I Can't Complain (but sometimes I still do)

By now Michael Richards' racial outburst has been debated and discussed ad nauseum. But when I think about the topic my thoughts generally shift to Richard Belzer.

Keep with me here.

Richard Belzer, of NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fame, started out as a stand-up comic. (They don't like to be called comedians anymore - Why? I have no idea) Experienced stand-up comics know how to deal with hecklers. A novice like Michael Richards did not, and he is paying the price. This is how a pro handles a heckler:

One night I was watching a crappy VH1 show that did a piss-poor job of trying to rank the Top100 comics. Then there was this bright shining moment, one of the hosts shared a story about Richard Belzer. When heckled with, "Nice jacket. Where'd you get it?" Belzer immediately responded, "In your mother's vagina. I get all my clothes there. It's like a clothing super-warehouse."

The conventional wisdon states that:

1) USC has hands-down the best schedule
2) Michigan looks like the 2nd best team, but they had their chance and lost
3) Therefore USC should play OSU in the BCS National Championship Game

This is all fine and good, mainly because I like the end result of USC being in the BCS National Championship Game, but I question the Michigan vs. USC logic being used. Namely, why doesn't anyone point out that Michigan should look like the better team when playing the worse schedule?

Simply put, USC is better than what the human eye has seen on the field, and Michigan is worse that what has been seen by the human eye, comparatively.


Note that I am specifically using the term "BCS National Championship Game" because the AP Poll goes it's way. And if USC beats Ohio State to claim the BCS while the AP Poll crowns Michigan #1, I am perfectly fine with it.

The atmosphere in the Coliseum this past Saturday might have been the best that I have ever witnessed. The night started loud, finished loud, and was loud in between - on every play. We were moved one section over to accommodate the Notre Dame fatcats, but that didn't dampen our spirits, even though my view was impeaded by not the goalposts, but by one the poles used to raise the netting for field goal attempts and extra point tries.

It was a great night all around. A resounding Trojan victory over the Irish all but ensured that USC wold be spending January 8th in Glendale, Arizona. And if Brady Quinn's Heisman hopes had any life left in them going into the game, they were all but extinguished by halftime.

Unfortunately, the majority of the ND fans were moved to the opposite endzone in Section 1, therefore I didn't get to mention anything about the Potato Famine when Irish fans left after the Brian Cushing touchdown. Not that they would have heard me anyways, because the place was loud, the place was energized, the place was jumping!

... and Beat her patron saint, Charlie "Fat Bastard" Weis

Beat the Mispronounced French Church

Beat the Tarnished Dome

Beat the Leprechauns

Beat the Drunken Irish

Beat the Perpetually Overrated

Beat the Domers

Beat the Perpetually Overranked

Beat Granny Holtz

Beat the We Are Catholic In Name Only School

Beat the Lawnmower-Challenged

Beat the Champion of the Armed Forces Conference

Beat the Holier Than Thou Attitude

Beat the I Can't Find South Bend On A Map ND Fans

Beat the Never Waking Echoes

Beat the Irish!

Nipped in the bud

Once again, Trojans show Bears who’s in charge

By BOB PADECKY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

LOS ANGELES - Until proven otherwise, and it’s beginning to look like it will take a lot of proof, USC is Cal’s daddy.

There is no gentle way to put that. No kind way to give Cal a pat on the back and say nice try, Bears. No tries are nice when the Rose Bowl is on the line. USC is Cal’s daddy because daddy is in charge, daddy knows when to turn it on and daddy knows how to take his kid to school.

And in the fourth quarter Saturday night, USC took Cal to class. USC showed the Bears what to do when the hands on the fourth-quarter game clock are going tick, tick, TICK, so loud you might forget why you’re here.

USC didn’t. With the score tied at 9-9, the Trojans scored back-to-back touchdowns. Cal answered the first score this way: two incomplete passes by Bears quarterback Nate Longshore and a 2-yard completion.

Cal answered the second touchdown this way: three incomplete passes, the third one dropped by a Trojans defender. Longshore appeared overwhelmed.

“You got to be able to keep up (with USC),” said Cal coach Jeff Tedford, giving the impression the Bears scrambled as best they could. And they did. The Bears don’t have to apologize for this one. They weren’t jobbed, victims of a conspiracy. They didn’t flop, fall flat or lean against excuses.

“At least we got this close (to the Rose Bowl),” said Cal offensive guard Erik Robertson, and if that sounds like acceptance, it is. It also shows the fundamental difference between Cal and USC, a flaw you might call it.

USC, if it had lost this game, would have never had a player say afterward, “At least we got this close.” Never. The Trojans don’t do close. The Trojans have won 21 Rose Bowls, 17 of them since Cal last won one. The Trojans have won seven national championships, two in the last three years. Those numbers aren’t just an egregious excuse to fill out the team’s press guide.

Those numbers are comfort in time of need, like Saturday when the Rose Bowl was hanging in the balance.

Those numbers are the sunglasses the Trojans wear when the spotlight is on them, like Saturday when the light was bright, especially the BCS one.

A team with those numbers, that tradition, plays like USC did Saturday in the fourth quarter. A team with those skins hanging on the wall doesn’t say, as Cal linebacker Desmond Bishop said, “We’re a program definitely on the rise.”

Oh, rather Bishop could say about the Bears what Robertson said about the Trojans: “They do a very good job at getting at the end of the season.”

USC, gunning for a national championship, flipped the switch and turned up the flame Saturday. Cal, gunning for national respect, achieved that.

The Bears didn’t embarrass themselves.

They led at the half, 9-6. They were tied at the end of three. But when it came for them to find their flame from their usual fire-starters, the Trojans were there to snuff them.

“No team this season played DeSean (Jackson) more aggressively than they did tonight,” Tedford said about his electrifying game-breaking wide receiver who had just two catches for 41 yards. “Someone was always in his face. He was always double covered.”

Running back Marshawn Lynch, the other hot current on offense, had 91 yards on 21 carries, but never had a run that was an eyelash from being a game-turning breakaway.

The Trojans were too fast, too many, too often. And it wasn’t a fluke, like the Trojans had just enough on defense.

The Trojans are obscenely talented — oh, that the Bears could say that — and that fact was never more obvious than when a kid named C.J. Gable ran the football.

“Before the game we said, ‘Who is this guy?’ ” Bears linebacker Zack Follet said. “We didn’t expect him to do anything.”

Yet this Gable kid, a freshman who had only 40 rushing attempts all season and gained only 159 yards, ran for 112 yards. Subbing for a banged-up Chauncey Washington, Gable ate up yards and time and did what USC running backs do, and that would be to keep the sticks moving on the sidelines.

“They have the No. 1 recruiting class every year,” Tedford said. “They have great coaching. There is no room for mistakes when you play them. They just keep coming after you.”

With wave upon wave of talent, the Trojans come. And they do it without blinking. They have been in this position before. They expect to be in this position again. They feel entitled and they have every right to be.

Cal? The Bears made a game of it. They made the Trojans sweat, maybe even made it a bit problematical that USC will advance to play Ohio State for the national championship.

It wasn’t an impressive rollover, after all. But, still, daddy was in charge. Make no mistake about that. Daddy knows that. And so does Cal.

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Who was the longtime coach of Notre Dame: Lou Holtz or Granny from the Beverly Hillibillies?
.

This week, I call on the University of Notre Dame to end the despicable and tasteless practice of midget tossing. It's a shame that in this day and age People of Small Stature are subjected to such abuse. Is there no decency left?

Look at the poor little fella, he's scared out of his mind.

That's right, it's the Notre Dame Streak Week. Four, and soon to be five. Here's a few of my favorite Irish jokes:

What is an Irish seven-course meal? A six-pack and a potato.

"Stop, the Potato Famine is over," said to Notre Dame fans leaving the Coliseum early during the third straight Irish loss to USC by 31 points.

Since Cal is over and done with, I should move on to Notre Dame. But the tired, old Kal dirty hippies/commies thing is just too enjoyable for me. So I submit a comparison of the two fanbases:

Kal Fans
vs. USC Fans
I think the choice is clear.

Thank you, Mr. Kevin Ellison for putting ME-Sean in his place. The hit set the tone for the entire game, and if Kevin Ellison wasn't already a locker room favorite among the Trojan players, he is now.

Thank God, as He was on our side in dispatching the unwashed masses, the godless heathens back to Communist Northern Kalifornia. Yes, the Men of Troy were victorious over the Peoples Democratic Republik University of Kalifornia, 23-9, shattering the hopes and dreams that Kal students had of going to the Rose Bowl for the first time since their grandfathers were young men. Rumor has it that numerous dirty hippies journeyed to Pasadena after the game to view the Rose Bowl in person and reflect on all that was lost on Saturday.

(Image courtesy of scmindstorm/ElephantAndCross and Sec13forSC)

Is this headline from the Contra Costa Times awesome or what?

Here is the article:

GARY PETERSON: TIMES COLUMNIST

It's a quiet Sunday morning on the USC campus, and all is well at this academic oasis in South Central Los Angeles.

It's just hours after the football team's big win over Oregon, and just hours before it will bound from seventh to fourth in the national rankings. Soon the oasis will shake itself awake, and thoughts will turn to the California Golden Bears. But for now, life here is just as the locals like it:

The buzz from another loud football Saturday night still ringing in their ears, another righteous victory coming 'round the bend, another season to remember in the making.

It's tradition. It's an entitlement. It's a birthright. And people hate USC for it. Especially people from Berkeley.

"I had grown up in Northern California, just being a football nut the whole time," USC football coach Pete Carroll said barely 48 hours after sleepy Sunday, "knowing about the Rose Bowl and how grand it always was, with 'SC being synonymous with the Rose Bowl. When I got a chance to coach here, it just kind of all came together. This is really an extraordinary place to be, with the opportunity to represent the history and the tradition of the program."

You can wish an outbreak of blue hair for the fair-haired Carroll. You can mock his supercilious sideline demeanor. But you can't dispute his contention, because Carroll has friends in low places. And by low, we mean the cardinal-and-gold carpeted lobby of Heritage Hall, USC's athletic administration building.

On a sleepy Sunday morning, Heritage Hall is a remarkable place to be. It's just you and the ghosts. See there, the first thing you notice upon pushing through the glass doors? It's a half-dozen Heisman Trophies arranged in a flying wedge. At the wedge's point is a trophy bearing a full-sized crystal football -- one of three doo-dads under plexiglass commemorating the 2004 national championship.

It has to be the largest collection of Heismans in captivity. The winners, from left to right: Reggie Bush, O.J. Simpson ("If I had won the Heisman, here's how it would have happened"), Matt Leinart, Carson Palmer, Charles White and Marcus Allen. USC has such a surplus of tradition that the Heisman won by current athletic director Mike Garrett isn't even missed. It's probably in his office; or maybe at a day spa having its fingernails buffed.

Five of the seven Heisman-winning jerseys are on display. As is Chris Claiborne's 1998 Butkus Award. As is the bust of coach Elmer (Gloomy Gus) Henderson, the man who took the Trojans to their first Rose Bowl. As is the bust of coach John McKay, who birthed the birthright by leading 'SC to its first four national titles, who fathered Student Body Right, who recruited Simpson and then had him carry the football 30 times a game because, "Why not? It doesn't weigh much."

Within a quip's throw of McKay's bust is one of John Wayne, "student and scholarship athlete," according to the plaque.

John Wayne, for crying out loud.

The run-up to Saturday evening's Cal-USC game is worthy of the heat and light it has generated across the week. To the winner goes the Rose Bowl -- or, in the case of USC, an outside shot at something better. But there is more to it than can be decided in one night. Saturday's game is more than a game. It is a class conflict, pitting an imperial "have" against an envious "have not."

The emotional current has a distinct north-to-south flow. It's not that Carroll's Trojan army doesn't respect Cal. It's just that USC's attentions are historically divided between a number of white-hot rivals -- Notre Dame, UCLA, Cal, whichever aspiring king slayer happens to be across the line of scrimmage on a given Saturday.

Whereas when it comes to Cal's Top 10 list of schools to loathe, Stanford is No. 1 (holding down an honorary position), with USC occupying spots 2 through 11.

The disdain is purely football driven. Cal can hang with USC in almost every manner imaginable -- the value of a degree; the notable alumni (John Wayne notwithstanding); the urban campus; the band; the old, gray grand dame of a football stadium (Cal's more scenically located, USC's still bearing the mint and mauve signature of the 1984 Summer Olympics).

And while Cal can take pride in its Hall of Fame room built into the undercarriage of Memorial Stadium, there simply is no competing with the lobby in Heritage Hall. The Heismans (seven to Cal's none). The national championships (seven to Cal's none). The Rose Bowls (18 appearances since Cal's most recent; 17 victories since Cal's most recent). The 430 NFL draft picks produced. The legend. The lore.

It's tough to say what annoys Cal fans more -- that USC boasts that kind of psychic bounty, or that their school doesn't.

"I loved the class of the program as a teenager growing up," Carroll said. "Once you get here, you realize there truly is a Trojan family and a legacy that we live with. It helps with our recruiting. People can sense it when they're here. It's real and it's very, very powerful."

Fans of Cal football want that feeling. They want to experience that power. They would like to know what Pasadena smells like on New Year's Day. They know the dynamics of the Cal-USC relationship cannot be reversed in three short hours. But a win Saturday night would send them to a place they haven't been for decades.

A word of warning: The ghosts have called another meeting for the lobby of Heritage Hall on Sunday morning. The plan is to silently celebrate another righteous victory. It's what they do. And until further notice, it's who they are.

Contact Gary Peterson at gpeterson@cctimes.com.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/16035891.htm

The Wife watches The Official Crappiest Reality Show Ever, which of course is titled "America's Next Top Model".

Since she watches it, that means that I too watch it. It's either that, or shun The Wife like she was the Black Plague.

Last week, the show's "judges", for lack of a better word, voted off the only good looking chick on the whole show. And when I say only, I mean ONLY. Those contestants are either plain, or just plain ugly. Yet, top models are supposed to be the embodiment of beauty and a standard that women should strive for. So it begs the question: Why do we allow a small bunch of bitter women and gay men to decide what female beauty is? Their judgment is so out of whack that ugly women with the non-curvy bodies typically found on 13-year-old boys are what wins out on a show like this.

Say what you want about the internet (big fake tits aside), there are plenty of women making a living as online models only who are more representative of what men find as beautiful females. They range from slim to fat, tall to short, dark to light. But one thing they have in common is that they barely resemble the ugly, curveless, walking skeletons that the fashion industry has been parading around for the last few decades.

I was on campus for the Oregon game with The Wife and 4-year-old daughter. We arrived round 10am and tailgated with friends for around 9 hours before the 7pm start time. My daughter refused to take a nap during the day, and as a result she threw a temper tantrum. So we drove home and I watched the rest of the game on TV. The Wife did her best to make it up to me.

Sadly, this may be the last game we take our daughter to for awhile. It was her first game this year because she is getting big, and the ticket office would not let us buy another seat. She has attended 10+ games going back to the 2003 Orange Bowl win over Iowa when she was just 8 1/2 months old.

I told The Wife that if we take our daughter to another game this year, that we will have to drug her with Benadryl to ensure that she takes a nap before the game. The Wife did not disagree.

Why do we call the Ducks the Zeros? Because some idiot decided to change the logo on the helmut from the letter "O" to the number "0". And frankly their play has lived up to it.
Don't even get me started on their Robo-Duck gay mascot. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Is being an "uniformed voter" all that different than those who only vote Republican or Democrat regardless of the issues or the candidates?

It might be cool to be the Invisible Man, but it would absolutely suck to be the Invisible Man and be disabled. Think about it. I was in my office's bathroom using the sink with the disabled sign on it (I like the handles better), and thought to myself that if there really was someone who was disabled in the bathroom, then I would be courteous and move over to another sink. Of course, if he was invisible and wanted to retain his invisible identity, then he would just to have to wait.

While laws like the ADA are meant to give back independence to the disabled, the disabled still rely on us to be courteous and to help them, or at least not get in their way. But often times the disabled are treated like they are invisible.

... For hijacking someone else's reputation. Why don't you just try being the Stanford of the West?

For the false elitism displayed by Stanford people based on a fraudulent reputation.

Grade inflation. Does everyone graduate with a 4.0 GPA?

For proposing that freshman classes only give out Pass/No Pass marks instead of grades, just so that freshmen don't ruin their GPA.

"The hardest thing about Stanford is getting in." - quote from a former student.

"I dropped a class, without a mark on my transcript, after finding out what I received on my Final Exam." - also a quote from a former student.

No academic credibility. (See quotes above)

For changing its nickname from the Indians to the Cardinal.

Cardinal does not refer to a bird, or any other object for that matter. It is a color. How pansy is that? Way to go out of your way to not be offensive.

The stupid dancing tree. If dancing is what you call that.

For having a band that has just as fraudulent a reputation as the university itself. The Stanford band has not been funny, or even creative, for a decade.

And when they used to be creative, they would do things like forming the shape of a penis, play 70's-style porno music, and proceed to make love to the stadium tunnel. That's just disgusting.

For sucking at football since Pop Warner left.

For racking up NCAA championships in every possible little known sport. And bragging about it.

If underwater basket weaving was a NCAA-sanctioned sport, Stanford would recruit scholarship "athletes" for it.

For being elitist in football without ever being in the Football Elite. Pop Warner notwithstanding.

The embodiment of Stanfraud football elitism is John Elway and Bill Walsh. I still can't stand those guys, although everybody softened on the John "Mr. Ed"way remarks when he got old and decrepit and had already lost 3 SuperBowls.

Probably the most annoying Stanford coach though was John Ralston. Although he was a miserable 2-8 lifetime against USC, after every loss you count on him to put down USC Football, its players, the school, the students, and the alumni.

After one such post-loss tirade by Ralston, legendary USC coach John McKay was asked to comment on Ralston's vitriolic and elitist comments. McKay replied, "I don't trade hee-haws with a Jackass."

McKay's hatred of Stanfraud ran deep, and deservedly so. He was once quoted as saying that he wanted to beat Stanford 100-0. The next year before the game, the Stanford student newspaper ran a cartoon depicting John McKay looking at the scoreboard, which read USC -92 Stanford-0, with McKay saying, "If we score, we're going for 2!"

The only good thing about Stanfraud is that this away game allows myself and many fellow USC fans to take a nice trip up to the Bay Area, before watching their pathetic excuse for a football team be beaten into submission. Good times, baby, good times.

P.S. Credit goes to scmindstorm/ElephantAndCross for coining the term "Stanfraud".

Ok, so I've abandoned you for a month and a half. In that time much has happened. I may recap things later, but for now I am looking forward to this weekend's game against Stanfraud.