My Day off
As my title editor told you, I have the day off from work. What to do? Hey, I'll surf the web.Here's a hilarious and fascinating website, tipped on Slate.com. It's www.overheardinnewyork.com. It's comprised of completely anonymous, "overheard" street-chatter on New York streets and subways. Slate calls it, "an immense grass-roots sociological experiment, a deeply profound (and yes, often moronic) verbal profile of the 21st-century urban-American street." It's pure poetry.
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Here's more dialogue for you, a sample from the new HBO comedy series, "Extras," debuting in about a month in the Sunday night slot following the all-new fifth-season episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm:"
Ben Stiller, playing the director of a film about a modern day genocide:
"What does money mean in real terms if I find a little orphan child hiding in a building whose parents have been killed? What can I do to reach him? Sure, I could pop 'Dodgeball' on DVD and it would make him laugh for an hour and 32 minutes and escape reality, but then it's back to reality and what do I do then? I could put on 'Dodgeball' again, and he could laugh and see things he didn't see before. It's supposed to be like that, it's layered."
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Here's a headline from Thursday's Washington Post:
"Last living Marilyn Monroe husband dies in Calif"
Are these guys Confederate widows? What's the deal? There were only three Monroe marriages. The obit should have read-- "Marilyn's first hubby dies- the one you've never heard of."
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The Pamela Anderson Roast on Comedy Central Sunday was the highest-rated show on cable for the week-- with four million viewers. The program was a pleasant surprise for me. They didn't go back to the Friars, but it was the best network-produced Roast to date, bringing back the Friar Prince, himself, Jeffrey Ross.
The top 3 performers this night-- 1) Ross, 2) Sarah Silverman, 3) Greg Giraldo
My suggestion for the next Roast-ee-- Tom Arnold
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How firmly established is the good 'ole boy system for white coaches in sports? Former Baylor men's basketball coach Dave Bliss is a finalist for the head job of the (Bismarck) Dakota Wizards of the CBA. Only two years ago, a Baylor player named Patrick Dennehy was murdered by a former teammate. An assistant coach secretly recorded Bliss trying to persuade members of the team to portray Dennehy as a drug dealer to cover up illegal payments made by the university. Not only should Bliss be kept out of organized basketball, I'm trying to figure out why he's not in prison.
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The NFL's Randy Moss tells us this week that he smoked marijuana in his past, and still does "every blue moon, or once in a while I might." Let me take a guess about how the American public will react--- Zzzzzzzzz. And as well they should. But let's take this opportunity also to once again acknowledge the enormous gulf between our country's cultural mores and the laws on our books. A privileged man in America can acknowledge illicit drug use in his past, and still be elected president. For others, the same behavior, when proven, is punishable by imprisonment and life ever after as a convicted felon. Let's be straight about the fact that the criminal justice system in this country is a declaration of war against the poor.
The impoverished state of South Carolina has 54 prisons and one state college, with prisoners there now being rented to work for nine dollars a day in private industry. They've found a way to legalize slavery again.
I'm getting too worked up. It's my day off.
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The Archive interns are begging me to share these facts with you-- Cardinals pitcher Jason Marquis grounded out in his third at-bat last night, snapping a string of six consecutive hits. He had a single and an RBI double earlier in the game (the double was his 8th.) The streak spanned a two or two night in his last start, and two pinch-hits between starts. He's now batting .373, with 25 hits, a home run, and 10 RBI. His next pinch hit (his fourth) would be a single-season record for a pitcher. Yet, he's the odd man out of the playoff rotation right now, dropping his ninth decision in his last 10 last night. If the Cards advance to October and both trends continue, expect Tony LaRussa to avoid using Marquis out of the bullpen so that he's available to pinch-hit.
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I am off "the Baseball Show" this week due to a previous commitment (baseball tickets purchased in March.) The program may or may not air in my absence.
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Jim Zabel joke of the day: "Did you hear? John Hancock died without life insurance." *
* - I'm not sure what this joke means. My initial reaction was that it had to do with the fact that people's signatures are referred to as their "John Hancocks," and the insurance industry never got him to sign because the expression wan't invented until after his death. But then I thought, maybe it's just that there's a life insurance company named after him. Maybe it's both. I think the first joke is funnier.
posted by CM @ 4:04 PM
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