Bulls’ bottom feeding nets big rewards

Though everyone has known about it for years, the NYTimes threw a little light on how sucking doesn’t suck.

I am a UB fan through and through, so to be honest, seeing the team on the front page of the times was more cause for excitement than it was for despair. They didn’t report anything that UB’s student newspaper, the Spectrum, by way of the Buffalo News, didn’t report months ago.

What strikes me about the whole situation is how fatalistic everyone is about all this stuff – for me, it just shows how big a joke college football is. If you’re not rooting for a top 25 team, it’s hardly worth it to follow your team. If you root for a top-25 team, you just watch your scumbag players either bolt for the NFL or get arrested or something else stupid. If you’re fortunate to root for a middling team, like a top-of-the-MAC squad like Toledo or something, you might be in the best shape as a football fan. It’s depressing.

But, if you’re going to be a UB football fan, you have to take the pill – BuffaloRox put it best in his comments on Buffalo Pundit:

The article clearly explains why UB or any struggling program, would play a football powerhouse against overwhelming odds of winning. It might be a strategy that you don’t agree with. However, following a strategy employed by others (e.g., Bobby Bowden per the article) doesn’t strike me as irrational.

Basically, it sucks to suck, but at least there’s the hope of hope.

I know ethically it’s not any better, but at least college basketball has the redeeming quality of being unpredictable – you don’t get Valpo – or even UB – stories in football.

RIP DFA1979

Call me out of the loop, but I just read this.

Death From Above 1979 broke up. This band changed my musical life for the past couple years – their album, “You are woman, I am a machine” (the funniest album title ever) has pretty much been on constant loop on my iPod (and in my cd player) for a year. They were hard, raw and aggressively sexy – “Romantic Rights” was the best “get over here and fuck, now” song ever to hit the radio.

I saw DFA1979 open for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in Toronto a couple years ago, and their show was messy and ugly – just about everyone there, including myself, thought they sucked. But then I heard “Romantic Rights” on 102.1 FM, the Canadian Edge, and I was sold. Almost every song on their album is blistering, and you can’t help but feel beat up and used (in a good way) after a full listen. It’s cathartic.

Anyway, I believe both members of the band are still active in music – Jesse has been busy with MSTRKRFT, a disco.techno.remix nom he’s worked under before. His work with that project is OK, but it’s just not as incendiary as DFA. Oh well. It’s tough enough to catch lightning in a bottle once, so I’m not surprised DFA only struck with one amazing album.

Here’s hoping the guys the best in the future, and hoping their influence spreads to modern rock everywhere.

The Buffalo News doesn’t jinx

Bashar Issa closed on his $5 million purchase of the Statler Towers today, where he’s planning on sinking $80+ million into the place. And the news put that on page D7.

Why isn’t this A1 news? Unlike the nebulous, controversial Seneca casino, this deal is actually happening. Issa and his BSC Group, his Manchester, UK, based development company, actually bought the thing.

There was no controversy surrounding the deal. He’s not holding out for the city to give him a street, and based on his track record of restoring vintage properties and investing in rebuilding areas is impeccable.

Yet the News and the rest of Buffalo’s MSM outlets are virtually ignoring the deal. I think Buffalo Pundit’s post on the deal is indicative of why: no one can believe this is really happening. Hell, even Byron Brown hasn’t met with this guy yet.
I think the reason people are so skeptical of the deal is Buffalo’s been burned before. But this is one case where rolling out the red carpet for Issa is worthwhile; he’s doesn’t have to rely on government money to make this deal and check out the BSC Group website and their other projects. When it comes to investing in a rust belt area, there aren’t many companies that can match their track record. Manchester is basically a bigger version of Buffalo – a city ravaged by dying steel industries and fleeing population. In recent years it’s made an amazing comeback – it’s more cosmopolitan, and it’s become a chic place for young professionals and companies to locate. BSC’s projects tend to be beautiful – and successful.

UPDATE: Here’s a telling tidbit I heard from someone who’s had indepth contact with Issa and his group: One of Issa’s top-tier guys said this about Buffalo: “Buffalo is where Manchester was 15 years ago. You’re right on the cusp of an explosion.”

old friends

Ah the magic of Myspace.

I finally found an old friend that I lost touch with two years ago. She moved to California, and I missed her terribly. After exhausting all my other efforts, I happened to search MySpace for her, and lo and behold, she turned up. And, as fate would have it, she is in Buffalo for a week.
See, that’s how Myspace will continue to thrive, even with this bull-oney of the new Murdoch-owned marketing vehicle it has become: it keeps connections with friends going. People change e-mail addresses, change hometowns, change whatever, but if there’s one thing people of my generation check in on at least every-so-often, it’s Myspace.

I’m going to meet her in a couple minutes. I throw up a shot or two of the happy reunion if it’s worth it.

UPDATE: Here’s a pic of me and my old friend, Gratchen (yes, with an A). She’s pretty awesome, and moving to Sacremento as we speak. She’s a classic, one of a kind friend.

Tower of power

This is good news for Gates Circle.

 If you haven’t seen Diamond + Schmitt’s work in Toronto, check it out – the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts is fantastic, and they designed some of the condo towers currently under construction. They know what they’re doing when it comes to cool, modern and complementary design. Check their portfolio, they did the foreign embassies and other stuff in Jerusalem, and those are pretty cool.

There is one part of the idea that’s killing me:
“Proposed sale prices of the condominiums range from $300,000 to more than $1 million. Amenities will include contemporary kitchens, spa-style bathrooms, terraces, underground parking and semiprivate elevators. The tower’s common areas will include a wine cellar, a library, a business center with private conference room, a multimedia theater room and a round-the-clock doorman.”

$300,000 to more than $1 million? Who the hell is buying that?! In Buffalo!?

I love the idea of upscale housing, so I’ll hold judgement – I thought the same thing about the boom in loft living downtown, but those are selling like crazy. I’m just skeptical of anyone buying a million dollar condo when that kind of dough buys a kingdom in Amherst.

Bicycle built for you

blue bicycle logo

Originally uploaded by eppic.

I just ran into Justin Booth of Buffalo Blue Bicycle, the bike-lending program that has installed those bike racks downtown. He said the program’s website has worked out (almost) all the bugs and is ready for people to sign up.

I’ve been borrowing a bike for the past few weeks, and it’s been great: a free bike (with a lock!) is key on quick jaunts to the library and whatnot.

Justin said he’d like to set a rack at the Washington Market  with some bikes with baskets or racks to put groceries on – sounds like an awesome idea for the growing number of loft-dwellers nearby. I’ll have to hit up my boss for that.

This winter Blue Bicycle will use a pretty substantial grant they were awarded to install more permanent racks around town – be on the look out, and shoot him a message where you think a rack might be needed.

Inner Harbor potential

I’m going to this, but i’ll be late:

Carl F. Burgwardt………………….

Visions of our Inner Harbor Possibilities…

“Into the PAST Lane”

FREE  – Lecture – power point presentation & short open discussion

7:00 PM – Tuesday, 18 July 2006 – BECHS Auditorium, Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society    25 Nottingham Court, Buffalo, NY

The first phases of the Inner Harbor Historic District are finally now becoming a reality with the re-watering of the Commercial Slip only a few months away.  Next year, the remaining site-work of the district will continue using the balance of the budgeted funding to complete the funded portion of Empire State Development Corporation’s project.  The result will then leave lower Main Street with a cleaned-up cobblestone streetscape, some designated foundation relics, a re-watered Commercial Slip and a couple of new museum buildings for the relocated Naval & Servicemen’s Park but little more to support a successful or dynamic tourism objective.  Little has yet been announced or even discussed for what’s to follow in the numerous development sites in the historic district. 

This talk “Into the PAST Lane” will be presented by Carl F. Burgwardt followed by a discussion by interested followers of this project.  Mr. Burgwardt is the co-owner and director of the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum in Orchard Park, NY, a life-long Western New Yorker and a retired Buffalo executive who, with his wife, is presently seeking to re-locate their museum to an appropriate historic site at the inner harbor.  

It’s always interesting to see what local folks have imagined for the inner harbor, and with development hicupping to a start, it might give others ideas to run with.

Release courtesy Buffalo Blue Bicycle

Hez-bowling

With all the shit blowing up in Lebanon and Israel, I have one really big problem with the whole mess:

Why can’t Condi Rice say “Hezbollah?”

If you don’t know, the correct pronunciation of Hezbollah is “hez-bol-LAH,” with the first two syllables said relatively quickly, and the accent on the LAH. Like how it’s “all-AH” and not “ALL-ah.”

Anyway, our Secretary of State, Ms. Rice, has trouble with this word – she says it “hez-BOWL-uh,” which is one of the most ignorant things I have ever heard in my life. It’s like me, in 10th grade English, thinking the word “corollary” sounded like the Toyota car name than ”Coral-larry” - it just sounds stupid.

What makes this even worse is that Rice is the US Secretary of State – our chief diplomat. I would almost expect GWBush to mispronounce this name, and not only because he butchers everything.

But for Rice, whose job it is to know these things, mispronunciation is a small, but important, gaffe. Perhaps Hezbollah is tough – it has been spelled Hizbollah in some outlets – but it’s pronunciation is pretty uniform.

Al-qaeda tends to range from “Ahl-Kida” to “Al-Kada” (tomato, tomahto), but it’s always close.

Rice’s mispronunciation subtly shows, whether she means to or not, that she doesn’t take the organization as seriously as she should. That’s scary.

*UPDATE* – Apparently, Rice is even further from the correct pronunciation than I thought – according to this guy Hezbollah isn’t an accurate spelling of the Arabic word – it’s closer to “hizbollah” or, even better as two words, “hizb allah,” which makes sense if the translation of the word is “Party of God.” In other words, when Condi says, “hez-BOWL-ah” she might seriously be saying “Screw you.”

**UPDATE** Jerusalem papers also print the the word as “Hizb’allah” which makes even more sense than anything else.

What a gas.

National Fuel, you are like an unseen benefactor uncle: you provide me with necessary warmth from afar, but those rare times I have to deal with you are awkward and, frankly, an inconvenience.

Take, for example, today – I had to turn on the gas in my new apartment (for the second time, but that’s another slumlord story), so I scheduled my gas to be turned on today. When I made the appointment Monday, I asked about what time the technician would be coming that day.

“Oh, sometime between 8 and 4.”

“Can’t you give me a ballpark time frame?”

“That is a ballpark time.”

Fantastic. She was nice enough to put in a note to delay my time until after a 9 a.m. appointment, but being that I have to work at 2, there was still doubt.

So today I hung around my apartment, ran a couple errands close by, and by 1:30, I was wondering when the hell this guy would come. I took another cold shower, as I had all week, and got ready for work. Still no tech. I called NF and they said, go to work, and if you can get home in time – about 10-15 minutes after the tech calls, come back. I only live 2 miles from my job, so I figured I could risk it, anyway the next available appointment was July 19, and I can’t bear another week of cold showers, no matter how hot it is.

So at about 2:50 the tech calls.

“This is National Fuel.”

“Hi, I can be there in less than 15.”

“I can’t wait 15 minutes.”

“Your office said you can wait 15 minutes”

“But I’ve been busy today.”

“Ok, ok, I’ll be there in 10.”

So I rushed to my car, set my stopwatch to see how I was doing and turned on the radio to keep me going. On Oldies 104 I caught the start of “Sledgehammer” and was home before the end of the next song, “Maggie Mae.” A new record for a 3 p.m. commute. But hey, no NF van. WTF?

So again I called, they said he’d come right back. Still no van. Another call? “He’s on his way.” 45 minutes later, he finally arrived. 2 minutes later he was done.

 Here’s my big problem with all of this – why can the cable company, phone company and almost any other large utility entity set a short 2 hour window, but the gas company requires a full 8 hour waiting commitment from their companies? If they offered this on the weekend, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but you can only have your gas turned on during the week, so if you just moved to Buffalo for a job, you better make friends fast to let NF in or take a day off from work.

So, National Fuel, would a little competition make things a bit more interesting? Break up the monopoly!

Seahorses and octopi

I went to the Yo La Tengo show @ Shea’s last night.

It was fantastic, in the most literal sense of the word: the band played their 2001 scoring of about 8 surreal, short documentaries by Jean Painleve (put an accent over that second e), moving their music from the serene, creepy, sensual, warped and romantic images Painleve records of alien aquatic fauna.

I wish I could describe exactly what I saw and heard, so I’ll defer analysis of Painleve’s film to this guy. The thing I took from the shorts, which I’ve been told are classics to film students, is that it’s clear Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick watched these films – the aliens from “War of the Worlds” and and the end sequence of “2001″ both look and move too similarly to things like the suction arms of sea urchins and the liquid crystal explosions in Painleve’s shorts to be anything but tributes.

As for the “Sounds of Science”of Yo La Tengo? A work in progress – at the beginning, you could tell this show is a warm-up for the Celebrate Brooklyn! Arts Festival, where the band is playing on Friday Thursday. “Sea Urchins” and “Hyas” seemed slightly…off – the music was soothing and complimented the film well, they just didn’t quite line up – like a film whose soundtrack tape is a second off. After being put into a surreal stupor (in a good way) by the first few clips, the noise kicked in. Glorious, unadulterated noise that went with the electric phosphorescence of “Liquid Crystals.” My only complaint with this section was the noise was near-constant; it didn’t ebb and flow like the images on the screen, especially toward the slow-moving end of the clip.

The two highlights were Painleve’s two most famous works, “Love life of the Octopus” and “Seahorses.” For one, these two had the most traditional song-like structures of Yo La Tengo’s compositions, but they films were also the most touching. Painleve personified the octopi and seahorses to a degree that many in the science community criticized him for, and Yo La Tengo captured the emotions that Painleve projected into his subjects. “Seahorses” was especially poignant, with dreamy panning shots that recalled Dieterle and Reinhardt’s “Midsummer’s Nights Dream.”

Anyway, if you’re in Brooklyn on Thursday, go see the show.