Velveteen Vuvuzela for Obnoxiousness in Sport

Hey! I can’t read the ALT text.

Can someone please tell me why Bouncyball players have taken to wearing culottes?

This is a worthy category for the future, and such as.

Politicians do silly shit for power and advantage, often to the detriment of society. (And the money.)

Participants in Sport do it because they love what they do. (Also, the munnie.)

I’m still waiting for the VOC to release their numbers. I was out there visiting friends in Nov and he told me that everyone in Van was so happy about how it turned out (especially when they ignored the luge mess) but the VOC is trying to keep the budget numbers secret lest the happy Hongcouver people realize how much that happiness cost them.

@Benedick: Ha!

ETA: You’re making my day! I have one cigarette left, and my landlord hasn’t plowed the parking lot. But last time he did, we had a 7′ mountain of snow blocking our exit to the parking lot, so yeah.

(Call your doctor and see if you can get some Robaxin or Flexeril if you’re having muscle spasms.)

You know, I never looked at Little Brett, but now that it’s all pixelated and shit, I might have to.

ETA: It wasn’t worth the effort. Shoulda just squinted.

I thought that behaving like an asshole was the whole point of Sport.

@JNOV: I had weird Vicodin-powered waking dreams most of the night and now have an unpleasant hangover which seems to be being manifested as an irrational hatred of Rachel Maddow. I’m not in that much discomfort (even I’m ashamed to call it pain) but know that if I go and shovel snow it will get ugly again. I see my own doctor tomorrow instead of Chip at the for-profit ER.

@Benedick: Okay. Good. No shoveling!

The worst Vicodin-powered waking dream I’ve had: I was in the bathroom. But I wasn’t. Peed the bed. Woke up and cried. Boyfriend laughed. (I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, because I couldn’t climb into the (ugh) water bed.) Next night, dreamt I was in the bathroom…

@Benedick: @JNOV:

I thought Vicodin didn’t do that. When I was in the hospital thanks to what later was found to be a 4 year long case of appendicitis, I was on Morphine drip after they took away the epidural post op. Worst dream I had was I found myself stuck on the Blue Planet of Pandora (from Avatar for you non Avatards) and living the life with a bunch of distorted cat faced smurfs while being shot at by white hunter unobtanium heart types.

The crazy part was that I hadn’t seen Avatar.

Of course when I told the pain doc about that dream, a half an hour later the nurses came by and ripped out the morphine drip and started me on low doses of Oxy.

@JNOV: Darling. Thank you for sharing. Kisses.

You got me beat. I spent hours wondering at how Shirley Temple’s mother, who would seem to have been a dedicated and very intelligent caretaker of her daughter’s career, is now mostly characterized as a ‘stage mother’ with all the ugly connotations of that term. I then spent a couple of hours working out exactly why there was nothing heroic about Spiderman in any of his manifestations and how the idea itself lacks any moral dimension. Which brought me round to worrying about how much rehearsal time the cast was stuck with rehearsing the musical. They’re officially in preview which means they’re no doubt working 11-6 every day and then playing at night for no overtime. The crew will be getting overtime and so will the musicians. So went my night.

@ManchuCandidate: Vicodin is a mild opiate. Even without it I sometimes have dreams about being in a musical which doesn’t exist. I dream all the song and numbers and how this time I don’t know the lyrics or steps and am forced to fake my way though the show.

@Benedick: Let me know when you find out. Are kilts next?

@ManchuCandidate: AWESOME!

@Benedick: Hey. I was just trying to make you feel better. You just blessed my heart, didn’t you? ;-)

I’d had my gallbladder out (over 100 stones), and any kind of getting up and down or using my stomach muscles was hell, hence the mattress on the floor. And then I watched a Clint Eastwood marathon — the old movies. I’d never seen them before, and I was like “Whoa. They’re pretty good when you’re hopped up on goofballs.”

Wait. Why no overtime? Are they being exploited by one of those “professionals” loopholes? Not that they aren’t professionals, but I’ve been hit with that no overtime business before. I talked about unionizing contract attorneys, and people blanched.

@Dodgerblue: Everyone should wear kilts. Properly.

@JNOV: You don’t get overtime during previews. They didn’t go out of town. You don’t get overtime there either. It’s possible that you reach a point where overtime will kick in but honestly can’t remember. You have to have 12 hours from end of show to next day’s call. And either 2 hours or 1 1/2 between end of rehearsal and half-hour call for show. If someone needs more than half an hour to get ready they usually build that in. But no, it’s part of the contract. It usually means a very grueling time as rewrites are done and technical changes and improvements are made. Whole days can be spent refining quick-changes. Stage hands have much better terms and higher rates of pay than do actors.

@Benedick: Are the stage hands employees of the theater or are they hired by the prlducer for the run of the show? or something else?

@Dodgerblue: Producers rent the theatres from owners – Shuberts, Nederlanders, Jujamcyn, etc – on a four-wall basis: ie, the building. Everything is brought in by the producer. Rigging, electricals, sound, ushers, everything. The house will come with heads of dept, house manager, chief electrician, head carpenter (top stagehand), head of wardrobe. They will hire a crew depending on what is needed in the show. The stage hands are members of IATSE or local one, so called because it was the first union formed for the New York theatre (grew out of the Irish gangs in Hell’s Kitchen). They have excellent health plans and extraordinarily generous pension and overtime benefits. Top earning person at Lincoln Center is the Head Carpenter for the Met. In the bad old days the crew would go on double-triple overtime for a load-in of a set. Much has been reformed but they still do very well. Usually the crew likes to settle in to a show and stay with it for its run as after the initial horror of tech their jobs get much easier.

Is it too late to nominate that dick Jets coach who tripped the Miami player. Rex needs to fire that asshole.

@Benedick: Interesting. Thank you. I like learning about the economics of “art.” I imagine that running an art museum is like walking through a snakepit naked every day.

@Dodgerblue: ZOMG! Watch The Art of the Steal. It will make your blood boil. It’s streaming on Netflix.

@JNOV: I went and saw the Barnes collection when my kid was at Bryn Mawr. Un-fucking-believable, both what that guy collected and the meshuggenah way the collection was displayed. I’ve read that the Philly art powers broke the Barnes trust and convinced a judge it’s OK to move the stuff to a yet-unbuilt facility near the Rocky Museum, I mean, Philly Museum of Art. [hums Rocky theme]

@Dodgerblue: Yeah. They tore down the Youth Study Center (i.e. Juvenile Hall) to build the new museum. It’ll be near the Rodin.

We’ve been to the real Barnes, and my dad went to Lincoln. Dad thinks it’s good that they’re moving it (more people will see the art), and I think it sucks. The Barnes belongs in Merion!

There is a method to his meshuggenah — he planned it all out very carefully and intentionally combined art from different cultures to illustrate the point that we are all related.

Philly treated him like crap. All the people that finally got their hands on his art, like the Annenbergs who used to fillet him and his collection in The Inquirer, the Rocky Museum and the Pews did a number on him when he was alive. And good ole pay to play Philly pols were more than happy to help. Disgusting.

@JNOV: I understand that the people of Merion were not happy with all the riffraff driving through their happy, insular community to see Art.

@Dodgerblue: Kinda but not really. Barnes had it set up as an educational trust until one of the Lincoln trustees opened it up to the public. Barnes had it so that it was rarely open to the public and its main function was educational. Once that changed, people started showing up in tour buses and blocking driveways and it was a mess for the neighborhood. Then there was a fight over building a parking lot. Merion residents came up with a workable plan, but the trustees wouldn’t consider it.

@JNOV: If memory serves, which it may not, we had a reservation and parked in a small off-street parking lot adjacent to the Barnes building.

When is the new building supposed to open?

Barnes’ mistake was housing the art in Buttfuck, PA. Isabella Stewart’s collection is still where she put it. When you go to visit, bring a flashlight.

@Dodgerblue: Yeah. A parking lot was finally built, and you do need reservations with a specific time to arrive. Otherwise, there are way too many people in the building to enjoy the experience.

It was supposed to open this year, but I think people are still fighting the move. Folks (oh, like our governor) lied to the judge about funding for the Barnes, but I think it’s a done deal.

@karen marie doesn’t want to know: Kobe Bryant grew up in Buttfuck, PA. Which makes a certain amount of sense given his later alleged activities.

@JNOV: I’d fly to Philly to see that collection again. More Cezannes than in Paris!

@karen marie doesn’t want to know: Oh! No, no — it’s in a very nice place. He never, ever, ever wanted it in Philly. That was his main point. He tried to share it and exhibited it once at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and people mocked him. I mean, they treated him like some dumbass because he wasn’t old money. Merion is old money. Residents didn’t start complaining until the loud stinky tour buses started showing up.

@Dodgerblue: Ha!

@Dodgerblue: More post-impressionist art than in the Met, The Louvre, and the Rocky Museum combined.

@Dodgerblue: You should come out before it moves.

@karen marie doesn’t want to know: Ah. I’ve always wanted to visit.

@JNOV: It really is lovely, but very dark, hence the need for a flashlight.

@JNOV: I thought the Merion facility was closed. Wrong?

Oh, that’s interesting! The Sunoco Foundation (old Sun Oil) is also a donor supporting the move. The Pews own Sunoco.

@Dodgerblue: Nope. Still open after 3:00 PM on certain days. It looks like it won’t move until 2012.

ETA: That’s weird. You used to be able to buy tickets online, and I think they were like $5 or something like that. Not sure. Anyway, it looks like you’re not allowed to meander anymore. A “select group of the premier paintings in the collection”? WTF?

EATA: DERP. You can still buy them online, and now parking is $15. That’s nuts.

BTW, Fearless Leader: LURVE Sepp’s eyeballs towards pixelated Farve pic. Play of the day.

@blogenfreude: IIRC — that dude’s services are no longer required by Jets’ management.

BTW: the Hess Truck is still de rigueur for children in the New York / New Jersey area. Especially as last second gifts. Awesome.

@chicago bureau: LOVE the Hess Truck! Dig the John Deere tractor, too. And the Heinz pickle pin!

DEVELOPING HARD SPORT: Black Eagle praises Eagles’ owner for taking in Vick. I shit you not.

The Rex Ryan thing was an interesting late year development, although not of the obnoxious kind. You just felt bad for the guy and his family. Favree’s destruction of his legacy was justice manifest, however. Dude should have quit and stayed quit when he left Green Bay. I just got tired of his shit over the years.

@chicago bureau: “Ron Mexico” is still the most awesome alias ever.

@JNOV: When Chicago Bureau was a mere cubicle, he got one or two. The new plastic-toy smell was strong, and the little red lights were sooooo cool.

Speaking of childhood — I got to Albany International Airport (“International?” Huh?) five hours early. Not because of snow, but because my sister’s kids needed to roll to Ithaca. Flights to Chicago are seemingly unaffected by blizzard, but I trust Untied as far as I can throw it.

(Untied, of course, competes with Americant, Dolta and Southworst. It also competes with [REDACTED]inental, but it is going away soon and, thus, will not force me to refer to it in impolite terms.)

@chicago bureau: Nice. Will he be getting Vick a puppy, too?

@JNOV: My local farm store has the complete line of John Deere toys, including the pink girls’ bike.

@chicago bureau: Vick is having a better year than Obama.

@JNOV: Well worth it. I’ve got some trips back east in Jan and Feb, will see what I can work out.

@chicago bureau: THAT’S CRAP!

@chicago bureau: Why can’t we have a KLM clone? We need one. Jet Jos Smith Jr Blue is pretty good when it’s not stuck on the tarmac for eight or nine hours. Lotsa leg room. But they don’t fly to Philly. I had to drive to JFK to get on a non-stop to Oakland. Bad thing was, I took the red eye back and then had to drive from JFK to Philly. I fell asleep a few times because Jet Blue was playing some 80s hairband show hosted by Brett Michaels, and I could not. turn. it. off. Bad deal.

@Mistress Cynica: LOVE! Jr had the tractor. An old BF’s dad bought it — they lived in Iowa, and the dad was like, “That kid needs something that represents us.”

@chicago bureau: I love Albany airport. i can drive there in 50 mins and not have to go anywhere near NYC. If only I could fly direct from there to Reykjavik how happy I would be.

@Dodgerblue: Oh, so awesome!

@Dodgerblue: Someday I will explain to you about royalty pools and losing weeks.

@Benedick: ALB was a shithole before they redid it in the late 90s. NOTE: it was redone thanks to a NY State Senator (Joe Bruno) who was rung up on corruption charges. As would be any halfway-decent NY pol.

@chicago bureau: This is NY. Let’s face it, if your pol isn’t corrupt he/she’s not doin it right.

@chicago bureau: Once you’ve had a Virgin America flight, you can’t go back to any other airline.