Classic Rant #199 (February 22, 2010): The Same Old Knicks, Sort Of

My son and I went to Madison Square Garden for a Knicks game on Saturday night. We saw the Knicks vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder, and predictably, the Knicks lost, but at least it went to overtime.

Although the Knicks lost, my son and I had a good time. We sat in our customary nosebleed seats, but it was a lot of fun.

There is nothing like being at the Garden, in person, for a basketball game. Even though the Knicks are an absolutely terrible team that is going nowhere--even with Tracy McGrady--there is just something about seeing a game at the Garden that stirs up lots of memories and good feelings.

Today, the Knicks will be celebrating their first championship team--the 1969-1970 squad--during halftime of their game against the Milwaukee Bucks. Although certainly not the most talented team in history, this team may have been the most cerebral.

On the team were the likes of Bill Bradley, Dick Barnett, Willlis Reed, Walt Frazier, and Dave DeBusschere. I truly don't know if the collective IQ of this team was greater than any other, but they played real smart.

They looked for the open shot, passed the ball when there wasn't one, rebounded, defended and played their hearts out. The city embraced them almost unlike any other team at the time (even the Mets, who won the World Series in 1969, did not galvanize an entire city like the Knicks did, because they still had the Yankees to contend with).

I remember going to games back then with my father, and the place was sold out every night. It was hopping, there was a buzz in the crowd that is classic to the Garden, and you just had to marvel at the determination and zeal that that team had.

Flash forward 40 years, and you get the current Knicks squad.

For one reason or another, this team is a complete embarrassment to the fans and to the organization.

Looking ahead to a free agent class that will include Lebron James, the Knicks have bankrupted themselves talent-wise to allow for enough salary cap room to make a play at James, Dwyane Wade, and other top free agents.

So what you have on the floor is a group of players who really don't know where they will be next year. David Lee has been the team leader this year, but even he has no clue if he will be a Knick next year.

So when you have that monkey on your back, which way is up?

The Knicks have lost six in a row and 15 of 18. They only thing that is keeping them out of last place is the dreadful Nets.

But on Saturday, there was a spark at the Garden.

I guess it had to do with Tracy McGrady joining the team. He was once a superstar, now he is a guy out to prove himself--to the Knicks or another suitor next year.

There was buzz at the Garden. You can feel it and you could hear it. Knick fans will tell you that the buzz is something special to the Garden. Maybe it has to do with how it was built or its connection to the Long Island Railroad or Amtrak, but when that buzz is present, there is nothing like it anywhere else.

And I know what the buzz is. I was at the first game that Dave DeBusschere played as a Knick, 40 years ago. You could not get a seat. The place was loud, noisy, and boisterous. Everyone knew that DeBusschere was the last piece of the puzzle that the Knicks needed to become champions, and it all played out that night--and later, on May 8, 1969, when they finally won their first championship (a day before my bar mitzvah!).

The fans were excited, and I think the players were too, and this was true 40 years ago, and it was true on Saturday night.

The outcome was pretty much decided from the opening tap, even though the Knicks took it to overtime.

But there was that buzz. Oh, maybe it wasn't the same buzz heard in 1969-1970, but there was a buzz.

The Knicks are awful, but at least for one night, there was that buzz ...

Rant #1,546: Classic Talk/Variety Is Back

Has anyone but me noticed the re-emergence of classic late night talk/variety shows on the digital TV networks?

GetTV is now showing classic "Merv Griffin Show" and "Judy Garland Show" episodes, and in January, Antenna TV will begin showing classic "Tonight Show" episodes featuring the past and forever king of late night TV, Johnny Carson.

I find this phenomena pretty enchanting, because it is a genre I thought I would never see in reruns on TV ever again.

Sure, you can run "Leave It To Beaver" every day into the next millennium, but to have Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon doing "Karnak" again, and you don't have to watch them doing it on a grainy bootleg?

No, I cannot believe these shows are returning.

But they are, and we are all the better for it.

First off, it will introduce a new generation to the guys who set the tone for this genre, from the 1960s through the early 1990s.

I mean, Carson had to hand the baton to David Letterman before he was able to run with it.

Second, these shows are really time capsules of a different time and place that need to be seen to really be cherished.

The other day, I was watching Merv Griffin, and he had Sammy Davis Jr. as one of his guests.

First, to see and hear Davis at the apex of his career--1970 or so--was refreshing. This guy is a talent that must be seen to be believed.

Second, again, it was 1970 when the show was recorded.

Davis sung "The Candy Man"--it was the No. 1 hit on the charts at the time--all the while puffing on a cigarette. You would never, ever see this on TV today, but back then, just about anything went, and often did.

Davis later sang a medley of the hits of--are you ready?--Blood, Sweat and Tears, who were the hot band at the time--and Davis schmaltzed it up, Las Vegas-style, doing their hits, from "Lucretia MacEvil" to "Spinning Wheel."

And before performing this 10 minute medley, he warned the audience that he was going to be loud--and he was!

The other guests on the show were the pretty much forgotten about Totie Fields and Abbe Lane.

Lane was a stunner, marketed as a Latina spitfire, but she was actually a Jewish girl from Brooklyn who could pass as Hispanic with her swarthy complexion, but all beautifully put together.

Totie Fields was another story altogether. Almost completely forgotten about today, she lived a somewhat short and tragic life, dying at an early age from cancer and several other maladies, but when this lady was on, she was on! And she was on on this show, and even back then, some of what she said had to be bleeped.

Think of her as a potty-mouthed precursor to what Joan Rivers later became, add on about 200 pounds, and that is what Totie Fields was!

I found myself laughing and laughing at all of what was going on, and it really was funny.

Griffin tried to keep things even, but he was losing it too, knocking Fields for her weight and she knocking him for being a Gentile.

But it was all schtick, and everyone knew it.

This is what I miss today, the spontaneity of these types of shows that their current versions cannot possibly duplicate in the PC world we live in.

That is why I look forward to these shows. They show our world in another place and time, but they are still magical. Davis doing just about anything was unreal, he was such an entertainer, but when he brought out his wife--who just happened to be wearing as skimpy a costume as you were going to see on 1970s TV--you just knew more sparks would fly, but this time Sammy was sitting down with the other show guest stars, and they both gave it to him good, but also told some touching stories about Davis, and Sammy head some tears in his eyes.

And I did believe that they were real. He was touched by what they had to say.

You just don't get these moments today, and that is a shame.

So I do look forward to seeing what else there is in store for us as these shows roll out.

And as for the Carson show, if you have Antenna TV, this show is a definite must watch event.

Johnny did it better than anyone before or since, and while a lot of the show was, in fact, scripted, there is still lots of spontaneity involved.

I cannot wait to see these shows, and Merv Griffin's show is also one that you must see.

Garland's show is more variety than talk, but it is another time capsule of a different time, and her legendary guest stars--everyone from Mickey Rooney to Barbra Streisand to Ethel Merman to her own family, including Liza Minnelli--are worth seeing again and again and again.

Can "The Joey Bishop Show" and "The Steve Allen Show" be far behind? How about "The Mike Douglas Show," which used to have the oddest assortment of guests of all the talk/variety shows?

Who knows, but they will be welcome on my TV set too, if and when they are brought back.

I am there, I can tell you that.

Classic Rant #198 (February 19, 2010): Taking the Tiger By the (Tall) Tale

So, Tiger Woods has scheduled a news conference for this morning to discuss his recent woes, and he wants to address them with the public. He wants to iron out everything, make apologies to the world, and move on with his life.

Oh, how sorry I feel for this multi-millionaire who can't keep his pants on!

Why he has to do such a news conference is beyond me. I mean, the only people he is accountable to in this whole episode are his wife, Elin, and his family, no one else.

But people eat this up, and that is why all the major networks will be covering this shindig live today.

But he has some parameters when it comes to the news conference.

He can't be asked any questions by reporters, and the reporters are hand-picked by him.

This is a news conference?

I remember a similar news conference that Michael Jackson had to plead to the public that he didn't molest young children. That really got him nowhere, and the best thing that happened in his career was that ... well, he died, which made so many people rush out and buy his records and proclaim him as the "God" they thought he was.

I don't think Tiger will have to go that route to win back the public.

All he has to do is to win a tournament or two or three--he is just behind Jack Nicklaus as the leader in tournament wins--and the public will pretty much forget this.

Then why the news conference, or what he is calling a news conference?

Well, he lost millions when his sponsors dropped him. This conference is as much to pull back sponsors as anything else.

So when you watch this (and I know you will), and you see Tiger shedding a few tears, you really have to ask yourself:

Is he shedding those tears because he blew his marriage or because he blew his endorsements?

I would say, sadly, that it is the latter.

Rant #1,545: The Naked Truth

You might remember that a little more than two weeks ago, in Rant #1,531 on October 14, I wrote about the demise of Playboy Magazine as we know it, meaning that the magazine will, early next year, remove all nudes from its pages.

Removing all the nudes was news, and I wrote about Playboy Magazine on that date and also on the very next day.

Well, I am going to bring up the subject yet again, because as I suspected, no nudes does not mean no nudes--just in the United States and in several other editions that Hugh Hefner's empire covers.

Evidently, Playboy will continue to have new nudes in several of its publications around the world even as it removes them from the U.S. edition.

One of these is the edition in Mexico, where I read that many subscribers were getting absolutely hysterical that their favorite magazine would have no more nudes.

Not true--Mexican Playboy will continue to have naked women in its pages.

The reasons for this are not as simple as one would think.

One of the reasons that the powers that be at the publication decided to scrap the nudes in the U.S. edition was that so much real pornography is available on the Internet, so much, in fact, that they felt it made the U.S. edition of the magazine superfluous with its nudes.

Thus, get rid of the nudes, and you would have a lifestyle magazine that appealed to a larger amount of readers, even different types of readers, than before.

You would also appeal to a different level of advertiser, and that, really, is the reason they decided to scrap the nudes in the U.S. edition.

However, even though the U.S. is bordered by Mexico, the two markets are as different as night and day.

While a good portion of the U.S. adult public has access to high-speed Internet--and thus can access high-speed porn whenever it wants to--the Mexican demographic is very much different.

According to some reports, less than 50 percent of the population has access to high-speed Internet, or to any kind of Internet, thus making their readership less likely to get their titillation off of a computer.

But the Mexican market evidently loves their magazines, as they, in general, have kept up with the circulations of their most popular magazines even as in the U.S., most magazine circulation has gone down.

So, being that as it is, Playboy decided that the Mexican edition of the publication will keep its nudes.

And you just know that many of those issues will make their way across the border, in particular in places like Texas and California, so even many Americans will still be able to get their jollies from Playboy--but it will simply be from the Mexican edition of the magazine.

Not every edition of Playboy has nudity to begin with. Several editions in the Arab world have never carried nudity, and in other places, the nudity is basically handled by local standards, so as not to upset the public or government officials.

So in some countries, you see nothing, in others, just breasts and in others, the whole shebang.

So Playboy readers, get set for some foreign editions of the publication to turn up in local stores once the U.S. nudity ban is put into force, because Playboy and nudity go together like bread and butter, even if the guy with the sailor hat and his flunkies think that the two don't mix anymore.

(And happy Election Day. Please go out and vote!)

Classic Rant #197 (February 18, 2010): I Need My Mail!

In today's world, email has seemingly taken over from old fashioned snail mail as the easiest way to communicate one's feelings. And unlike a standard letter, the writer can write this up and send it out and have it received almost instantly.

The same goes for paying bills. One push of a button, and payment is made. It certainly is quicker than mailing out your payment.

And it doesn't cost the price of a stamp to send out these things, either.

But wait! There is a certain charm in using regular postal mail as opposed to electronic mail that needs to be addressed.

Certainly, now that the post office is pushing to cut standard mail delivery by one day per week, the public must speak up against such mail malice.

The postal service's take on this is that they are continuing to cut annual losses that they trace to the increased use of electronic mail by the general public. For instance, their first quarter loss was $297 million, and since it reports a loss each quarter, if you add everything up, they are losing money hand over fist.

And people are losing patience with regular mail, as evidenced by the 8.9 percent drop in mail volume.

I like getting mail. I hate getting bills, but I like getting mail. I like reaching into my mailbox and pulling out envelopes filled with offers, announcements, garbage, and, of course, correspondence.

My grandfather worked for the post office during the Depression. He was a postal inspector, looking for who knows what, and he packed a gun.

The post office has changed greatly since those years. Customer service is poor, and how many times have you stood on a line in a post office to get stamps and there is just one attendant handling a line that goes out the door?

But I like standard mail, and I like getting it six days a week.

To take away one day of service will not save scads of money, but it will even further lessen the need for standard mail.

I hope this proposal is shot down.

Of course, if it is, stamps will probably approach 50 cents apiece, but I guess I would be willing to pay it if it kept mail coming to my home Monday through Saturday.

Rant #1,544: A Royal Affair

Congratulations to the Kansas City Royals for besting the New York Mets in the 111th World Series.

If you didn't stay up into the wee hours of this morning, the Royals won 7-2 in 12 innings, and took the World Series four games to one.

I personally conked out at about 8 p.m., but I woke up at near midnight, could not got to sleep again--as per my recent sleeplessness, which actually was put to bed the past few nights as I had great night's sleeps--so I watched the final 35 minutes or so of the 2015 baseball season.

At 12:35 a.m., it was over.

I truly thought that the Mets would win two of the three games back in New York, and send this thing back to Kansas City, where the Royals would win the Series at home.

It did not work out that way.

The Mets did not deserve to win the Series, because by all accounts, they played a very poor Series, in particular, in the field.

Daniel Murphy, the hero of the playoffs, had a terrible Series both in the field and at the plate, and his miscues in the field helped open the floodgates for the Royals in games four and five.

The Royals simply single, double and triple you to death, they take a lot of pitches, and they play excellent fundamental baseball.

Their bullpen was also superior to what the Mets had to offer, and I guess I was being generous by saying the Mets would win two games.

And the Mets were also out-managed by the Royals.

Leaving Matt Harvey in the game in the ninth inning, and then not pulling the hook when he walked the first batter in the inning, will be something that Terry Collins will be second guessed for for eternity.

He said as much in a post game interview, although he defended his move, too.

It was a little different for me watching this World Series, as for the first time since 1986, I was truly on the outside looking in, as the Mets were in this thing while the Yankees had been eliminated in the Wild Card round.

So I watched the games when I could, but I was not on the end of my seat for these games, as I would be if the Yankees were in it.

And no, I did not root for the Mets to win this thing.

Yes, they are from New York, but a true Yankees fans NEVER roots for the Mets, and vice versa. No bandwagon jumping here.

I did not root for the Royals either, nor would I have rooted for the Blue Jays if they has made it.

I just felt the Royals, and if it happened, the Blue Jays, had better teams than the Mets, and thus, would win the Series.

Now comes the off season. Baseball has become a 12-months-a-year sport, and the off season should be interesting this year.

Both the Mets and the Royals have numerous free agents, and do you re-sign them, or now that you have used them to get to the World Series, do you let them go and see what you can do without them?

And the Yankees must retool and restock, because at the end of the season, it was painfully obvious that they had burned themselves out.

Let's see what happens, but all told, this was an excellent baseball season, with young stars cropping up in both leagues, new teams at the pinnacle of success, and a pretty good World Series that has just ended.

Play ball! Opening day is literally five months away ... .

Classic Rant #196 (February 17, 2010): Dog Show Is For the Dogs

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show was just held again at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It is an annual event that draws big crowds, is carried on TV by several major cable networks, and it is a show that is always the darling of the media.

I don't get it.

You have people who look like they haven't had a bowel movement for a week parading their "pure-bred" canines around on a leash. They buff and polish these animals, pampering them worse than kings and queens get waited on, and they are then judged on their qualities.

Sorry, I still don't get it.

These purebreds--victims of inbreeding--are ugly animals. They have squirmy faces and look like they haven't ever begged for anything in their lives.

Give me at mutt over these animals anytime!

Mutts have character, and since so many of them started life at shelters (at least my dog did), they do know some suffering.

And they have plenty of character, I can tell you that. I would swear my dog, a mixed breed terrier/pit bull named Max, understands every word I say to him. He is about 13 years old, is as gentle as a soft towel, and his place in our family makes him irreplaceable.

He is a handsome animal, although he won't have any heirs because we went the Bob Barker way and fixed him when he was a puppy.

Sure, he is annoying, especially when he needs to be walked on a cold winter's day. And as he gets older, he is more particular to where he does his duty, so sometimes the walks are longer.

But he is as loyal as an animal can be. It is called unconditional love, and he gives it every day. He is a true canine, a true pet.

I am sure these pure breds have many of the same characteristics, but I liken them to runway models. I don't find runway models very attractive, and I certainly don't find these animals--which, I believe, are cruelly bred by their owners to appear in these pageants--very attractive either.

In fact, I find them to be a bit phony. And I am sure their masters are, too.

In my first marriage, my wife had relatives who were into this dog pageant nonsense. They were as phony as could be, so phony that you could see right through them. They always had what to say to me, in a nice way, about various characteristics I had which bewildered them, including the way I spoke. I took it all in, but understood where it was coming from: from people who treated their pets like they were children.

If I remember correctly, they had a daughter who I always found to be a bit screwed up.

I wonder why: I mean, she was treated the same way as the family pet was; that will make you a little sick in the head, I think.

So, I have come to this conclusion: give me a mutt with character and I will give you a real animal, one that will honor you every day of your life.