MiracleMax's Xanga

Monday, November 09, 2009

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:56:21 GMT

babies are cute as hell. babies scare the crap out of me.

thinking about having a kid one day was never really anything but an exercise of fear and brutal conclusions about myself. i really only barely take care of myself. throw in my severely self-centered disposition, perfected to extremes in a way only a perpetually single person can achieve, love of sleep, lack of self-restraint and patience, carelessness, depressed and cynical outlook, propensity to over-worry about random shit, control-freakishness (oddly this and carelessness exist in the same person. go figure) and a general desire to kick things, and chances of my kid ending up decent are not looking good.

i mean it's really hard to think that i would all of a sudden have this epiphany triggered by the baby's birth and re-organize my life for the baby's benefit. i think people are capable of what they have done in the past, and there's very little evidence of my responsible, co-existent, selfless life before, so why bet on it magically appearing after a baby is born? that's a really risky bet to be making, despite the volume of testimonial evidence that this motivational revolution does happen at that moment of birth.

i like drinking wine and eating brie, two things i probably won't be able to afford if i also have to pay for $1,000 baby strollers and save for college and all that business. i like watching movies in their entirety whenever i feel like it, with maximum volume. i like going out to eat and drink with friends once in a while. i like going out to listen to music. i like not having to clean up my messy living room. i like not having cheerios all over the back of my car. all gone. this brings up the ugly but equally likely possibility of me resenting the baby for changing my life so dramatically. i really like sleeping all i can, and am unbearably cranky when i lose out on even a little bit of it. that might be all i see on that poor kid's face: what i lost.

how would i handle it when the kid grows up a little and gets really mouthy and rebellious? i think that's when i'll really lose it. and when i do lose it, the long term consequences are truly scary to think about. the goal here is to shape a decent, functioning, contributing adult. future president would be great, but the baseline is decent, functioning and contributing. will my losing it stunt their growth? then when they do end up pregnant or in jail, i can really go to town on myself for steering them there by losing control.

(of course, my self-centeredness is in full bloom here. assuming that i, as a parent, will have that much influence over my child is the height of conceit. right now, as i see it, friends have an equal or more profound effect on the child's personality and character than the combined parents do. but, hey, i'm highly egotistical so all the kid's failings will be mine and my own, for a short while anyway before, through some transfer of burden, they end up right back on the shoulders of my kid.)

and despite this revelation of my possibly psychotic fear of having a child (or fear of myself?), this post is actually about how great it must be to have a kid. let me take it back a step here to explain.

yesterday was a very good friend's son's first birthday party. this son is one of like ten kids born all around the same time whose parents are all friends with each other. i live kind of far so yesterday at the party was the first chance i had to see all these kids, and it was encouraging. it wasn't so much the parents that changed my mind though, but the infants themselves. some were just kind of inexpressive and unreadable, but some really seemed to show a good-natured and decent disposition, and seeing that set the wheels in motion.

now, some might say, "they're infants! of course, they can't be anything but good-natured", which i would disagree with. i think some kids are born mean, and it honestly hurts me to see kids being mean to each other. that doesn't conclude though that mean kids have to stay mean. but seeing those kids yesterday being all goofy, curious and well-mannered, i now have to think about the effect a good baby can have on his parents, and how that goodness can reflect back onto him reinforcing their goodness. so, ultimately, this raises the previously unforeseen possibility of the good nature of the kid overcoming environmental shortcomings. in other words, it's not all about me fucking my kid up. my (as yet imaginary) kid might end up being a stronger influence on his own life than my own unintentional acts of life sabotage.

isn't that what good people do? positively change things around them? and maybe they can do it just by being born.

The Street of Whipping Boys

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:40:48 GMT

just when i thought we were pretty settled on the number of ways and reasons how and why the public should demonize Wall St., i see the news over the last few days and find something completely new for america to get pissed at Wall St. about! Wall St. is getting H1N1 vaccines along with everyone else! oh noes!!! mothers, lock up your doors and hide your children! those fang-faced, blood-sucking boogeymen are back!

apparently, some big Wall St. banks got H1N1 vaccines by the NYC government, the authority charged with disseminating the vaccine there, while some hospitals and clinics still have shortages. the news media have been unabashedly and quite shamefully painting this as another example of Wall St. greed, openly implying, but never directly saying, the banks are getting unfair preferential treatment while endangering the public.

so, let me get this straight. the public is clamoring for wide and quick distribution of the vaccine to high-risk people, BUT only through the traditional methods that are almost guaranteed to be bottlenecks? i understand that there may still be lines at hospitals for the vaccine, but given the need for fast and wide area coverage shouldn't the city utilize a shotgun approach and send vaccines to as many existing clinics to cover a wider dispersion area? the idea that there's time and bureaucratic manpower available to poll hospitals, wait for a response, do the math and ultimately derive an accurate count of which hospital needs how many vaccines is completely, off-the-wall ludicrous. given that that kind of slow, calculated approach is unacceptable right now, shouldn't the city send smaller amounts of vaccine to many more clinics rather than sending them all to just a small handful hospitals? and that's pretty much exactly what they did. the city sent the vaccines to a large list of company clinics, including Wall St. bank clinics that service huge swaths of employees daily, as well as hospitals.

think for a second about what the public and the media are really saying with all this coverage. note that they don't mention the other non-Wall St. companies that got the vaccines. they just highlight the Wall St. banks including Goldman Sachs, their latest whipping boy. they are saying the city should send out the vaccines to all clinics except Wall St. bank clinics. is that what we're all about as a society right now? for shame! i mean even if Wall St. were solely to blame for this economic shit storm we're suffering -- and they're so very clearly not --, is this how a civilization treats itself?

and who the hell absolved the rest of the country outside Wall St. of all blame in this recession anyway? was it not the local mortgage broker who originated the bad loans? were there not legions of gullible and greedy buyers who signed up for mortgages that they couldn't possibly support? were they not the voters -- half the country -- who elected the administration that let the SEC relax regulations? get off your fucking high horse, America, and accept some responsibility. this is our problem.

Top 5 Former Child Actresses Who Grew Up To Become Hottie Actresses

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:43:06 GMT

Mila Kunis - yeah she was cute and spunky in That 70s Show. i guess it was pretty obvious that she would bloom into full on neck-breaking hottiedom someday, but DAYAM! my eyes nearly popped out of my friggin head when i saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Diane Lane - i never knew this until a few years ago but apparently Diane Lane had a promising and well-received acting life before Cherry Valence. who knew? but all i know is The Outsiders so there's Cherry Valence, all high school cute with her baby fat cheeks (though they are hardly fat by any normal standard) and red hair in my mind. plus, she was a nice Soc! very cool. not very long after her turn as the high schooler, she busted out in full vampish rockstar hottie form in Streets of Fire. i still listen to some of those Street of Fire songs in moments of sweet cheesy indulgence. she grew old, and more beautiful. seen her lately? aging, yes, but very gracefully. not as well as Heather Locklear but well enough. hottie.

Natalie Portman - who was that precocious little kid in The Professional? oh that's just this gorgeous hottie.

Jennifer Connelly - remember her in Labyrinth? yeah, me neither. never saw the film, but i do know she was the star and she was quite young, and she's now a hottie slamma mama. in nearly every movie she's in lately, she has a "seductive look" scene where she looks in the general direction of the camera with a come-hither look so strong it could stop the heart of a rhinoceros. i'm merely a man, so i try not to look directly at her image for fear of burning my eyeballs out of their sockets.

Drew Barrymore - she was so cute in E.T. then she went a bit nuts, and i understand why that might make her a little less attractive to some. and she's no spring chicken anymore either. i know this! but she's still very pretty, and would look something like an angel even if she gained a little weight, which is a huge plus. slap some white feather wings on her and a bow and arrow and she'd be the perfect little cherub shooting little red hearts into passersby. how hot would that be??? very. plus, doesn't she just look cool to hang out with?

Friday, October 30, 2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:28:40 GMT

i forgot James Cameron made some cool movies in his very distant pre-Titanic-king-of-the-world-ass-festness. he did make The Terminator, Aliens and The Abyss after all. he's back in the zone again apparently, doing what he does best, sci-fi, baby.

new trailer for his upcoming marines invade another planet, sci-fi animation film AVATAR. looks pretty rockin. apparently he pioneered a lot of new animation technologies to make this film. like he was sitting there designing new computers, machines and methods to make this or something to that effect. and it does look like something i haven't seen before, the way the line between live action and purely animated seems to be permanently blurred. very very very interesting.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:12:22 GMT

the hypothetical girl with bad breath was really just a way of me posing a question about a possible hypocrisy in our culture. i guessed (correctly?) that most people would reject someone with bad breath, but might object to judging someone who is not-so-great looking equally poorly. when asked what they are looking for in a mate, how often does someone flat out say, "they have to be gorgeous"? "they can't be fat at all." isn't that viewed to be superficial and immature?

but everyone seemed to object to the breath thing with no problems, the only exception appearing when the acceptance was paired with an attempt to repair the stanky breath. hardly a ringing endorsement for accepting the walking dead mouths.

so i now propose this follow-up question. why is it ok to reject someone because they offend your sense of smell, but not ok to reject someone because they offend your sense of sight? or is it not ok at all? or is it ok to reject both?

actually don't answer that. i think i know the answer, which will be pretty much like the other answers. reject what you don't like. the end. got it. i'm gone.

****

has anyone been watching Bored to Death on HBO? i saw a few eps and i have to say that i love this show! another HBO winner. of course, that's all HBO knows how to do. make kick ass tv shows. everyone in this cast cracks me the fuck up, especially Zack Galafinaakakaiakaikiakiakakakis.

****

http://consumerist.com/5392727/just-in-case-your-hands-are-jealous-of-your-butt

if this exists, then does that mean out there somewhere exists a wifebeater for my nutsack?

Top 5 Things That Should Be Acceptable At The Office But Aren't

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:39:14 GMT

- Napping - completely idiotic standard that fights human biology. there's a reason why every cell in my body is screaming for sleep at 3pm. because it fucking needs it! am i being productive while my head is lolling around like some flabby tit? nope. am i productive afterwards? nope. we laugh at george costanza's habitual idiocy that we wish we could indulge in, but that one time he had the right idea. sleeping under the desk at work should not only be acceptable but encouraged.

- Not Laughing When Something Isn't Funny - i admit, i already do this. fuck that shit. the whole room is laughing with the boss, and they all look like complete jackasses. also, kind of related but maybe not really. i don't think it should be an office requirement to sit there and celebrate a birthday of someone you don't know or don't like. the guy knows that i don't know him from Adam! it's so fake, and we both know it as we sit there mumbling our way to cake.

- Leaving or Abruptly Ending a Boring Conversation About Nothing - honestly. the rudeness these "friendly" people achieve but don't get called out on is nothing short of larceny. they are stealing my time, attention and good will, which is usually already in short supply. of course, they are completely oblivious to my hostile body language and looks of complete indifference, but i have to stand there and take this subtle form of abuse for the sake of being polite at the office. well they're not being very polite, are they? i think i should be able to simply walk away and have it not offend them.

- Taking Extended Breaks For Stuff - like a doctor appointment? meeting the cable guy? i know most offices are already cool like this. mine isn't really. most shit is open and working while i'm unavailable during work hours and closes when i'm available after work. that leaves me like 20 minutes during rush hour traffic to run all my errands. why do i have to jump through hoops to get a checkup? i mean i can make up the lost time, that's no problem. but i have to get permission and arrange to work from home, etc? all that crap for what?

- Farting - dude, it doesn't kill you when you're at home and someone farts. so harmless. it just smells a little bit and wafts away. do it enough times and it becomes thoroughly unnoticeable. not at the office though. that's a crime worthy of public shaming, but it makes no sense to me. the discomfort i feel holding in gas borders on cruel and usual. and when it's on the cusp of letting itself out and i get up to go to the bathroom, of course it runs away back up into my bowels. i gather the positioning of my abdomen when i sit down adds pressure that disappears when i stand up and straighten out, which should explaining my ghost farts. but the fact that i have to get up and go to the bathroom at all is just silly. how productive am i as i sit there contemplating going to the bathroom simply to fart? not at all. as a matter of fact, it's all i think about for a long while, as i continue to not work. how great would it be if you could fart in your chair and have it be a perfectly normal thing to do? very. that's how great.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:19:42 GMT

so again about Where The Wild Things Are... it's sad. and it's just so sweet, i can't seem to get over it.

****

i was watching the trailers before Wild Things and they played a trailer for The Blind Side, that football book i mentioned last week. so weird that i just thought about it and saw the trailer like that, especially after i completely forgot they were making a movie. the movie trailer looked oh-so-craptastic, to my dismay, but i see how there's really very little room around that.

it's a non-fiction book about a dirt poor, lost-in-the-woods street urchin high school kid who just happens to have all the physical attributes to be a premier football lineman. a wealthy white woman sees him digging around the dirt slums and brings him into her home and basically gives him a new life going to high school and playing football. the woman is played by Sandra Bullock, so right away it's going to be at least a little craptastic. it's a great story in book form though, written by Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker). in movie form, on the other hand, there's really only one way to go and that's "uplifting", aka typical, aka craptastic. gotta make some money somehow.

****

Where The Wild Things Are

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:02:15 GMT

i could talk about how the monster costumes and effects were impressive. and how technical mastery created monster faces that showed such painfully present emotion. and how the stick structures and sparse world of wooded fantasy were perfect for this brand of "wild thing" imagination. i could talk about catherine keener's acting or the DP's camera shots. but that would all just be being reductive and missing the forest for the trees, because ultimately all the technical aspects and production values worked well enough to disappear into the film content itself and present to you this masterpiece of a film. i'll say that again for effect. masterpiece.

i remember seeing the book around the house when i was a kid but i don't think i ever read it. if i did, i don't remember it, so i can't compare.

it's the story about a nine year old kid named Max. his parents are divorced. his sister is older and ignores him. his mother is dating Mark Ruffalo. one night he lashes out at his mother and runs away to the woods where he sails a boat to a faraway island populated by giant, childlike, "wild thing" beasts who immediately adopt him as their king. things go great for a short while in this fantasy land until real world emotions peek into Max's kingdom and threaten to tear apart his new family of fellow wild things. (so, anyone that complains about this film having no plot should just STFU because there it is.)

again, i won't go into the technical stuff because i don't want to lose sight of the magic of this film, which is the re-creation of the entire spectrum of childhood emotions, which actually is the entire spectrum of Real Human Emotions, just in a different setting. fear, betrayal, disappointment, loneliness, happiness, hope, love, comfort. spike jonze romps through our fundamental emotive existence through this kid Max, sometimes heart-breakingly and sometimes with enthusiasm. there's no mistake though, the film's emotions are all real, endearing and somehow have such an intense vivacity that they often felt like an electric shock or a splash of water in the face. in a good way. i'm not exactly sure how Spike Jonze did it, but he put all the pieces together and the film, like Pinocchio, became a living thing. and he did it all without talking down to Max or giving us, the audience, an adults' view of Max's story. i became Max and the Wild Things, and i felt their emotions as i feel my own.

from this nytimes article: "'We wanted it all to feel true to a 9-year-old and not have some big movie speech where a 9-year-old is suddenly reciting the wisdom of the sage.' [Jonze] hadn’t set out to make a children’s movie, [Jonze] said, so much as to accurately depict childhood. 'Everything we did, all the decisions that we made, were to try to capture the feeling of what it is to be 9.'" what the quote and article didn't say however is how in trying to show the view of a nine year old, the film became instantly relateable regardless of age to anyone that has a heart. (or, also a likely possibility, i am literally retarded. emotionally stunted. but at this point... so what?)

i just saw this thing yesterday, so the experience is still fresh and might dull out later, but right now, i feel like Where The Wild Things Are is one of those films that come along every several years that convince you of the awesomeness of movies. the word "fantastic" somehow isn't fit to describe this film. "special" works much better.

Movie Review Update 10/22/09

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:32:57 GMT

previous reviews here.

The Class (2008) - french, documentary style narrative about a high school teacher's year in a low-income neighborhood school. it's based on a non-fiction book written by the main actor who, himself, was a high school teacher, so if it seems he gets very into his role, it's because he's playing himself. given the fact that the book is written by the teacher and that that teacher is also the main actor of the film, i expected a completely one-sided, fuck-the-students type of story, but it wasn't really. (or am i sympathetic to teachers?) while the film gets a little jumpy skipping from one time period to the next, i thought it was an extremely compelling film that gets into the middle of the two-sided exchange that is high school. 3.5 stars.

Sin Nombre (2009) - this film won all sorts of awards all over the festival circuit, including Sundance. very impressive considering this is filmmaker Cary Fukunaga's first feature film. set in mexico, Sin Nombre is the story about a young, hardened veteran of the infamous MS-13 gang fleeing for his life and a young girl who is trying to smuggle herself into america. i thought it sank the viewer into the slums environment exceptionally well, while always maintaining the human element with this boy and girl. and it avoids the cheese. 3.5 stars.

Adventureland (2008) - coming of age film that was much poo-pooed when it came out, which is too bad because it's not really that bad, imo. Jesse Eisenberg is a newly broke college kid that has to work a summer at the local amusement park to raise money for.... i forget. doesn't matter. the recently ubiquitous kristen stewart is the prerequisite love interest. ryan reynolds is some guitar player whatever. if Eisenberg is forever known as the poor man's Michael Cera, he deserves every letter of it. he really is. even though this film is a slave to the formula, i liked the little pockets of unhappiness that it dared to uncover in every character that michael-cera-wannabe runs across. there's a hint at real depth there, and i wished it explored that more, but oh well. it is what it is. halfway entertaining with a good looking, familiar cast and some potential for really great stuff. too bad it never realized that potential. 2.5 stars.

Duplicity (2009) - julia roberts and clive owen in a tony gilroy film. also poo-pooed when it came out in the theater and also another film that i didn't mind, even liked. i am becoming a big fan of Tony Gilroy scripts (he also wrote Michael Clayton). roberts and owen are both former government spies that are using their skills in the world of corporate espionage. screenwriter Tony Gilroy excels at writing strong dialogue and inserting technical expertise, both in a real world, non-fantasy environment. the things that happen in his world could be happening right next to you, but it just seems so outrageous at the same time. the tone of Duplicity gets pretty silly, but these are still real people. roberts and owen, reunited after their fantastic turn together in Closer, have enough star power to skate this twisty and entertaining story to a fun conclusion. 3.5 stars.

Space Battleship Yamato: The Movie (1974) - you old guys, do you remember Star Blazers? well this is the original movie. it's basically the whole Race to Iscandar story, seen to its conclusion in two hours. it was made in the 1970s so the action sequences are laughably shitty by today's standards, but the interesting part to watch here is how it all relates to Japanese national honor and military sentiment after the depression of WW2. this film that was watered down and stripped of all pro-Japanese military sentiment in US releases is essentially about the eventual rise of Japanese military strength in a time of need and in service to the planet earth. interesting. still though, it's a shitty movie. 1.5 stars.

Away We Go (2009) - Maya Rudolph and John Krasinksi (from The Office) in a Sam Mendes film. very entertaining film about a young, newly pregnant couple that are on a multi-city search for a new hometown and along the way confront the issues of how they want to end up as a family. the film starts out in a flighty, fun place, but ends up in an extremely contemplative and almost sad position. the wild swing between the two extremes -- a liability in most cases -- is an example here of completeness. the key to this sort of thing is how likeable or engaging the two main characters are. it's clear everyone around them is kind of crazy, but do we really care what happens to the pregnant couple? in this case, yes. they are simply adorable. Bert (Krasinksi) plays a sunshiney, loveable male ditz and Verona (Rudolph) is the darker, more contemplative half of the pair. stitch them together with some snappy dialogue and there's no way this roast comes out overdone.      4 stars.

Goodbye Solo (2009) - indie film about a bubbly african cab driver who befriends an old, white curmudgeon customer in a very odd-couple pairing. the white dude wants to be left alone, while the cab driver wants nothing more than to intrude on his life. some soul-searching and self-discovery occurs as per norm. like other films of this genre, Goodbye Solo rises and falls with the likeability of Solo, the cab driver star of the show, and whatever chemistry he strikes up with the old white man. imo, Solo was pretty annoying, but it turns out that was part of the point. long way around to get to a pretty mediocre conclusion. 3 stars.

Sugar (2008) - another indie-type film, this time by the writer-director pair Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the same two that made the pretty solid film Half Nelson. Half Nelson got all the press back in the day, but i might argue that Sugar is the better film. It's is a sprawling and ambitious film about a young Dominican baseball prospect and his journey through a MLB farm system. you think you've seen a hundred films like this before, but it turns out that Sugar isn't like any of those other formula films, for better or worse. imo, for better. the main character, Sugar, comes from a place of instability, is blessed with some talent, and ultimately has to face the fact that his dreamy life might not be all that dreamy.   but far from cliche, this movie is a great example of the film's not giving in to expectation while at the same time not defying expectations just to be cheeky. it's its own story, and deserves a look. 3.5 stars.

District 9 (2009) - in the current onslaught of brainless and unoriginal remakes and adaptations, it's nice to see a fun, creative and well executed sci-fi film break through like this one did this summer. District 9 centers around an alien ufo landing that deposits a large population of aliens in south africa. rather than fight the all out war for world domination, like one might expect, the aliens are rounded up and given shelter in District 9 because they're all pretty much starving, and stuck here on earth. humans rule this planet though, and people being people, treat the aliens like shit. first told in a documentary style, the film lays the groundwork and tells the story of how the aliens and humans co-exist. not nicely. then something unexpected happens, and the film takes on a different tack, instantly transforming into a fast-paced action film. even though the film felt familiar at times, i never thought it wasn't a great new film. 4 stars.

Top 5 Favorite Professional Athletes (in my lifetime anyway)

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:58:04 GMT

Brett Favre - let's forget this recent annoyance about his retirement indecision. that will be forgotten completely in the next ten years. when you talk about enthusiasm for the game, this is it. if love of football took human shape and pumped red blood, it would have no choice but to become Brett Favre. there are countless stories and stats. he threw a last second, game-winning touchdown with an injured finger on his throwing hand. he's started the most games since Moses. i remember watching him get creamed once, absolutely smeared across the turf, and he immediately jumped back up and slapped the offender in the head. out of anger? nope. to congratulate him for a great hit. over the past few decades i've watched this excitement that bordered on insanity and let it infect me. i wish all football players loved playing as much as he does.

Lawrence Taylor - possibly the anti-Favre. he really doesn't give a shit about football anymore, which makes me wonder if he ever did. he's a notorious druggie and quite unapologetic about it all. but back in the day... when he was in college, they polled all the NFL head coaches at the time and asked them who they absolutely wished they could land in the draft. around 90% said Lawrence Taylor. everyone says he was a game-changer. he revolutionized the game of football. i could always catch on little bits about what that meant but i never knew exactly how he did it. he's a strong, crazy motherfucker who runs after the quarterback like a wild jackass. revolutionary enough. then i read Michael Lewis' excellent book called The Blind Side and learned exactly what happened. read the book. the original LT was a force that the NFL had to conform around. and he was a New York Giant!

Charles Oakley - everyone remembers Patrick Ewing when the New York Knicks were good in a previous life, but to me he never mesmerized like the don't-you-even-fucking-look-at-me-or-i'll-fucking-kill-you presence that was Charles Oakley. Oakley's numbers aren't legendary as far as i know, but he dove for loose balls, rebounded, boxed out and owned the paint essentially by being a menacing dark shadow of malevolence. i'm a sucker for unsung heroes, and this guy never got his due as the wind beneath Ewing's wings.

Derek Jeter - i feel like a little girl cheering for Jeter just because he's the easy one to cheer for, the one EVERYone knows to cheer for, even the little girls. he's that easy to pick out for a reason: he's fucking amazing. people say he's a clutch player. true, he has come through in some tight, pressure-cooker situations before, but he's just doing what he always does. he's a consistent performer and that means he's performing similarly when things are ho-hum uneventful and when things are so tense the planet might spontaneously explode from the compressed energy and anticipation. clutch? that implies he might not perform otherwise. consistent? a grinder? yes and yes, and the ridiculously high level of play that he plays at everyday is why he's the king.

Paul O'Neill - a Charles Oakley, quiet force, grinder type for the Yankees, but this is really less about O'Neill than it is about the championship teams that he was a part of. Jeter was a rising star back in the late '90s, but the team was dominated by unflashy grinders that just produced well together. Brosius, Posada, Knoblauch (throwing issues aside), Tino, Bernie, Mariano. Paul O'Neill is just my favorite -- besides Jeter -- of them all and my chosen ambassador for those glory days of the team that played so well together. he never put up flashy numbers, but he hit well consistently kind of like Matsui does now, and he was a notoriously grumpy perfectionist, often throwing gloves, bats, helmets, etc. when he struck out. he was a bona fide nutcase, but the anger was always directed at his own performance. it would always crack me up when he threw his helmet after a strike out. such anger! he loved baseball and he loved playing it well.

***

click here for a funny take on Oakley by Bill Simmons. scroll down to the John Shaft Award section with the MJ pic. yes, The John Shaft Award goes to Charles Oakley. because he's a baaaad man. "For God's sake, everyone in the league is still afraid of him, personified by the one-sided Tyrone Hill/Oakley and Jeff McInnis/Oakley feuds, as well as the famous story of Oak slapping Barkley hard across the face during a '99 lockout players-only meeting, which became his signature "Here's why you don't mess with Oakley" moment."