08/30/2007

Trouble...the dog

U.S. Open Tennis Quiz: 1) Who was the first men’s winner in
1881? 2) In the modern era, who are the two men’s 5-time
winners? 3) Who was men’s champ in both 1997 and ‘98. [Not
an answer to No. 2.] 4) In the women’s modern era, who won
six titles? 5) Who am I? I won the women’s title in 1985 and
my initials are H.M. Answers below.

Dog Scores Big

In light of the Michael Vick case, it only seems fitting that the
late billionaire Leona Helmsley should leave her largest single
bequest to her beloved white Maltese, Trouble. A whopping $12
million in the form of a trust that, according to the New York
Daily News, includes having Trouble buried beside Leona and
her husband, Harry, in a five-star mausoleum “that will (itself) be
maintained with a $3 million perpetual-care trust.” The
mausoleum is to be “washed or steam-cleaned at least once a
year,” according to the will.

Trouble, though, will have to live out its last years in the care of
Leona’s brother, Alvin Rosenthal, who was left $10 million.
This creates, err, trouble for Trouble. Kind of like Homer and
Bart, if you catch my drift. “Why you little sonuva-----!”

Meanwhile, Leona has four grandchildren, the Helmsley’s only
son having died in 1982. Here is what Leona stipulated for them.

“I have not made any provisions in this will for my grandson
Craig Panzirer or my granddaughter Meegan Panzirer for reasons
which are known to them,” she wrote. Ouch! But the other two,
David and Walter Panzirer, will get $5 million each, but, as the
Daily News reports, “only as long as they play by their
grandma’s strict rules. Helmsley wrote that neither brother will
get a penny unless they visit their father’s grave once a year,
‘preferably on the anniversary of my said son’s death.’”

The brothers are supposed to sign a guest book that is to be
installed inside the family mausoleum at the Sleepy Hollow
Cemetery in Westchester County. This could be like one of
those Edgar Allan Poe deals on Halloween. Bar Chat might have
to stake it out one of these years.

[Helmsley, by the way, is giving her remaining fortune, in the
$billions, to a variety of unnamed charities.]

Rock Bits

Rolling Stone magazine has been celebrating its 40th anniversary
this year and I’ve been piling up some stuff that I wanted to pass
on. So, to clear the deck, here are some thoughts from various
rock stars that were interviewed over the past few months.

Paul McCartney

RS: So what was the Summer of Love (’67) like for Paul
McCartney?

PM: Pretty darn cool. We’d just decided to stop touring, because
it had got a bit unrewarding. We felt that we were just treading
water. Audiences were still screaming, which had been OK in
the beginning, but we got bored with it.

We had this idea that we’d make a record, and the record itself
would go on tour for us. That came from a story we’d heard
about Elvis’ Cadillac going on tour. We thought that was an
amazing idea: He doesn’t go on tour, he just sends his Cadillac
out. Fantastic! So we thought, ‘We’ll send a record out.’ We
spent more time in the studio, and that resulted in Sgt. Pepper.

[On whether the Beatles had any idea that Sgt. Pepper was going
to have the impact it did .]

Because we were done touring, people in the media were starting
to sense that there was too much of a lull, which created a
vacuum, so they could bitch about us now. They’d say, “Oh,
they’ve dried up.” But we knew we hadn’t .Actually, the exact
opposite was happening – we were having a huge explosion of
creative forces.

We sensed this. We didn’t really tell too many people about it,
just our friends knew what we were doing. We’d play the odd
demo [for friends] and stuff, but the world at large didn’t know.
But as I say, the word from certain critics was “Oh, they’re
finished. They’ve had it.” Meanwhile, we were tinkering away
with glee, like the Seven Dwarfs – “Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee!
Work, work, work, work, work, work!” We were having a great
time, obviously, putting this thing together.

RS: “Sgt. Pepper” seemed very much a part of the feeling at that
time that somehow everything was going to transform, that
nothing was ever going to be the same again.

PM: It’s funny; I know a lot of people after the Sixties felt a
sense of disappointment that that never came to pass. I
personally felt that while everything was changing, I didn’t
necessarily think it meant that everything would change. We
would sit around and have long discussions saying that one day
our age group would be prime ministers, and it would be pretty
far out [for them] to have been colored by this period.

But at the same time, we were realists, and we’d think, “Yeah,
but they’ll still be politicians.” They’ll do that thing that
politicians do, and they won’t necessarily do what we’d do. You
knew that everything that was going on would change the world
in some ways, but not in all ways. And that’s proven by our
current leaders. They’re still locked in the Forties or something.

RS: Was there a particular event that brought it home to you, that
the Sixties weren’t really going to deliver on their greatest
promises?

PM: I suppose I’d have to look at the breakup of the Beatles as
being the dark moment. I seem to remember it was around then
that the word “heavy” emerged – “It’s heavy, man.” Everything
seemed heavy, whereas it had all seemed quite light before that,
in the radiant sense. The Beatles reached a point where we kind
of imploded. We all had money and fame, and from time to time
we were inevitably getting on each other’s nerves.

RS: Do you have a sense about what continues to speak to people
in the Beatles’ music, after all these years?

PM: I think it’s basically magic. There is such a thing as magic,
and the Beatles were magic. It depends on what you believe life
is. Life is an energy field, a bunch of molecules. And these
particular molecules formed to make these four guys, who then
formed into this band called the Beatles and did all that work. I
have to think that was something metaphysical. Something
alchemic. Something that must be thought of as magic .

If you want to get practical, I think the songs were very well
structured. When I sing them now in concert, I go, “Ah, wow –
oh, that’s clever. That’s good, yes. That’s a good line. Oh, I
see!” It’s a rediscovery. You just remember, “Ah, that’s why I
did that.”

Ringo Starr

RS: You must miss John and George.

Ringo: John – incredible. An incredible friend. The thing with
John is people see him as Mr. Cynical. But he was really a
bighearted guy. He was very loving.

George was my real friend, and it was hard when he went. With
John, it was such a shock that you dealt with it later. With
George, you dealt with it as it was going on, which was harder in
its way. But you have to say, “Life is life. It happens.”

As friends, as musicians, we had a lot of time together. Actually,
we didn’t have a lot of years in a band – eight. But we had a
lifetime in those eight years, and then we had this other lifetime
after we split up. For me, that was interesting, because I started
making the Ringo records, and everybody played on them.

RS: It seemed that you were the one all the others could relate to.

Ringo: Everybody supported what I was into. I played on John’s
first [solo] record. Paul went to Scotland for his first, but he was
on my early records, and I’ve played with him since. I played on
‘All Things Must Pass’ – which is funny, because George called
me [when he was preparing to reissue the album], and said,
“Ringo, are you on ‘All Things Must Pass?’ I said, “I don’t think
so. I don’t know.” Then he calls back two weeks later after he’d
researched it, and he says, “You f-----, you were on eighty
percent of the records!” I said, “Hey, it was a long time ago!”

Keith Richards

RS: How did you feel about being part of something called the
British Invasion back in the Sixties?

Richards: That was a bunch of horses---. Suddenly, at last, some
English bands got lucky and managed to go across the pond. It
was just an explosion of music in England at that time that just
somehow made it. And some of it was very bad, you know? A
lot of it was just covers of American R&B. The British Invasion,
in a way, was just an American invasion of Britain, music-wise.
We were always surprised about that. We thought, “You can’t
sell it back to them, can you? They’ve already got it.”

RS: Did you have any favorites out of those bands?

Richards: Well, the Who, they were contemporaries of ours.
They were picking up our gigs at clubs we weren’t playing
anymore. And the Beatles were a great band. Yeah, a great
band. They lasted as long as they should have, you know?

RS: What about today’s pop music?

Richards: Quite honestly, hip-hop leaves me cold. But there are
some people out there who think it’s the meaning of life.

RS: It’s like the new rock & roll.

Richards: Yeah, but rock & roll had songs. I mean, I don’t
wanna be yelled at; I wanna be sung to. I never really
understood why somebody would want to have some gangster
from L.A. poking his fingers in your face. As I say, it don’t grab
me. I mean, the rhythms are boring; they’re all done on
computers.

RS: Do your kids try to turn you on to new music?

Richards: It’s strange you should mention that. My daughters
bought me a Billie Holiday anthology yesterday. So it’s not just
a generation thing. People that like music get into music. I
mean, I really wasn’t much of a fan of Mozart when I was
growing up – it was just over my head, you know? But I play
him every day now. I’m a late bloomer!

RS: Do you ever get tired of playing ‘Satisfaction’ every night?

Richards: Never. It’s quite bendable onstage, you know?

RS: When the time finally comes, how would you like to make
your exit?

Richards: In a ball of smoke and a great explosion.

[Anthony DeCurtis and Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone conducted
the above.]

Rolling Stone has a list of “40 Songs that Changed the World,”
produced chronologically.

1. That’s All Right – Elvis July 1954
2. I Got a Woman – Ray Charles Jan. 1955
3. Maybellene – Chuck Berry July 1955
4. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall – Bob Dylan May 1963
5. Louie Louie – The Kingsmen May 1963 “This Portland,
Oregon, garage band is terribly recorded, can barely keep the
beat and gets lost midway through the song, and singer Jack Ely
sounds like he’s got a mouth full of whiskey-flavored marbles –
and it doesn’t matter, because any band with that riff on its side
would win anyway.”
6. Be My Baby – The Ronettes Aug. 1963
7. I Want To Hold Your Hand – The Beatles Dec. 1963 “Was it
the haircuts? The suits? The charming Liverpool accents?
Actually, it was that the Beatles were musically years ahead of
their contemporaries. A bunch of American bands promptly
recorded their own covers of this song in the wake of the Fab
Four’s Ed Sullivan Show appearance on Feb. 9th, 1964, and not
one could even play the opening rhythm right.”
8. Dancing in the Street – Martha and the Vandellas July 1964
[I just have to add this is an inspired choice by Rolling Stone’s
editors. I was listening to it the other day in the car thinking,
boy, this one really is one of the best.]
9. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – The Rolling Stones May
1965
10. Like a Rolling Stone – Bob Dylan July 1965
11. Strawberry Fields Forever – The Beatles Feb. 1967
12. Heroin – The Velvet Underground March 1967 “John
Cale’s screeching viola was the sound of a band that wanted to
burn the culture around it down to cinders.”
13. Respect – Aretha Franklin April 1967
14. Purple Haze – Jimi Hendrix Aug. 1967 “More than 35
years after his death, Hendrix is still the high-water mark of rock
guitarists.”
15. Whole Lotta Love – Led Zeppelin Oct. 1969
16. Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine – James Brown
July 1970 “A teenage party band who’d backed up the Godfather
for just six weeks recorded his masterpiece.”
17. What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye Feb. 1971
18. Imagine – John Lennon Sept. 1971
19. Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie June 1972
20. I Shot the Sheriff – Bob Marley Oct. 1973
21. Help Me – Joni Mitchell Jan. 1974
22. Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen Aug. 1975
23. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen Oct. 1975
24. Blitzkrieg Bop – The Ramones May 1976
25. Anarchy in the U.K. – The Sex Pistols Nov. 1976
26. I Feel Love – Donna Summer May 1977 “Eight minutes
long and still too short, it single-handedly transformed the dance-
music world. Every club record with a drum machine and
synthesized bass line, from house to trance and beyond, owes its
existence to this song, and few are anywhere near as sexy.”
27. Rapper’s Delight – The Sugarhill Gang Oct. 1979
28. TV Party – Black Flag Dec. 1981
29. Billie Jean – Michael Jackson Dec. 1982 “The first major
MTV hit by a black performer transformed (Jackson) from a
very successful former child star to the biggest personality in the
world”
30. When Doves Cry – Prince June 1984
31. Pride (In the Name of Love) – U2 Oct. 1984
32. Like a Virgin – Madonna Nov. 1984
33. Walk This Way – Run-DMC featuring Aerosmith May
1986
34. Just Like Heaven – The Cure May 1987
35. Sweet Child O’ Mine – Guns N’ Roses Aug. 1987
36. Bring the Noise – Public Enemy Nov. 1987
37. Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana Sept. 1991
38. Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang – Dr. Dre Dec. 1992
39. Baby One More Time – Britney Spears Oct. 1998 “ a
masterpiece of lyrical and musical construction – impossible to
get out of your head, as dark as it is innocent Britney became
the avatar of teen pop’s new wave ”
40. Fell in Love With a Girl – The White Stripes July 2001

Stuff

--For the archives, on Monday, Falcons quarterback Michael
Vick had his hearing before the judge and formally pleaded
guilty to dogfighting. He will be sentenced Dec. 10 and the
consensus remains he will receive 12-18 months, though would
likely serve less. The NFL suspended him indefinitely, but for a
variety of reasons, mostly financial and involving the salary cap,
Falcons’ ownership continues to keep Vick on the roster even as
they go after some of the bonus money paid him.

Michael told all of us following his court hearing:

“I want to apologize I want to apologize to all the young kids
out there for my immature acts and, you know, what I did was
very immature so that means I need to grow up

“I take full responsibility for my actions .I totally ask for
forgiveness and understanding as I move forward to bettering
Michael Vick the person, not the football player .Dogfighting
is a terrible thing, and I reject it.”

And Michael “found Jesus” and “turned his life over to God.”
Frankly, I think God can’t wait to toss the dirtball into Hell at the
appropriate time, but that’s just my opinion.

Lisa Olson / New York Daily News

“As of yesterday, Vick is a convicted felon. Others might call
him a snitch. His friends and acquaintances turned on him; now
Vick, in a bid to save his own skin (a courtesy he didn’t offer his
dogs), has agreed to cooperate with the government and knock
the bogus keep-it-real code of the streets on its head. Vick might
just have some humanity in him after all.

“ ‘There’s a pervasive subculture in the NFL and possibly the
NBA,’ said John Goodwin, manager of animal fighting issues for
the Humane Society of the United States, as he drove away from
the Richmond, Va., district courthouse after Vick formally
pleaded guilty

“ ‘Dogfighting has become more pervasive in the inner cities in
the last 10 years and sports figures from the inner cities have
taken it with them. This isn’t about just one person. There are
40,000 people involved with dogfighting in this country. There
are still going to be a quarter of a million dogs put through this.
Michael Vick can provide a lot of information to federal
prosecutors to put these people out of business.

“ ‘And he can tell his story of how a cruel and barbaric activity
ruined his life.’

“Perhaps someday Vick will explain why he threw it all away.
He had to know dogfighting was a felony, otherwise he never
would have looked NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and
Falcons owner Arthur Blank in the eyes and told them he wasn’t
involved in any aspect of the activity. Did Vick feel the need to
feed a gambler’s lust? Was it impossible to turn his back on an
underground culture that experts say has made dogfighting
nearly as common as a backyard game of dominoes?

“Or is it something more insidious? Was Vick, like the notorious
David Ray Tant (who is serving 40 years for dogfighting), born
cruel?”

Mike Wise / Washington Post

“The cocksure, blinging Pro Bowler who once boasted of his
impending exoneration was nowhere to be found. Along with
the diamond-stud earrings. The scully. The cornrows. Any hip-
hop affectation was abandoned for a blue suit, matching patent-
leather shoes, a white shirt and a patterned tie.

“Beneath the goatee and the Italian wool now was a 27-year-old
defendant in Case No. 00274, who humbly answered, ‘Yes, sir’
and wiped away a tear when he saw his fianc e openly weeping
.

“Ookie, the nickname his co-conspirators called him, was gone.
The rehabilitation tour had begun .

“It was a day in which supporters sparred verbally with
protesters in a racially tinged standoff, one that grew uglier after
the courtroom appearance .

“A man of maybe 50 held up a sign directed at the People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals: ‘People Evilly Treating Africans,’
it said.

“PETA protesters jeered Vick a few feet away. They held up
stomach-turning placards with enlarged photos of a disfigured
and bloodied pit bull .

“On the divide went. In the former capital of the Confederacy
[Richmond], they all posed for a disturbing snapshot of America.

“ ‘We like Mike!’ maybe three dozen Vick supporters chanted
across the street from the courthouse in what can only be
described as misplaced solidarity. When they were shouted
down by the animal-rights activists, they morphed into a
passionate, ‘We love Mike!’

“Sports is one of the more forgiving subcultures in this country.
Latrell Sprewell’s pit bull bit off his daughter’s ear and he
originally resisted having the dog euthanized. He choked his
coach and was suspended for an entire season. But after a year
of public relations work, he came to Madison Square Garden in
1999 not as America’s thug, but instead as an offensive weapon
sorely needed by the Knicks and their fans. After his first three-
pointer, the general attitude was, ‘All net, all forgiven.’

“In that vein, Michael Vick took the first small step toward
clearing his badly tarnished name Monday and, maybe, one day
regaining his livelihood.

“Did he genuinely get it? Did he understand that pitting
domesticated animals, who rely on their owner’s compassion and
care for survival, against each other is inherently wrong?....

“Vick’s words came across as unscripted, from within, and he
indeed seemed to understand how far he had fallen – how he now
needs the NFL more than it needs him.”

Finally, I caught a little coverage of the hearing and Vick’s
statement on CNN and they had a former Falcons player, Chuck
Smith, in the studio. Smith made perhaps the best point of
anyone these past few weeks. “Michael has never been
accountable for anything in his life not even the water bottle.”

--The PGA Tour’s pension plan is the best in sports, but to
qualify you must play at least 15 Tour events each of five
seasons, with no more than a five-year gap between qualifying
seasons. Ergo, let’s say you were on Tour 2002-2005, then
dropped off the top 125 on the money list and couldn’t get in 15
events from 2006-2010, but qualify through Q-School or the
Nationwide Tour for the 2011 season. Unfortunately, your clock
starts over.

The plan was approved back in 1983 and since 1992
contributions have skyrocketed. One of the rewards is a player
receives credit for each cut made. Back in 1992, the credit value
per cut was $1,300 and is now up to $3,700. After 15 cuts made,
players receive two credits for making it to the weekend,
according to Golf Week.

But it’s not easy for the pros who struggle, such as 46-year-old
Ben Bates. Over the years, Bates made it into 121 events and
made 65 PGA Tour cuts. But when he failed to get through Q-
School in 2005, he lost out on $170,000 in his retirement account
and it’s too late for him to get in five years at this stage.

Separately, as for one of my favorite pastimes, watching golfers
in their annual quest to make the top 125 on the money list (and
thus retain their Tour card for the following year), fellow Wake
Forest alum Bill Haas sits at exactly No. 125 heading into this
weekend’s round two of the FedEx Cup playoffs. But he won’t
be eligible these next three events through the Tour
Championship, so a few others who snuck into the top 120 in the
FedEx point standings, the qualifier for this week and slightly
different from the money list, may pass him before the Tour’s
final seven events of the season commence. It’s not easy, even
for talented golfers like Haas, who has just one top ten since May
2006 and has made only 12 cuts out of 25 events in ‘07. We’re
pulling for you, Bill.

And just to reinforce my point, another golfer I follow, Jerry
Smith, finished 137th on last year’s money list, so he had only
“conditional status” on the Tour this year [#s 126-150 get this
designation]. Which means you can play only if there is a spot
and thus far Jerry has managed just 12 starts in 2007, making 5
cuts for $63,335; or 216th on the money list.

--Note to Jorge Ortiz of USA Today and your story Wednesday
on Curtis Granderson’s and Jimmy Rollins’ quest to become the
first players since Willie Mays in 1957 to get 20 doubles, triples,
homers and stolen bases in the same season. You fail to mention
the only other to do it, “Wildfire” Schulte, in 1911. [Instead,
Ortiz focuses on Kiki Cuyler’s 1925 campaign, one in which he
hit only 18 home runs. Very disappointing.]

Thru Tuesday’s play, incidentally:

Granderson 34 (2B) 21 (3B) 17 (HR) 17 (SB)
Rollins 32-15-23-37

--Talk about one of your weirder line scores, Tuesday; how about
this one?

[9 innings]

Detroit 3 runs on 16 hits
Kansas City 6 runs on 6 hits

--This just in our West Coast shark reporter Bob S. (who’s
really on the East Coast but has been given responsibility for the
prime Great White waters off California which chews up our
travel budget here at Bar Chat, quite frankly) filed the following,
via Fox and the AP.

“A Marina man surfing in the waters off Marina State Beach
Tuesday was attacked by a 12-foot white shark and airlifted to
the hospital with torso and thigh injuries.

“Witnesses said Todd Endris, 24, of Marina, was surfing with a
half dozen other people when the shark attacked him from
behind around 11 a.m.

“Loren Rex, a California State Parks spokesman, said the victim
screamed and started punching the shark while trying to flee.

“ ‘Then the shark took him down under the water,’ he said.
‘Witnesses saw a lot of thrashing and some blood coming up.
Other witnesses saw the shark let him up before biting him one
more time.’”

Goodness gracious! One witness claimed it was a great white
shark of 20 feet in length! And it’s still out there!

[Mr. Endris’ vital signs are stable following surgery. If the shark
heads through the Panama Canal and then up the East Coast, we
will of course issue a special warning at that time for local
bathers and surfers.]

--Jeff B. and I continue to be disgusted with the direction of “For
Better or For Worse.” April clearly forgot she had to return to
school from her annual summer farm stint, while in Wednesday’s
strip it appears she is being followed by a Jordanian terrorist in
the third panel. Otherwise, with only a few weeks left, it’s
increasingly doubtful there is going to be another “Wedding of
the Century” when it comes to Liz and Anthony. Not enough
time to make all the preparations; thus, I stick with my theory
they elope.

Top 3 songs week of 8/26/78: #1 “Grease” (Frankie Valli) #2
“Three Times A Lady” (Commodores) #3 “Miss You” (The
Rolling Stones) and #4 “Boogie Oogie Oogie” (A Taste Of
Honey) #5 “Hot Blooded” (Foreigner) #6 “Love Will Find A
Way” (Pablo Cruise) #7 “Hopelessly Devoted To You” (Olivia
Newton-John) #8 “Magnet And Steel” (Walter Egan) #9 “An
Everlasting Love” (Andy Gibb) #10 “Last Dance” (Donna
Summer)

*Bruce Springsteen’s new album with the E Street Band,
“Magic,” is due out Oct. 2.

U.S. Open Tennis Quiz Answers: 1) Richard Sears won the first
seven men’s titles, 1881-1887, defeating seven different
opponents. Or it could have been one opponent using seven
different names for all we know. I mean it’s not as if we have
any living witnesses. 2) The two 5-time winners in the modern
era are Jimmy Connors (74, 76, 78, 82, 83) and Pete Sampras
(90, 93, 95, 96, 02). [McEnroe won four. Federer has won the
last three.] 3) Patrick Rafter won in 1997 and 98. 4) In the
women’s modern era, Chris Evert Lloyd Mill Norman won six.
[Well, she was also married to Andy Mill and she’s in the middle
of Greg Norman’s messy divorce.] 5) Hana Mandlikova
defeated Martina Navratilova in 1985.

Next Bar Chat, Monday a brief one it being Labor Day and
all.

**Bar Chat 1,000 Monday, Sept. 10. This is a hot, hot ticket.
But if you are expecting to see Owen Wilson, he just sent his
regrets.