Memo from the Sports Desk:
With the NHL (Remember them?: the National Hockey League?) a week away from opening training camps for the upcoming season, now seems like a good time to discuss why Wayne Gretzky may be the Anti-Christ. Hockey purists will understand right away what we’re getting at here. Hockey’s history in North America can be traced to Canada. Canada is cold in the winter. Canada has winter. The sport’s migration into the United States came through cold weather cities like Chicago, Boston Detroit and Philadelphia. They call hockey jerseys “sweaters” for a reason.
Wayne Gretzky came into the league with Edmonton (that’s in Canada for all you Freedom Fries lovers out there). He played there nine seasons from 1979 to 1988. During that time he appeared in five Stanley Cup finals series, winning four. He is arguably the greatest hockey player of all time. He holds 61 NHL records.
And yet … and yet the Indignant Citizen can’t shake the nagging suspicion that Wayne Gretzky has turned into a sellout. Worse than a sellout, really. You see, Gretzky has taken the head coaching job for the Phoenix Coyotes. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Wayne Gretzky, the greatest-ever representative of that cold-weather sport played on ice called hockey has signed on to coach a hockey team located in a city where the average daily high temperatures in December, January and February are 66.2, 65.9 and 70.7 degrees, respectively.
Phoenix shouldn’t even have a hockey team. Neither should Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Raleigh, Miami, Nashville, San Jose, Dallas, Los Angeles or Anaheim. They’re not cold-weather cities. Hockey does not belong in those places. Neither does Wayne Gretzky, who of course left Edmonton for … where else? … Los Angeles for the 1988-89 season. He played there until he left for St. Louis about three-fourths of the way through the 1995-96 season. While in L.A., he played in one Stanley Cup finals series, losing, appropriately enough, to a cold weather team: the Montreal Canadiens. Although he returned to a relatively cold weather climate in New York to finish his career, his hockey mojo had been purged in the City of Angels and he never returned to the Stanley Cup finals.
Now he’s coaching a team that was stolen from a cold weather city, Winnipeg, and moved to a Sun Belt Sprawl Capital where ice is a non-naturally occurring state for water. What’s he thinking? Where’s his sense of history? Tossed in the back of some gas-guzzling SUV, no doubt, next to an obsolete road map of the Phoenix-Scottsdale-Tempe metroplex and a set of golf clubs.
Get rid of the aforementioned teams, the Indignant Citizen says. In the process, of course, we throw out the entire Pacific Division and four-fifths of the Southeast Division. Which may be the best thing for hockey. A little downsizing would be good for the sport. In hindsight, hockey’s impending crisis should have been obvious to everyone after back-to-back-to-back seasons featuring southern teams in the Stanley Cup Finals. Carolina and Anaheim both mercifully lost to cold-weather teams in 2002 and 2003. But in 2004, Tampa Bay broke through, and angered the hockey gods. Hence the lockout noticed by almost no one.
It will take an all-cold weather Finals this season to revive interest. Chicago-Philadelphia, for example. Or Chicago-Montreal. Anything less will risk total dissolution of the sport.
Hockey should consider itself warned.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Light vs. Darkness
Today we were supposed to talk about why Wayne Gretzky may be the Anti-Christ, however a more pressing issue has come up: this story in Friday’s Washington Post. Wayne will have to wait.
To sum up, residents in the Washington, D.C. exurbs are arguing over light and darkness. The longtime residents have lived their lives without artificial light at night and would like to keep it that way. New arrivals can’t understand why anyone would want to live without blazing street lights and security lamps, and are intent on installing them.
The Indignant Citizen grew up in the sticks. There were no streetlights and on many a night with a full moon the Indignant Citizen would kill the headlights on his Mustang and cruise by the milky light from above, which gave a bluish hue to hills, trees, anything dark, while turning fields and gravel roads silver. You may say, “Why, he was a damn fool!” And you may be right. But not because I drove by moonlight.
But the Indignant Citizen digresses. We were talking about the D.C. hinterlands. Better yet, let’s let 63-year-old John Eney talk about them. Here he is quoted in the Post story. “I think this county needs to join the 21st Century. It’s ridiculous that people have to fumble around in the dark under starlight.”
If Mr. Eney sounds a little bitter it’s because he is. According to the story, he spent two-and-a-half hours one winter night driving around on Maryland back country roads because an accident closed the only way home he knew and diverted traffic. “I found it easier to navigate the California desert than make my way through the pathetically dark roads of Calvert County,” he told the Post.
Even though the Indignant Citizen knew what this story was about when he started reading, it was at this point his blood reached the boiling point. Hey John, it’s not the darkness’ fault you don’t know where the fuck you live. And didn’t you notice the fucking roads were dark WHEN YOU MOVED THERE? Did you think they’d magically install lighting throughout the county JUST FOR YOU? Whether or not he expected a personalized array of rural route sodium vapor lamps when he moved (the Post doesn’t say when that unfortunate event occurred) he expects it now. As do others in the story who find it unfathomable that these back roads haven’t been lit up like downtown Washington since their arrival.
Twenty-eight year-old Melissa Harris, transplanted from somewhere near Annapolis, offered this original analysis: “It was so dark you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face. These people [longtime residents who don't mind the dark and haven't for decades] will push for darkness until their car gets broke into or their house gets vandalized. Then they’ll change their story.” Damnant quod non intellegunt.
You see Melissa, believe it or not there are people who don’t need street lights—or giant security lamps illuminating their homes at all hours—to get around. And the only reason longtime residents would have to fear a car break-in or vandalism is because transient self-important landsuckers like you keep moving farther into rural areas. It’ll be your kids conducting the break-ins and the vandalism, no doubt, because they will have been subjected to soulless suburban childhoods filled with endless TV, video games and babysitters; they will have been conditioned to fear the dark and to believe that owning and piloting a car is some kind of Right. The cheapness of their surroundings will have taught them that nothing has lasting value and that everything is expendable.
And by the way, Mel, who exactly to you fear? Roaming gangs feeling their way through the country darkness in the hope of finding a car to TP or a house to burgle? Don’t forget, without lights it’s kind of hard to see where you’re going … or maybe you should ask John about that. Anyway if you’re so afraid of the dark, move into the Indignant Citizen’s old apartment in Brooklyn, where the streetlight shone in the window all night and yet, failed to prevent several car break-ins and home burglaries on that very same street. If light were the answer, wouldn’t cities be safe? Lack of light isn’t the problem. Crime is, and crimes are committed by individuals.
This story is fascinating. Here we have people contentedly living in the country, without street lights, or lights of any kind save the ones in their houses. And now here come the land speculators, with their SUVs and their “pro growth” agenda, which is basically a reinforcing loop economic system whereby homes and businesses get built and then more homes and businesses are required to sustain this new hinterland economy. These are the same people who build cabins in the forest and then complain the government isn’t doing enough to protect them from forest fires, or move to homes near airports and complain about the jet noise.
The Indignant Citizen has a simple retort: Either move to the country and embrace the darkness, or move to the city and leave the darkness to those who understand it and can move easily in it. Either way, just please shut the fuck up.
To sum up, residents in the Washington, D.C. exurbs are arguing over light and darkness. The longtime residents have lived their lives without artificial light at night and would like to keep it that way. New arrivals can’t understand why anyone would want to live without blazing street lights and security lamps, and are intent on installing them.
The Indignant Citizen grew up in the sticks. There were no streetlights and on many a night with a full moon the Indignant Citizen would kill the headlights on his Mustang and cruise by the milky light from above, which gave a bluish hue to hills, trees, anything dark, while turning fields and gravel roads silver. You may say, “Why, he was a damn fool!” And you may be right. But not because I drove by moonlight.
But the Indignant Citizen digresses. We were talking about the D.C. hinterlands. Better yet, let’s let 63-year-old John Eney talk about them. Here he is quoted in the Post story. “I think this county needs to join the 21st Century. It’s ridiculous that people have to fumble around in the dark under starlight.”
If Mr. Eney sounds a little bitter it’s because he is. According to the story, he spent two-and-a-half hours one winter night driving around on Maryland back country roads because an accident closed the only way home he knew and diverted traffic. “I found it easier to navigate the California desert than make my way through the pathetically dark roads of Calvert County,” he told the Post.
Even though the Indignant Citizen knew what this story was about when he started reading, it was at this point his blood reached the boiling point. Hey John, it’s not the darkness’ fault you don’t know where the fuck you live. And didn’t you notice the fucking roads were dark WHEN YOU MOVED THERE? Did you think they’d magically install lighting throughout the county JUST FOR YOU? Whether or not he expected a personalized array of rural route sodium vapor lamps when he moved (the Post doesn’t say when that unfortunate event occurred) he expects it now. As do others in the story who find it unfathomable that these back roads haven’t been lit up like downtown Washington since their arrival.
Twenty-eight year-old Melissa Harris, transplanted from somewhere near Annapolis, offered this original analysis: “It was so dark you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face. These people [longtime residents who don't mind the dark and haven't for decades] will push for darkness until their car gets broke into or their house gets vandalized. Then they’ll change their story.” Damnant quod non intellegunt.
You see Melissa, believe it or not there are people who don’t need street lights—or giant security lamps illuminating their homes at all hours—to get around. And the only reason longtime residents would have to fear a car break-in or vandalism is because transient self-important landsuckers like you keep moving farther into rural areas. It’ll be your kids conducting the break-ins and the vandalism, no doubt, because they will have been subjected to soulless suburban childhoods filled with endless TV, video games and babysitters; they will have been conditioned to fear the dark and to believe that owning and piloting a car is some kind of Right. The cheapness of their surroundings will have taught them that nothing has lasting value and that everything is expendable.
And by the way, Mel, who exactly to you fear? Roaming gangs feeling their way through the country darkness in the hope of finding a car to TP or a house to burgle? Don’t forget, without lights it’s kind of hard to see where you’re going … or maybe you should ask John about that. Anyway if you’re so afraid of the dark, move into the Indignant Citizen’s old apartment in Brooklyn, where the streetlight shone in the window all night and yet, failed to prevent several car break-ins and home burglaries on that very same street. If light were the answer, wouldn’t cities be safe? Lack of light isn’t the problem. Crime is, and crimes are committed by individuals.
This story is fascinating. Here we have people contentedly living in the country, without street lights, or lights of any kind save the ones in their houses. And now here come the land speculators, with their SUVs and their “pro growth” agenda, which is basically a reinforcing loop economic system whereby homes and businesses get built and then more homes and businesses are required to sustain this new hinterland economy. These are the same people who build cabins in the forest and then complain the government isn’t doing enough to protect them from forest fires, or move to homes near airports and complain about the jet noise.
The Indignant Citizen has a simple retort: Either move to the country and embrace the darkness, or move to the city and leave the darkness to those who understand it and can move easily in it. Either way, just please shut the fuck up.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Introducing the West Side Critic
In his perpetual mission to bring you the most relevant and biting commentary on our entropic and increasingly atavistic society, the Indignant Citizen is pleased to present for your viewing pleasure the first in what will be a series of occasional dispatches from the Western Front by our Special Correspondent, the West Side Critic . This is a large country, and the Indignant Citizen cannot cover it all by himself. The West Side Critic will offer his take on the flux of events and you will read with interest because he is intelligent and what he says makes Sense. So here, without further ado, the West Side Critic:
***
So everything west of Chicago is a lot of territory to track. But what can the West Side Critic say? The WC gets the fuck around. The WC reads voraciously. The WC observes closely. The WC is willing to spew venom at all the pricks, cowards and powermongers who would destroy what essentially is a pretty OK country with a democratic tradition and a few lovely places to live in and to visit.
Tops on the WC’s mind today is the relationship, or lack thereof, between Americans and the American media – print, TV or otherwise.
That includes elected officials’ “relationship” with the American media. The electeds think the fucking press is their vehicle to pour bullshit upon the populace. No wonder. The media haven’t helped. Don’t believe me? Then start wondering why your “local” TV news is reporting about an elephant in Wisconsin that took a shit in the world’s largest toilet. Or consider the standard formula:
BEGINNING: A three-car pile-up killed 16 people and maimed another 30 on the freeway today. Doesn’t that suck? But the blood on the video looked rad. Now let’s go to a commercial about getting rid of hemorrhoids. MIDDLE: The weather will be sunny with patches of rain next week. We won’t be reporting on actual environmental issues, because that might require you to think. END: Three duckies were saved from a storm drain today, so all is well with the universe. OK, folks, this concludes our broadcast. You may now take your brain-dead ass to bed to prepare to get up for your soul-sucking corporate job. Don’t forget your morning Zoloft.
And newspapers? Not aggressive enough. These days it’s all about packaging, cutting stories, scrimping on staff to cover legislatures, local governments and business, and writing “talkers," stories that allow people to gather around the water cooler and talk about meaty subjects like the two-headed bat from Madagascar that has a knack for humming songs by Dave Matthews Band.
(OK. Even the WC will admit that’d be pretty fucking funny if it were true.)
Anyway. There are good newspapers out there fighting the good fight. And, yes, even some TV news reaches beyond the makeup and the teleprompter to tell stories about real people. So. The WC is here to tell all the electeds: Don’t shoot the messenger, bitches. If you fuck up, then expect to see it in print. Expect hard questions. Don’t invert stuff. You fucked up and got caught. If you don’t want to get investigated, then respect the public, respect democracy, do the right thing and don’t act like an asshole.
Now, the public isn’t off the hook, either. Heads up, Captain Head-In-The-Sand. Stop stuffing Doritos in your pie hole, turn off the “Friends” rerun, put the PlayStation 2 controller down and pull your head out of your ass.
There’s a world out there. There’s a war out there. The USA isn’t the only fucking country on the face of the earth. And, sorry, it isn’t necessarily the best. Yes, increasingly, you are living in the United States of Entertainment. But that’s a bad thing! Yes, occasionally the WC likes to cut loose, have a little fun, watch movies with big ‘splosions. But, Jesus, fight it once in a while. Read. Feed your head. For fuck’s sake, think!
And check this essay out to understand why our media – not to mention our Republic – has been in a downward spiral for quite some time. There’s hope, too, suggestions on what we might do – if we care, that is – to restore civic-mindedness and the press’ role in fostering it.
We’re here for only a short time, motherfuckers. Do we want to live it with our heads up our asses or do we believe in intellectual honesty, in thinking critically and in trying to make where we live a better place? What the WC knows is this: You can’t find intellectual honesty up your ass. Not even with a Thomas Bros. guide and a flashlight. So, again, pull your head out of there.
Whew. That was deep. The WC will now go away . . . for now.
Peace, bitches.
***
So everything west of Chicago is a lot of territory to track. But what can the West Side Critic say? The WC gets the fuck around. The WC reads voraciously. The WC observes closely. The WC is willing to spew venom at all the pricks, cowards and powermongers who would destroy what essentially is a pretty OK country with a democratic tradition and a few lovely places to live in and to visit.
Tops on the WC’s mind today is the relationship, or lack thereof, between Americans and the American media – print, TV or otherwise.
That includes elected officials’ “relationship” with the American media. The electeds think the fucking press is their vehicle to pour bullshit upon the populace. No wonder. The media haven’t helped. Don’t believe me? Then start wondering why your “local” TV news is reporting about an elephant in Wisconsin that took a shit in the world’s largest toilet. Or consider the standard formula:
BEGINNING: A three-car pile-up killed 16 people and maimed another 30 on the freeway today. Doesn’t that suck? But the blood on the video looked rad. Now let’s go to a commercial about getting rid of hemorrhoids. MIDDLE: The weather will be sunny with patches of rain next week. We won’t be reporting on actual environmental issues, because that might require you to think. END: Three duckies were saved from a storm drain today, so all is well with the universe. OK, folks, this concludes our broadcast. You may now take your brain-dead ass to bed to prepare to get up for your soul-sucking corporate job. Don’t forget your morning Zoloft.
And newspapers? Not aggressive enough. These days it’s all about packaging, cutting stories, scrimping on staff to cover legislatures, local governments and business, and writing “talkers," stories that allow people to gather around the water cooler and talk about meaty subjects like the two-headed bat from Madagascar that has a knack for humming songs by Dave Matthews Band.
(OK. Even the WC will admit that’d be pretty fucking funny if it were true.)
Anyway. There are good newspapers out there fighting the good fight. And, yes, even some TV news reaches beyond the makeup and the teleprompter to tell stories about real people. So. The WC is here to tell all the electeds: Don’t shoot the messenger, bitches. If you fuck up, then expect to see it in print. Expect hard questions. Don’t invert stuff. You fucked up and got caught. If you don’t want to get investigated, then respect the public, respect democracy, do the right thing and don’t act like an asshole.
Now, the public isn’t off the hook, either. Heads up, Captain Head-In-The-Sand. Stop stuffing Doritos in your pie hole, turn off the “Friends” rerun, put the PlayStation 2 controller down and pull your head out of your ass.
There’s a world out there. There’s a war out there. The USA isn’t the only fucking country on the face of the earth. And, sorry, it isn’t necessarily the best. Yes, increasingly, you are living in the United States of Entertainment. But that’s a bad thing! Yes, occasionally the WC likes to cut loose, have a little fun, watch movies with big ‘splosions. But, Jesus, fight it once in a while. Read. Feed your head. For fuck’s sake, think!
And check this essay out to understand why our media – not to mention our Republic – has been in a downward spiral for quite some time. There’s hope, too, suggestions on what we might do – if we care, that is – to restore civic-mindedness and the press’ role in fostering it.
We’re here for only a short time, motherfuckers. Do we want to live it with our heads up our asses or do we believe in intellectual honesty, in thinking critically and in trying to make where we live a better place? What the WC knows is this: You can’t find intellectual honesty up your ass. Not even with a Thomas Bros. guide and a flashlight. So, again, pull your head out of there.
Whew. That was deep. The WC will now go away . . . for now.
Peace, bitches.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Giving us the Business
Let us spend a moment in consideration of Shirley McMayon, former Chicago Park District bigwig and payola pimpess extraordinaire. Prosecutors alleged on Thursday that McMayon, who has since left the Midwest to join the high-net-worth crowd carving up the Park City, Utah, area into their own sprawling crack den, took more than $120,000 in cash and benefits in exchange for directing $8 million worth of park district business to certain firms.
We use the term “business” loosely here, given that according to newspaper accounts some of the work involved the landscaping firms turning the park district around and giving IT the business by billing for work that was never performed, sometimes in amounts suspiciously similar in size to recent bribes paid to McMayon. McMayon received cash payments, vacations and—are you ready?—tickets to Green Bay Packers games.
As the Indignant Citizen’s friend and former coworker Jon put it today, “So I’m reading about the Park District scandal, and what does it say that my main reaction is, ‘Packers tickets?!’”
What does it say indeed? And what does it say about McMayon that she would be working for the Chicago Park District and accept Packers tickets as a bribe? Loyalty isn’t what it used to be. Then again, maybe she enjoys a good sharp cheddar dildo now and then and the only place she knew of to obtain one without anyone recognizing her was through Billy’s Exotic Dancing in Green Bay. The Packers tickets were just a cover.
The photo of McMayon in the Sun-Times on Friday looked it was of her on a bike; apparently the photo department tracked down someone who knew her and had this picture in an album or perhaps even on his or her desk. She lives in Park City, where, coincidentally, the Indignant Citizen will be traveling next week. And guess what? She’s in the phone book! In case you want to give her a call and ask her yourself about her corrupt ways, anywho.com has her at 435.649.9144. There’s also an address, which the Indignant Citizen will not publish here. Instead he will perhaps try for a first-person interview.
Although she may be busy, what with the indictment and all. She might not have time to entertain callers. Plus you know, it’s almost football season, and the Indignant Citizen bets it’s hard to find cheddar dildos in Utah.
We use the term “business” loosely here, given that according to newspaper accounts some of the work involved the landscaping firms turning the park district around and giving IT the business by billing for work that was never performed, sometimes in amounts suspiciously similar in size to recent bribes paid to McMayon. McMayon received cash payments, vacations and—are you ready?—tickets to Green Bay Packers games.
As the Indignant Citizen’s friend and former coworker Jon put it today, “So I’m reading about the Park District scandal, and what does it say that my main reaction is, ‘Packers tickets?!’”
What does it say indeed? And what does it say about McMayon that she would be working for the Chicago Park District and accept Packers tickets as a bribe? Loyalty isn’t what it used to be. Then again, maybe she enjoys a good sharp cheddar dildo now and then and the only place she knew of to obtain one without anyone recognizing her was through Billy’s Exotic Dancing in Green Bay. The Packers tickets were just a cover.
The photo of McMayon in the Sun-Times on Friday looked it was of her on a bike; apparently the photo department tracked down someone who knew her and had this picture in an album or perhaps even on his or her desk. She lives in Park City, where, coincidentally, the Indignant Citizen will be traveling next week. And guess what? She’s in the phone book! In case you want to give her a call and ask her yourself about her corrupt ways, anywho.com has her at 435.649.9144. There’s also an address, which the Indignant Citizen will not publish here. Instead he will perhaps try for a first-person interview.
Although she may be busy, what with the indictment and all. She might not have time to entertain callers. Plus you know, it’s almost football season, and the Indignant Citizen bets it’s hard to find cheddar dildos in Utah.
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