The Knicks Are the MSG Humiliation Society

Each morning, before getting ready for work, I watch ESPN SportsCenter to catch up on the previous evening’s scores and highlights. Last Friday, as the scoreboard of the upcoming evening’s NBA games is being displayed, my bleary eyes see the Knicks-Kings graphic as:

Knicks
Kinks

(That's what happens when you mix so many k's early in the morning.)

I realized my mistake soon enough—but it got me to thinking: Wouldn’t the game be better if the New York Knicks did play the Kinks instead of the Sacramento Kings? I mean, the Knicks were on a four-game losing streak and off to a 2-5 start. Their highest-paid player, Stephon Marbury, was fined nearly $200,000 for skipping a game and didn’t seem much interested in earning a penny of his $20 million salary. Not to mention the franchise’s shame stemming from the sexual-harassment suit of Knicks' Head Coach/President Isiah Thomas.

Let’s face it: the Knicks had no chance of defeating Kevin Martin, Ron Artest, and co. (True enough, New York lost that evening, 123-118.)

But the Knicks—a team in turmoil—become instantly competitive against a bunch of sixty-something Brit-rockers who probably never picked up a basketball in their beer-sodden lives. Ray Davies has penned some of the greatest songs of the rock era, but his penchant for portraying lower-middle-class English life isn’t going to stop Zach Randolph and his 12.3 rebounds per game. Sure, Dave Davies and his surly attitude might hang with Eddy Curry for a quarter, but Curry’s got nearly a foot on him and would dominate the Muswell Hill guitarist in the paint. Yeah, you’d better (Wish You Could Fly Like) Superman, David…

I know what you’re thinking: the Kinks are only four members—how could they possibly compete with the New York Knicks? Well, you’ve got the Davies brothers at small and power forward, Mick Avory in the middle, and spunky Pete Quaife working the point, with Quaife’s successor, John Dalton, at shooting guard. Then there’s John Gosling, their keyboardist in the 1970s, as sixth man, rounding out with Jim Rodford, Ian Gibbons, and Bob Henrit from the Arista years off the bench.

Wanna make a team of overpaid, dysfunctional prima donnas look like a well-oiled machine? Have ‘em play a band of senior-citizen musicians who couldn’t tell Lola from Tom Gola.

Now if we could only get the Seattle Sonics to play the Rolling Stones…

A Bloody Mary to Remember

We're adding a new feature to Mount Drinkmore, citing the best weekly e-mail conversations between the Mount Drinkmore panel, which would otherwise be lost to our loyal readers. This one is from the week of November 5, after our pal Rich had a bloody mary at brunch....Let's see what develops, shall we?

Rich: "I had a Bloody Mary yesterday at brunch. Went back to bed."

Randy: "(Rich in jammies and sleeping cap.....alarm rings....Rich pops up, grabs the bloody mary on the nightstand next to him, drinks it down, goes right back to sleep)"

Pat: "I never understood sleeping caps. Sleeping with a hat on is not comfortable. And a kerchief? Ma is gonna roll over and strangle herself in the night. 'Twas the night before Christmas.....and improper sleeping clothes killed the parents."

Rich: "Ma: 'Well, time for bed.' (fits goldfish bowl over her head)"

Dave: "I got this sombrero and tried to sleep with it tilted over my eyes like you see guys doing in the movies while leaning up against a wall. You basically wind up breathing in your own sombrero-tainted breath over and over again until you can't take it anymore."

Randy: "Sleeping caps are still essential to sleepwalkers. You can't afford to sleepwalk down a flight of stairs, out a window, or even across train tracks without a sleeping cap. You might catch cold..."

Rich: "The Bloody Mary must have had at least 3 shots worth of vodka in it. I was looped by the end of an omelette. What do they put in those things? I was seriously buzzed, enough that I was slurring my speech. I felt like a hobo."

Randy: "That slurring thing's an urban legend. Most hobos enunciate quite well."

Pat: "I like the boxcar idea of hobos. Is that still going on? I say we all take a week off and investigate."

Randy: "Even back then, riding the rails was illegal. The G-men rounded up all the hobos and locked them in a special camp on the Jersey side of the Hudson.

And that's how Hoboken, NJ came to be.

It's sort of like the 1930s version of Manhattan in Escape from New York."

Rich: "I'll get us some sticks and bandanas."

Pat: "I read bananas instead of bandanas. Could you also get us some bananas?

They should have Pop Tarts with vodka in them. 'Not enough time to get drunk in the morning?'"

Randy: "Or they could fill the middle with amphetamines.

Pep Tarts -- Get your day off to a hyper start."

Rich: "Beer Tarts -- each tart has 12 oz of beer in its center. Creamy beer filling."

A Roll of the Dice-K

Forget that the Boston Red Sox thrashed the Colorado Rockies last night, 13-1, and may well be en route to the 2007 World Series championship. The franchise has sunk a huge chunk of its future into Daisuke Matsuzaka—$52 million over six years on top of $51.1 million just for the right to negotiate with “Dice-K.”

Boston has received a modest first return on its $103 million investment: 15-12, 4.40 ERA, 201K, plus three mediocre starts in this postseason.

One cannot blame Boston GM Theo Epstein for dishing out a fortune on a player with, at the time, zero Major League experience—he wanted to beat the rival New York Yankees to the punch in acquiring the next potential phenom.

Personally, had I been the Red Sox GM, I would have signed Dice Clay instead of Dice-K. With little going on in his career these days, Dice Clay could have been signed for a lot less than $103 million, and his array of filthy language would mow down hitters far more effectively than Matsuzaka’s array of filthy pitches.

Hall of Famer Warren Spahn once said, “Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.”

Well, nothing could upset a batter’s timing more than hearing the pitcher yell, F*ck you, you stupid muthaf*ckah! You think you’re gonna hit my f*ckin’ fastball, ya fat f*ckin’ pr*ck?! There’ll be martial law in this stadium, ya hear?!

Dice Clay: 20 wins easy.

Trick or Heat?

October 23. Eight days until Halloween. The temperature today is once again expected to break 80 degrees.

And it's humid.

Indian summer? Global warming? As the pundits battle over the cause, have those air-conditioned fat cats in Washington stopped to realize that America is eight short days from crisis? If this autumnal heat wave does not abate, untold Halloweens will be ruined as trick-or-treaters' chocolatey loot melts in the street, not in their mouth.

I needn't stress the importance of Halloween on the child psyche. We've all experienced the joy and the succulence of costume and candy, the emotional release from the relentless grind of homework and the ever-present dread of pop quiz.

Fistfuls of free candy is all that keeps a kid going. Without it, they may as well quit grade school, get a dead-end job, settle down, and prepare for old age.

If autumn doesn't come soon, we're in for a messy All Hallow's Eve and a long winter of discontent.

Al Gore...where are you???

(Photo of jack o'lantern copyright Encyclopaedia Brittanica Online.)

Everybody Must Get Atoned...

Jacqui's [my girlfriend's] family, who live in Atlanta, were in synagogue Saturday for Yom Kippur services.

And who was also in the congregation?

Bob Dylan.

He had a gig in Duluth, Ga., that evening and attended services earlier in the day at Jacqui's family's shul. The rabbi even had him up to the bimah.

Pray Bobby Pray
Heed what the rabbi said
Until the break of the fast
Pray from your frizzy, yarmulked head

A perfect metaphor for so many aspects of my life...

Al Davis: Scarier than the Raiders Logo

There comes a time when every professional sports team must ask itself: "Is our logo instilling more fear in the other team than the face of our owner?" In the case of the Oakland Raiders, the answer is a resounding "no." It is a pity Al Davis does not own the other pirate-oriented NFL franchise, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, because his current facial structure already bears uncanny resemblance to their logo. By simply attaching cross-bones to the back of his head, they would instantly have the best owner/mascot/promotional machine available to the sports franchise.

However, Al Davis owns the Raiders, and while it's not as sure a fit as the Bucs' logo, adding his face to the Raiders emblem will surely be giving opponents nightmares whether they admit it or not. If you can't scare teams with your talent, sometimes you have to look around for new ways of intimidation.....and that intimidation is no further than the skeletor on the sidelines with the bags and bags of money!