a racist. I will say that many of the people I have come across that hate gays also have no problem voicing their deep hate for anyone with a different skin tone than them.)

2 Comments

Adventures in Journalism!

5/29/2012

0 Comments

Professional Blowhard

The Barrister

It sure has been a while since I dusted off my gloves and took the media to task for its latest absurdity in the sports world. Sometimes, these venomous hit jobs are directed at The Network - an easy enough target, what with the willingness to sit on apparent evidence of child molestation at Syracuse, only to run the story without even giving the authorities the opportunity to vet that evidence and find that, in sum, it was demonstrably false. And sometimes, these hit jobs are directed at Buffalo sports media - also an easy target, what with the spelling errors, the apparent desire to merely yuk it up with a failing, entrenched hockey coach and the pathetic derision of a blogger community which has arguably provided better and more insightful sports analysis over the past couple years. (Not here at the Deeg, of course. We are more than happy to be the slime scraped out of the bottom of the barrel, presented as food for your more carnal cravings. It's what we do.)

One of the things I've noticed about Buffalo sports fans is that they can tend to believe that their town is getting jobbed at every opportunity. It's certainly no surprise, given the history, but it can leave people with a lingering sense that, in essence, whatever we get in Buffalo is a class below what everyone else gets in other cities. Sports teams? Inferior from top to bottom. Local theater and music? Undeveloped and of poor quality. Government? Corrupt and ineffective in a way unseen throughout America. Schools? Underfunded and forgotten. Cheerleaders? Sixes instead of tens. (This one may be right).

Some of this is true. In many ways, other cities do have it better. In a lot of ways, though, Buffalo has the exact same problems as other cities, but has convinced itself that the grass is greener in New York City, in Boston, in D.C., in Philly. I've found this to be especially true when it comes to how we digest our local sports media in Western New York. There always seems to be a lingering sense that Bucky and Harrington and Hamilton and Sully are on a lower tier than the guys who cover sports in the big markets. With the internet, though, we can verify that this is simply not true, and never was this more apparent to me than during the post-game presser following last Friday's Rangers-Devils Game 6.

Dear God, it was brutal.

So, in keeping with the overlap between "media hit piece" and "mailing it in," here is the transcript of the questions asked to Rangers coach John Tortorella following Game 6. My thoughts are in italics.

0 Comments

Non-Buffalo News: Artie Lange ruins "Joe Buck Live". The world laughs.

6/18/2009

0 Comments

The Scizz

Sorry folks, but this is going to be one of those "nothing to do with Buffalo" posts. I just had to throw this up because I think it is absolutely amazing.

For those of you who don't check out any sports websites/blogs on a daily basis, you may have missed highlights from the first episode of "Joe Buck Live" on HBO. Who the fuck could make you care about watching highlights from a live show from Captain Douchebag himself, Joe Buck, you ask?

Artie Lange. That's who.

0 Comments

Fuck The Draft, I'm Still Bitter About Hockey.

4/30/2009

4 Comments

The Yachtsman

The Scizz has been on me all week to finish the Draft grades I promised our dear reader(s?) this past weekend. I sat in front of the computer after work every night and tried to come up with things to say about our new picks and I simply couldn't muster the strength.

The spirit did not move me to write anything... I simply don't trust the BrainMush @ One Bills Drive to do anything right anymore. Why waste your time and mine trying to sugarcoat another shitty draft? We picked three DBs, passed on a proven stud d-lineman for a skinnier/riskier Aaron Schobel, and reached on a couple linemen who could have been picked much later in the draft. That's what's been running around my head these past few days, so there you have it. Allen Wilson, I am not.

However, it's not like I don't have something to bitch about at length. Being a Buffalo Sports fan, I'll always have something to bitch about. And yes, something has been bothering me for quite some time. It's this guy:

Larry Fucking Quinn.

4 Comments

FJM-ing Craig Schaller because I couldn't sleep and, again, I do what I want

Dear God We're All Ex-pats, Once Again

Actually, This is Pretty Bad

The Legal Limit, Episode 5: A Triumphant Return

When You Gone, You Stay Gone

Dusty Baker is a Douche

A Rebuttal to The Niagara Falls Reporter

Adventures in Journalism!

Non-Buffalo News: Artie Lange ruins "Joe Buck Live". The world laughs.

Fuck The Draft, I'm Still Bitter About Hockey.

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