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Bar Chat

02/13/2012

Death of a Diva

NBA Quiz: What team won the NBA championship in the first season after the merger with the ABA, 1976-77, and name the top three scorers on that team. Answer below.

RIP, Whitney

I’m kind of biting my tongue on the passing of Whitney Houston at the age of 48, so I’ll follow the words of commentator Bill Flanagan, who said on CBS’ “Sunday Morning” program, “When the eulogies have ended, let’s let Whitney Houston rest in peace.”

We do know, however, that Houston’s body was found in her room at the Beverly Hills Hilton, where she was to attend longtime mentor Clive Davis’ party, his annual concert and dinner before the Grammy Awards. She was also expected to perform, though two days earlier at a rehearsal, a person who attended told the AP’s Nekesa Mumbi Moody, “Houston looked disheveled, was sweating profusely and liquor and cigarettes could be smelled on her breath.”

From the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, Whitney Houston was as hot as anyone in the music business. [Though I can’t help but add my own opinion that this was otherwise a dreadful era for music overall. It had me reaching for my Chopin and Tchaikovsky CDs. Also, modern jazz. Rock ‘n’ roll, as well as R&B, generally sucked.]

Houston was a major force in the New York area in growing up here, having been born in Newark, N.J. on Aug. 9, 1963. She was a member of the choir at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark and by age 15 was singing background vocals on Chaka Khan’s “Every Woman.”

She was the first black woman to appear on the cover of Seventeen magazine.

Houston made her first television appearance in 1981 on “The Merv Griffin Show,” introduced by Clive Davis.

4th best-selling female artist of all time, behind Madonna, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. 

The debut album produced three No. 1 hits, but it was “The Greatest Love of All” that earned her the nickname “The Voice.”

“I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” 1987, turned her into a sex symbol as a result of the video.

“The Star-Spangled Banner,” 1991, sung at Super Bowl XXV, is indeed the finest single rendition of the national anthem ever performed. Beyond spectacular. [Helped, emotionally, by the fact it was at the start of the Gulf War.]

“I Will Always Love you,” 1992, the theme song from “The Bodyguard.” 

Billboard Top Hits

#3… You Give Good Love (1985)
#1… Saving All My Love For You (1985)
#1… How Will I Know (1985)
#1… Greatest Love Of All (1986)
#1… I Wanna Dance With Somebody (1987)
#1… Didn’t We almost Have It All (1987)
#1… So Emotional (1987)
#1… Where Do Broken Hearts Go (1988)
#9… Love Will Save the Day (1988)
#5… One Moment In Time (1988)
#1… I’m Your Baby Tonight (1990)
#1… All The Man That I Need (1991)
#9… Miracle (1991)
#1… I Will Always Love You (1992)
#4… I’m Every Woman (1993)
#4… I Have Nothing (1993)
#1… Exhale (Shoop Shoop) (1995)
#2… Freak Like Me (1995)

Of course you can’t tell the Whitney Houston story without noting her marriage to Bobby Brown in 1992. While she still had some success in those first years, it was the beginning of the end for her. They divorced in 2007.

The Meteoric Rise of Jeremy Lin

Suddenly, it’s great to be a Knicks fan again. It’s been awhile, but Friday night clinched it as the Knicks, playing without their two stars, Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, defeated Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers at the Garden, 92-85, as the biggest current sensation in sports, undrafted Harvard grad Jeremy Lin, torched L.A. for 38 points. I was working on that other column I do but still watched the entire contest. I’d never think to do that in the past. I’m hooked. Saturday night I watched the entire Knicks-T’Wolves game and a heavily fatigued Lin, who finally crashed to earth in the second half, still managed to hit the clinching free throw as the Knicks prevailed for their fifth straight win, 100-98.

So in his five games since bursting on the scene when he was inserted into the game against the Nets, Sat. Feb. 4, this is all Lin has done.

Game 1…25 points…7 assists (off the bench)
Game 2…(first start)…28…8
Game 3…23…10
Game 4…38…7
Game 5…20…8

No one in the history of the NBA since the merger with the ABA ever had 89 points in their first three starts.

I mean this is a guy who was waived twice, has been sent to the D-League (Developmental League) four times and was the Knicks’ fifth-string point guard when he was signed on Dec. 27. He didn’t have a guaranteed contract and was sleeping on his brother’s couch. When asked if he deserved all the attention, D’Antoni compared it to the movie “Rudy” about the Notre Dame walk-on football player who finally gets into a game.

“It only took Rudy half a game, not even half a game, two plays at the end and they made a movie about him,” D’Antoni said. “We’re really happy about his performance. There will be tough times. There’s no way that anybody has good games all the time.

“There will be times that he has to re-examine himself and we as a coaching staff will help him over some hard hurdles. He has proven that he has the ability to do this again. Not many guys in the world can do it one time. He’s done it three times. So you got to think he’s legit. He’ll play. At what level we’ll find out.”

The fact he’s the first Chinese/Taiwanese-American to play in the NBA doesn’t hurt with the marketing either, let alone that he’s performing in the Media Mecca of the world, is smart, articulate, and a disciple of Tim Tebow.

After Friday’s loss to the Knicks, Kobe Bryant, who said the day before he didn’t know who Lin was, offered the following:

“He has been phenomenal. We have watched some tape on him. We came up with a strategy that we thought would be effective, but he was knocking down his jump shot, penetrating and he got around our guards…

“Players don’t usually come out of nowhere. If you can go back and take a look, his skill level was probably there from the beginning, but no one ever noticed…It is a great story. It is a testament to perseverance and hard work. It is a good example to kids everywhere.” 

Knicks center Tyson Chandler: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody come from the end of the bench to have that kind of impact.”

As Lin has made all his Knicks teammates better, D’Antoni, whose job he owes to Lin’s emergence, said “It’s becoming a love-fest. A little sloppy. A little sappy.”

“Yes. It is 12 years of frustration blossoming at the Garden these last seven days, a basketball constituency that has endured so many false prophets through the years embracing this remarkable basketball gift they’ve been given.

“Is that unfair, heaping all that on Jeremy Lin’s shoulders? Of course it is. It’s absurd. Every ounce of logic screams this can’t possibly last. But nobody ever said sports was logical. If anything, we spend our rooting lives prowling for reasons to be bowled over by the impossible. And here we are. Yes, sir. Here we are.”

Lin now has a guaranteed one-year deal with the Knicks at the league minimum of $762,195. Just a few days ago there was also no such thing as a Lin Knicks jersey or t-shirt. Now they are furiously rushing production of them and as soon as they hit the stores they are being gobbled up. 

“I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration just because he’s such a polarizing figure, but I think the things he says in interviews, his approach to the game, is just unbelievable and I respect him so much. I actually want to be able to do some of the things that he does in terms of the amount of charity work and the non-profit work, and the way he impacts people off the field. I think that is what is most inspiring to me about him.”

This is an NBA ballplayer? The most selfish, self-centered individuals on the planet? The least likable athletes around? Believe it. He is indeed for real. He’s not going to lead the Knicks to a championship this year, or probably next, but he’s got me watching games again, and there are millions in this area like me. And he’s going to juice attendance around the league. Saturday night in Minneapolis, where they are building their own special story around sensational rookie guard Ricky Rubio, the T’Wolves had their fourth-highest crowd ever. The Asian-American fan base is already exploding. Commissioner David Stern owes Lin big time. 

College Basketball [using USA TODAY/ESPN poll numbers, not AP, to make it simple on moi]

No. 20 Virginia got outclassed by No. 5 UNC, 70-52, even as Carolina was only 1 of 10 from downtown. [Both teams combined were 4-26…yikes.]

No. 4 Missouri once again got the best of a very suspect No. 6 Baylor, 72-57, which also lost to No. 10 Kansas on Wednesday, 68-54.

No. 17 Florida State rebounded from a horrible loss to Boston College (64-60) earlier in the week to beat Miami, 64-59. [In the ACC; FSU, Duke and UNC are now tied at 8-2.]

Notre Dame moved to 17-8, 9-3 Big East, in defeating DePaul 84-76. Let’s say the Fighting Irish make it to the semis of the Big East tournament. They could get a 4-seed because of their superior play late in the year.

No. 16 UNLV outlasted No. 14 San Diego State, 65-63, in what was quite a game.

Tennessee upset No. 7 Florida at home, 75-70.

Seth Curry’s mother is still the hottest basketball mom on the planet. [Hey, who put this here?! I could get fined, or worse, for having it in Bar Chat. I will not rest until I find the culprit.]

No. 15 (no longer) Creighton lost its third straight in going down to Wichita State, 89-68.

I watched a fair amount of No. 12 Michigan State at No. 3 Ohio State and what an awful basketball game as the Spartans prevailed 58-48. The Buckeyes shot 14 of 53 from the field, 26.4%, as star Jared Sullinger (playing like Jared of Subway fame) committed 10 turnovers! Good gawd, he sucked.

Speaking of sucking, No. 21 Harvard lost at Princeton, 70-62, so once again it’s time to put the Crimson in the ‘others’ category.

And then there’s No. 7 Murray State. Thanks to ESPN3, I’ve watched a lot of Racers games this season, knowing I would be attending one. They’re not a great team, but guard Isaiah Canaan is a sure-fire NBA ballplayer (especially if he stays his senior year) and Murray can still make a lot of noise come March if he’s scoring 25+ in the tournament.

That said, the Racers had their 23-game unbeaten streak snapped last Thursday at home with Tennessee State pulling off the upset, 72-68, this after Murray blew a 13-point second half lead. Ironically, No. 13 Saint Mary’s, the Racers’ bracket buster opponent on Feb. 18, also went down at the hands of Gonzaga, 73-59, thus taking some luster off the Saint Mary’s-Murray State contest but in no way diminishing the importance in terms of eventual seeding.

Anyway, Murray did bounce back on Saturday against Austin Peay, 82-63, but not for nothing, the Racers finish conference play with three tough road games (the next three in the Ohio Valley standings), plus the Saint Mary’s game. If they don’t watch it, they could finish 25-4 and suddenly need to win their conference tournament to ensure an NCAA bid. I mean if they are 25-4, they’d be hard-pressed to stay in the Top 25.

Lastly, on the scoreboard front, I posted my last Bar Chat before Wednesday night’s games and here I’ve talked about how the NCAA season was a giant bore. Well, along came Duke playing North Carolina at the Dean Dome in Chapel Hill. I watched the last few minutes of the first half and all the second and at the end I emailed a Duke friend, “That was the most unexplainable game of any kind I can ever remember.”

“After he had made the game-winning jumper, got covered in teammates and completed an interview that was broadcast live to a national audience that must’ve been just as stunned as the rest of us, Duke’s Austin Rivers jogged off the court beside the North Carolina student section and delivered one last parting shot while looking at and saluting the heartbroken undergraduates.

“ ‘See y’all,’ Rivers yelled with a big smile on his face.

“Duke beat North Carolina late Wednesday by the slimmest of margins. The final was 85-84. That’s the story from the box score. But the box score doesn’t tell this story because this story had so many twists and turns that I can’t really even make sense of what happened – and I get paid to make sense of what happens in basketball games. That’s my job. I watch basketball and I write about basketball. I’ve been traveling to games for years. I’ve seen lots of good games and lots of bad games. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen any game quite like the game I just saw here at the Dean Smith Center.

“ ‘I’ve never seen anything like that,’ said the North Carolina coach. ‘But this is North Carolina-Duke.’

“At 10:29 local time, North Carolina was pulling away. That’s when I tweeted the following: ‘This is when columnists start writing their columns.’ And then I started writing my column. I was about 500 words into it when Harrison Barnes scored his 25th point of the game to give North Carolina an 82-72 lead with 2:38 remaining, and all I needed to do was plug in some final numbers, grab a notebook of quotes and file. The fifth-ranked team in the land and on a five-game winning streak was about to beat the team ranked 10th and coming off a home loss to Miami.

“ ‘What just happened?’ asked the North Carolina student sitting behind me, and I didn’t know what to tell her because I didn’t have an answer.”

Tyler Thornton hit a 3-pointer to cut the Carolina lead to 82-75 with 2:09 remaining. Seth Curry drained a 3 to cut the lead to 82-78 with 1:48 left. Tyler Zeller deflected a Ryan Kelly shot into the wrong basket to cut the UNC lead to 83-82 with 14.2 seconds remaining, one of the strangest buckets in NCAA history. Zeller then made just one of two free throws with 13.9 seconds remaining, giving Duke the ball down two. Rivers comes down at the buzzer, drains the 3-pointer for the win. 

--The NCAA has ruled that UConn cannot play in next year’s NCAA tournament because of poor academic performance. The NCAA has denied the Huskies’ appeal that some of the players who helped comprise the four-year average Academic Progress Rate had little to do with the program.

--ACC attendance is down to its lowest average for the league since 1984-85. I would have thought in basically ‘forever.’ As noted by Mark Giannotto of the Washington Post, “The ACC and Pacific-12 are the only leagues that have seen their attendance figures drop in every year since 2008.”

As for Wake Forest, get this. Attendance has dropped “by close to 50 percent since 2006.” Of course since the Deacs were No. 1 in the country in January 2009, the last two seasons they have gone 19-38, and just 3-24 in ACC play. Again, just three years ago, the Deacs were 16-0 after defeating No. 3 North Carolina and No. 9 Clemson in a 3-game span, but the Deacs stumbled the rest of the way, only got a 4-seed in the NCAA tournament, and then lost by 15 to 13-seed Cleveland State in the first round…the game that marked the beginning of the end for the program. A year later, Coach Dino Gaudio was out after getting blown out in the second round of the NCAAs by Kentucky and the rest has been a nightmare.

Here’s how I approach Wake games these days. I know when they’re playing, if I’m at home I glance at the score on the Net (while watching another game), and if it’s close with under 10 minutes to go I may turn it on (as in ESPN3).   I then glance at the box score, normally with disgust [the last two losses were 68-44 and 78-58 at the hands of Virginia and Clemson] and just shake my head because there is simply no talent whatsoever on this team, outside of maybe two players. We’re told there is a good recruiting class coming in, but we’ve heard that before. 

Lefty Wins His 40th

Phil Mickelson won his 40th career PGA Tour title at Pebble Beach and in the process waxed Tiger Woods, 64-75, as the two were paired in the final round. It has now been 2 years and 5 months since Tiger last won a PGA event and it continued a disturbing pattern of fading when in contention. He still hits some of the best shots on the planet but the demons haven’t been exorcised.

Mickelson, on the other hand, was already being written off after his first three events of the 2012 campaign, yet as Phil was working his way through the first few holes on Sunday, the Golf Channel had a terrific graphic…which Lefty then backed up.

To wit...here are Mickelson’s first four tournaments of selected years.

Here’s hoping Pebble isn’t Lefty’s only win for this year. And I’m one who wants Tiger to win as well. It just makes things a helluva lot more interesting.

“For the Pro Athlete, it’s just a job”

“Within hours of creating one of its most glorious moments, the pro sports world exposed one of its dirty little secrets.

“Hours after the New York Giants’ dramatic Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots on Sunday, the losing team threw a loud party where two key players, tight end Rob Gronkowski and tackle Matt Light, stripped off their shirts and joyfully danced onstage.

“The video went viral, and plenty of people got sick. Many Patriots fans couldn’t understand it. At least one notable former Patriot couldn’t accept it.

“ ‘There’s no reason for that to happen…it’s not right,’ said former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison on ESPN Chicago Radio 1000. ‘When we lost the Super Bowl, I was so devastated the last thing I ever wanted to do was party.’

Some of them do get devastated, but not most of them, thus the dirty little secret.

“Here, let me write it again for the Patriots die-hard who still hasn’t slept, for that Lakers lover who is suffering from a stress disorder, for any professional sports fan who has literally cried in his beer while assuming his heroes are doing the same.

“In my 30 years of covering professional sports, I’ve found barely a handful of players who care as much about winning as the most fervent of fans. We’re spoiled around here because we’ve watched Kobe Bryant hate on losing for the last 16 years, but Bryant is the exception.

“Professional athletes care about their salaries. They care about their security. They care about their health. They care about the same things we care about in our jobs. They like winning and dislike losing but are generally unaffected by the daily successes or failures of their company, and really, what right do we have to demand otherwise?

“Certainly, pro athletes with integrity instinctively give their best effort, are at least momentarily devastated upon suffering a tough loss, and are jubilant after a big win. But on a daily basis, the average pro athlete views the average game as another day at the office.”

1. Michael Vick
2. Tiger Woods
3. Plaxico Burress
4. Ndamukong Suh
5. Kris Humphries
6. LeBron James…my own No. 1
7. Kobe Bryant
8. Terrell Owens
9. Alex Rodriguez
10. Kurt Busch

I just have to put in a word for, of all people. Plaxico. I might be biased because I’m a Jets fan (though that doesn’t prevent me from disliking with a passion Santonio Holmes), but Burress was a model citizen this year in New York. He seemed to have really grown up in the many interviews I saw. It is highly doubtful the Jets will sign him for another season, but if he can’t find a decent contract elsewhere, I hope the Jets will give him another $1 million deal for a final year. He can still be a solid situational receiver and contribute in big moments.

--There was a huge incident in the Premier League over the weekend as Liverpool’s Luis Suarez refused to shake Manchester United’s Patrice Evra’s hand in the pre-match ritual. The significance is that last October, it was Suarez, a Uruguayan, who was involved in a racial incident with Evra, from Senegal, that made headlines around the world and then on Saturday, Suarez compounded it.

Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson branded Suarez a “disgrace to Liverpool” and said the club should “get rid of” the dirtball (that word doesn’t even come close to describing what Suarez really is). Ferguson was right. There could have been a riot. You cannot overstate the importance of the racial issue in European soccer these days, especially, putting on my geopolitical hat, the situation on the continent with the debt crisis and people increasingly looking for scapegoats. One of these African players is going to get killed if something isn’t done. After all, some Premier League football fans are the biggest idiots on the planet.

--Remember Peyton Manning? Or as Mike Wise of the Washington Post noted the other day, “after the Knicks had outclassed the Wizards and as we scurried behind the Most Important Sports Story in America At This Very Second. (Sorry, Peyton, you’re soooo three minutes ago.)”

Various stories have emerged about Manning’s health. One described Peyton’s arm as “a noodle.” NFL Network’s Michael Lombardi said that Manning “can’t throw the ball to his left.” As CBSSports.com’s Will Brinson wrote: “Ruh-roh.” 

Lombardi said: “I’ve talked to people who have caught the ball for him. He can’t throw the ball to his left. He can’t throw the ball across his body because he doesn’t feel it. People that catch the ball for him say that he doesn’t really have the velocity on the ball yet.”

Brinson: “Right now, the strength of the nerves in Manning’s arms simply aren’t built up enough to throw the ball well. That’s bad news for Manning’s future, but the good news is that Manning has a month to continue rehabbing and prove that he’s healthy enough to play in the NFL.

“If he’s shown improvement with the strength and velocity on his throws by March 8, it’s possible Jim Irsay will keep him on the Colts. (It’s possible. Just not likely.) And if Irsay doesn’t keep Manning, then Peyton will have until March 13 to prove to teams he’s improving enough to step in and produce in 2012.

“Of course, if reports are still circulating about Manning’s lack of arm strength at that time, it might not matter.”

--Suddenly, Madison Square Garden is rocking on all fronts. The first-place New York Rangers are off to their best start since 1972-73 and with Saturday’s 5-2 win over the Flyers, have now defeated Philly seven straight times. Heh heh.

--Ah yes, just days before pitchers and catchers report, but with position players not officially due in to the Yankees camp until Feb. 25, captain Derek Jeter has already been working out at the team’s facility for days. Gotta respect the hell out of that.

“Former Red Sox pitcher Dennis ‘Oil Can’ Boyd says he probably pitched under the influence of cocaine ‘at every ballpark’ during his 10-year career.

“ ‘There wasn’t one ballpark that I probably didn’t stay up all night, until 4 or 5 in the morning, and the same thing is in your system,’ Boyd said in an interview with Jon Miller of WBZ radio in Boston: ‘It ain’t like you had time to go and do it while you were in the game, which I have (done)’…

“ ‘Some of the best games that I’ve ever, ever pitched in the major leagues, I stayed up all night. I’d say two-thirds of them, and if I had went to bed, I would have won 150 ballgames in the time span that I played and…I felt like my career was cut short for a lot of reasons.’

“Boyd said he ‘wasn’t doing anything that hundreds of ballplayers weren’t doing at the time, because that’s how I learned it and I just caught the deep end of it. And the reason, too, also, that I caught the deep end of it (is) I’m black and the bottom line was that the game carries a lot of bigotry and that was just an easy way for them to do it.’

“He said that ‘if I wasn’t outspoken and a so-called proud, proud black man’ maybe I would have got empathy and sympathy like other ballplayers got that I didn’t get; like a Darryl Strawberry or Dwight Gooden, Steve Howe. I can name 50 people that got third and fourth chances all because they weren’t outspoken black individuals.’”

Yoh, Oil Can…you were a total a-hole. It had nothing to do with your being black. For all their faults, to the casual fan who wasn’t behind the scenes, Strawberry and Gooden were still pretty good guys.

--Literally hours after I posted the last chat, and after having written of the University of North Dakota’s “Fighting Sioux” nickname receiving perhaps one more life owing to the fact petitioners had gained enough signatures to have the issue placed on the ballot, the university itself resumed use of the nickname and Indian head logo, even though one of the two key Indian tribes had not given its approval, because state law requires a return to the previous law while the petitions are reviewed and then voted on if accepted. And, you see, North Dakota lawmakers in early 2011 passed a bill that required the university to keep the name and logo. The school, though, retired the name under threat of NCAA sanctions. We’ll see if this new move sticks. I have my Fighting Siouxwear in a prominent place in the sports drawer regardless and as it’s a heavier mesh, perfect for winter.

--Pretty cool 5,000-meter race in New York on Saturday at the Millrose Games as Bernard Lagat set a new U.S. record in the race with a 13:07:15, while in the same race, University of Arizona runner Lawi Lalang broke the collegiate record at 13:08:28 (by ten seconds), and a New Jersey high-schooler, Kenyan Edward Cheserek, broke the national high school mark with a time of 13:57:04, nine seconds better than the old one.

--New York City Marathon officials may have crossed the price line. In raising the cost of running in the race next fall to $255 (an increase of $60) for U.S. residents and $63, to $347, for international runners, some longtime participants say it’s simply gotten too expensive, as reported by Crain’s New York Business and Bloomberg.

One example is Danielle Gall, a member of the New York Road Runners, who has run the race five times. She said she’s entering the Californian International Marathon in December instead. Others are looking at the Marine Corps Marathon in Arlington, Va., where the price is just $92. Heck, do the Kiawah Marathon in December, which I think is about the same price. [I already signed up to do another half-marathon there…gives me an incentive to stay in shape.]

Incidentally, the Marine Corps Marathon opens registration on March 7. Chicago, which opened up 2012 registration on Feb. 6, sold out its 45,000 slots for the Oct. 7 race in a record six days. Chicago’s cost is $150, up $5 this year. [Boston raised theirs $20 to $150.]

And get this…participation in marathons overall continues to soar. For 2010 (the last available data), a record 507,000 runners finished 26.2-mile races, up from 303,000 a decade earlier.

--This is funny…from Sports Illustrated. Minnesota Vikings superstar running back Adrian Peterson wanted to change his uniform number from 28 to 23. Not so fast, Adrian. Reebok reminded him he’d be responsible for buying back outdated jerseys, to the tune of $1 million, so, hello No. 28!

--I have stopped following the Bernie Madoff / New York Mets saga. This past week there were a slew of new stories on the proceedings, I printed them all out, began to read them, and decided [the heck with it.] I just don’t care anymore…except to the extent it impacts us fans who just want the Wilpons to go away.

But Mets GM Sandy Alderson did have a humorous first tweet after joining Twitter on Thursday.

“Getting ready for Spring Training. Driving to [Florida] but haven’t left yet. Big fundraiser tonight for gas money. Also exploring PAC contribution.”

The Mets payroll this year is down a record $53 million…from $143 million at the start of 2011 to just over $90 million.

--“The Phantom of the Opera” celebrated its 10,000th performance on Saturday afternoon. Two-dozen crew members have been with the musical since opening night, Jan. 26, 1988; men like Jimmy Billings, 78, the head electrician. Erna Diaz, who’s been dressing the ladies, including 33 different actresses who’ve played Christine, the female lead.

The longest-running Broadway shows, by number of performances:

“Phantom” (1988-present)…10,001 [after Saturday’s performances]
“Cats” (1982-2000)…7,485
“Les Miserables” (1987-2003)…6,691
“Chicago” (1996-present)…6,326
“A Chorus Line” (1975-1990)…6,137

--Dr. Tendler of Restasis fame is aging well. Wonder what other powers Restasis has, know what I’m sayin’?

--In a survey by Match.com and anthropologist Helen Fisher of 6,000 singles, 21% of men and 41% of women found that too many video games was a major turnoff.

I’ve never played a video game in my life! [At least since ‘Digger’ back in the mid-1980s.] What this has to do with my love life, though, I’m not sure.

50% of men and 58% of women say ‘no sense of humor’ is a turnoff. [I don’t have one, as almost 1,500 Bar Chat columns have proved. Many women find the “All-Species List” way too serious and I have to admit it is meant to be taken that way. “Man” really does deserve his No. 198 ranking, though the rise of Jeremy Lin could force me to move us up a few notches in the not too distant future, perhaps back above the Stink Bug, or maybe even the crayfish, currently No. 177.] 

63% of men and 71% of women say being ‘unclean’ is a turnoff. I’m clean! Wash my hands at least 78 times a day and keep a clean home.

--I’m really starting to care about the NHL again with the Rangers’ success. So in glancing at the standings, I had no idea Nashville was having such a solid year. [Beware of editors planting a tidbit like this in an attempt to prove they really have been following. It’s a ruse.] 

--Good lord…the New Orleans Hornets are now 4-23! [In this instance, the editor’s professed knowledge is sincere and to be taken seriously.]

--The Beach Boys never won a Grammy (“Good Vibrations” losing out to the Mamas and the Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” among others, in 1966), nor had they played on the telecast until Sunday. I would just say after their performance that something was once again clearly up with Brian Wilson and if you have purchased a ticket to one of their shows this summer, you might not see him.

--Incredibly, Diana Ross also never won a Grammy, despite being nominated 12 times for her work.

--Bruuuuce was his usual great self, while I have to say I loved Bruno Mars’ act.

--Sir Paul is so cool. He has aged gracefully…and still has that ‘it’ factor.

Top 3 songs for the week 2/10/73: #1 “Crocodile Rock” (Elton John…not my favorite of his) #2 “You’re So Vain” (Carly Simon…has aged well*…the song, that is) #3 “Why Can’t We Live Together” (Timmy Thomas)…and…#4 “Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?” (Hurricane Smith…love this one) #5 “Superstition” (Stevie Wonder) #6 “Do It Again” (Steely Dan…sound was so unique back then) #7 “The World Is A Ghetto” (War…one of the most underrated groups of all time) #8 “Trouble Man” (Marvin Gaye…still miss the guy) #9 “Don’t Expect Me To Be Your Friend” (Lobo…I never said I wanted to!…geezuz…leave it alone, will ya…) #10 “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love” (Spinners… between the Spinners and War, their Greatest Hits albums are as good as any in the history of the genre, including Rachmaninoff’s)

*I saw Peter Frampton in concert last week, performing his “Comes Alive” album. Man, the bloke can still play the guitar. It was very cool. He’s also got a great sense of humor, so check him out.

NBA Quiz Answer: The Portland Trail Blazers won the first title, post-merger. The top three scorers were Maurice Lucas (20.2), Bill Walton (18.6) and Lionel Hollins (14.7). Others in double figures were Bob Gross (11.4), Larry Steele (10.3), and Dave Twardzik (10.3). Walton led the league in rebounding (14.4) and blocked shots (3.25). Lucas, one of the great power forwards in the game, chipped in with 11.4 boards. Portland defeated Philadelphia in the Finals, 4-2, as Walton was MVP. [Philadelphia was led by Dr. J., George McGinnis, Doug Collins and World B. Free.]

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