Detroit Lions Quiz: 1) Passing yards, career? 2) Interceptions,
career? 3) Passing yards, season? 4) Who am I? I kicked 6 FGs
in a game back in 1966, but made my name with another team
that went on to Super Bowl fame. 5) Who was the last coach
with at least 20 wins to have an above .500 career mark with the
Lions? Answers below.
Folks, just returned from Russia after a 10-hour flight and,
coupled with the 8-hour time difference, I’m struggling to stay
awake…ergo, a totally haphazard Bar Chat…not that the other
ones aren’t either.
Moscow Nights
The Moscow Tribune publishes short reviews of some bars and
clubs in town. I found a few of these pretty funny. [Warning:
On the other hand, some of you may be a bit offended…but it’s
“Bar Chat,” after all.]
Reviews are verbatim.
–Rosie O’Grady’s: “The original Irish pub in Moscow, popular
with expats. Special offer during World Cup match broadcasts
(ed. obviously this hadn’t been updated…but you would have
enjoyed being here then) includes a free pint of beer, or coffee or
tea on the house. Two free pints of beer when ordering
breakfast. Buy four pints and get one free!” [So I’m thinking,
buy four pints at breakfast and get three free. This should really
be on the new SAT tests, though I imagine there would be some
cultural bias in doing so.]
–Bunker: “Features live music every night. Techno music in the
mornings sometimes attracts people from Gallereya and
Zeppelin. Strippers come here for cheap breakfasts on Saturday
and Sunday mornings.”
–Cabana: “One of the few places that is packed on Sunday
nights. But it is better to come here on Tuesdays and Fridays
when they have their male striptease, which attracts easy-going
girls from all over Moscow.”
–Circus: “Operates as a café called Afisha on weekdays till 1:00
AM, but has no connection with the popular magazine. Turns
into the Circus Club on Fridays and Saturdays. Since the
reconstruction, it attracts bored people in expensive suits.”
–Doug & Marty’s Boar House: “First and only foreign-owned
and managed bar in Moscow. Foreign clientele mixed with
Russian whores and businessmen.”
–Garage: “A once popular club now going downhill. Its famous
face control is much less discriminating. To keep the crowd,
they hired an entertaining bartender and let the strippers dance
with the patrons. A cheap breakfast may be the only reason to
come here in the mornings.” [I’m not so sure about that……]
–Kaktus-Club: “Cosy striptease bar. Beautiful dancers. Topless
hostesses. Calm and sensual atmosphere. Swinger parties on
Saturdays and Fridays. Face control.”
Well, there you have it. Just a sample of the raucous nightclub
scene in Moscow. Needless to say, I opted out, for various
reasons, including the fact I wasn’t armed and wouldn’t have
passed “face control” anyway. But I did check out a private
casino attached to my hotel. My next to last night I walked down
with $200, thinking I could sit for a while at a $10 table (though
real gamblers know I should have had $400, or 40 Xs the
minimum wager to weather any losing streaks). Alas, the
minimum was $25…with $50 for roulette! You would have
been proud of me, though, because I managed to survive two
hours of one-on-one blackjack and was able to walk away having
lost only $80. Just seeing some of the characters in the place,
however, made it all worth it…if you catch my drift.
And now…just more STUFF:
–So, did you catch the winner of the world’s first prison beauty
pageant, Miss Captivity? A 24-year-old Lithuanian inmate won,
calling it “The best day of my life.” The “slender, black-haired
inmate,” addressed a national television audience, holding back
tears, as she accepted the crown inside Panevszys Penal Labor
Colony.
According to the report, “She declined to give her name, saying
she did not want to jeopardize her plans to start a modeling
career after she is released. She would not say why she had been
jailed. Asked what she would most like to do now that she had
won, she said, ‘I’d like to get out of prison.’” [Ba-dum-dum.]
–Several airline pilots have reported sighting a shining
unidentified flying object near the southeastern Chinese city of
Nanjing. The first pilot, with Xiamen Airlines (remind me not to
fly these guys), saw a light blue object hovering past his plane.
But at the same time, pilots with Shandong Airline, which was
120 kilometres away from the Xiamen plane, saw the same thing.
Both described the UFO as being a “white-blue skateboard-
shaped craft.” I’m guessing it was one of those crazy North
Korean bottle rockets, built by an ESPN extreme sports dude.
–Paris police are getting more than bit miffed about the “false
and absurd memorial plaques that have appeared on buildings
around the French capital.” [Le Parisien]
One of the inscriptions in the 12th arrondissement, or district,
reads: “Here on the 17th of April 1967 nothing happened.”
Another bears the words: “Karima Bentiffa, civil servant, lived
here from 1984 to 1989.” Then there is the equally baffling:
“This plaque was put up on December 19, 1953,” and says
nothing else.
They are very authentic looking and some have been up for
years, evidently, though the scope of the problem only seems to
be coming to light now. According to one government minister,
“They’re funny, but only for about five minutes.”
–Dan D., my resident spy in Honolulu, reveals that the cost to rid
one of the towers at the world famous Hawaiian Village of mold
(a topic I broached a while back) now exceeds $40 million.
Ergo, I wouldn’t stay there, folks.
–Dan also says that I should forget the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. Well, we can’t do that, my friend, but I do agree there
should be a Big Band Hall of Fame to, as you say, “honor the
contribution of the music industry in keeping up the morale of
the civilians and military during WW II.” When I build the
StocksandNews Hall, at a site to be determined, we’ll include a
wing for Dan’s boys.
–November 18, 1902: The Washington Evening Star published a
cartoon of President Teddy Roosevelt refusing to shoot a captive
bear cub. According to legend, this inspires a toy manufacturer
to call his stuffed bear, “Teddy’s Bear.”
–And now we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to
bring you the latest on Michael Jackson’s nose, or lack thereof. I
saw that he had a court appearance or two in Los Angeles last
week and it caused quite a stir. It also, I guess, grossed out
everyone in attendance.
Various plastic surgeons have weighed in on that thing on
Jackson’s face. Said one, “His nose is more collapsed than it
ever was. That’s also consistent with the fact he’s been walking
around wearing surgical masks in recent times…I would never
go back and do work on his nose…it is just too risky.”
With each operation, I guess, the blood doesn’t circulate as much
in the impacted region, and that isn’t good, if I remember my
Ben Casey or Dr. Kildare. [Just trying to throw off the younger
readers with these references.] Other doctors say it looks like
Jackson has had at least five procedures. To get the kind of
white man’s nose the gloved-one initially sought, “you need to
insert something like a tent stake to make it stick out.” Yuck!
–One of the 500 Stradivariuses left in existence recently sold at a
London auction for $966,600. This was actually far less than
expected, but supposedly with these rarities the concert
performance history of the instrument is the key and this
particular violin didn’t have any. The record for one of Antonio
Stradivari’s works is $1.5 million, the most expensive musical
instrument ever sold at auction.
–In Moscow there are over 130 companies that provide rodent
extermination services. Personally, I didn’t see any in my
travels, but then I wasn’t stumbling home at 4:00 AM, which is
when they ambush you on the streets. Anyway, the best poison
for rats, in case you are having a problem in your own home or
office, is “Storm” brand poisoned bait, manufactured by
Germany’s BASF. Now what I also learned that I didn’t know
before is that ultrasonic devices are not effective, since rats learn
quickly how to avoid them. [See what knowledge you gain when
you travel?!]
–Britain is officially going to be lifting its pub hour restrictions,
those put in place way back in World War I because officials
then were worried about worker productivity at the munitions
plants. Pubs currently close at 11:00 PM, 10:30 PM on Sundays,
but soon they will be able to stay open 24 hours. Which means
one thing, sports fans. “Short” Britain!
–Vodka drinking in the U.S. continues to soar, from 2 million
cases a year as recently as 1985 to over 8 million today. Absolut
is losing market share, however, to more upscale brands like
Grey Goose, and by now you all know that James Bond prefers
Finlandia, not his usual Smirnoff. [Though I guess he doesn’t
actually say that in his new movie, it’s more the advertising in
the background.]
–Congratulations to Army, which won its first football game of
the season in beating Tulane.
–I can’t believe my Jets are back in the thick of it.
–Just saw that actor James Coburn died. Always liked him.
–But what really warms the heart is seeing the New York Knicks
with but two wins thus far. By the way, any group of 10 Russian
girls blows away the Knicks’ City Dancers.
Top 3 songs for the week of 11/21/70: #1 “I Think I Love You”
(The Partridge Family…it’s true, it’s really true) #2 “We’ve
Only Just Begun” (Carpenters) #3 “I’ll Be There” (The Jackson
5)
Detroit Lions Quiz Answers: 1) Passing yards, career: Bobby
Layne…15,710 (1950-58). 2) Interceptions, career: Dick
LeBeau, 62 (1959-72). 3) Passing yards, season: Scott Mitchell
…4,338 (1995). 4) Garo Yepremian started his career with the
Lions, playing sparingly, but getting the 6 field goals in a single
game back in 1966. He then was out of football a few years
before joining the Dolphins. 5) Joe Schmidt was the last Lions
coach to win at least 20 games and have a .500 record. 43-35-7.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
