Coach Paterno

In this book, Coach Paterno said that he only wants a certain type of individual to play at Penn State. Young men of resolute character. The Coach mentioned that there was a highly regarded receiver from New Jersey, who was at the time playing for the nation's best college team, but the Coach had not bothered recruiting him because there were questions about grades and the like.

The receiver in question was USC's Dwayne Jarrett, a first round pick in the recent NFL draft. When queried as to Coach Paterno's assertion, Mr. Jarrett responded that he was all but speechless, as Penn State had attempted to recruit him, but he had advised the University that he had no interest in attending.

"24"

See . . . Jack had gotten involved with this woman, whose father was the Secretary of Defense . . . anyway she was married and through a convoluted series of events, well . . . Jack had to end up torturing her husband because he may have had information . . . and then the husband gets shot as he's pushing Jack out of the way of a terrorist's bullet . . . and then the husband goes into some sort of cardiac arrest after surgery to get the bullet . . . at the same time, Jack is rushing back to CTU with a Chinese national with information, who he kidnapped out of the Chinese Embassy . . . and there's just the one doctor at CTU . . . and the Chinese national took a bullet in the back, so he needs a doctor . . . so when Jack gets back to CTU and the doctor is working on the woman's husband, Jack has to put his gun on the doctor and tell him in no uncertain terms that he has to work on the Chinese national . . . this causes a fit of pique in the woman with whom Jack is having a dalliance . . . he correctly advises her that he has his orders . . . the husband dies, but there was nothing Jack could do about that . . .

Whatever happened to the Sweathogs? (Part III)

Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs played the role of Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington on "Welcome Back, Kotter". Perhaps his most famous moment was singing in a reggae fashion, "I don't care what the white man say, Santa Claus was a black man."

Reading this recent interview with Mr. Hilton-Jacobs reveals that the "business" has not been kind to him in at least fifteen years, and he is struggling to even get so much as a cup of coffee in Hollywood.

http://reviews.aalbc.com/lawrence_hilton-jacobs.htm

Red Meat Political Commentary

Can these Senate Democrats not allow for the possibility that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have become confused in hours of questioning and was not intentionally trying to mislead them?

Coach Charlie Weis

A jury recently found against Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis in his malpractice suit against the two physicians who performed his gastric bypass surgery.

The first trial was declared a mistrial, when the two doctors leaped into action in the court room and saved the life of one of the jurors in medical distress. I guess the judge figured Coach Weis couldn't get a fair shake after jurors had seen that.

It might be time for Coach Weis to start looking at that man in the mirror and take some personal responsibility for his physical appearance and well-being.

I had the misfortune to witness his ill-prepared team's debacle against USC this past season. Almost as embarrassing as the resultant performance was Coach Weis' selection of pre-game apparrel. Does anyone remember the late '70's, finally being roused to conciousness in your college dorm room on a Sunday morning, believing that you had finally, truly done yourself in, managing to somehow get up and throw on a pair of those formless gray sweatpants and a baseball cap and staggering over to the cafeteria to get a bit of food in ya, before returning to your dorm room and fitfully power napping until Monday morning?

Coach Weis was wearing that type of shapeless gray sweat pants on the field at the Coliseum in ful view of everybody who is anybody in LA. The sweatpants did not flatter his physique. Absolutely mortifying to all Notre Dame fans, particularly when one remembers what a crisp dresser Ara Parseghian was.

Whatever happened to the Sweathogs? (Part II)

The resume of Ron Pallilo, who played Arnold Horshack on "Welcome Back, Kotter", would seem to indicate that he hasn't had so much as a cup of coffee in Hollywood for decades.

http://www.corporateartists.com/ron_palillo.html

Coach Joe Paterno

The book I'm reading about Coach Paterno notes that the 1979 Sugar Bowl loss to Alabama really ate at the Coach. That's the one where Joe called a running play on fourth and inches at the Alabama goal line and the Nittanys were stopped cold. As way of background, if the receiver, Fitzkee, had any guts, he would have scored on first down. Then Coach Paterno still believes they got in on a second down running play.

Anyway, this book points out that Coach Paterno noted in his autobiography that he wanted to call a pass play on fourth down. His assistants told him to call the running play that cost the team the national championship. Coach Paterno says that's the only time he let his assistants talk him out of a play in which he really believed. That play is probably the biggest blot on Coach Paterno's resume, and now, years later, to find out that Coach Paterno didn't want to call that play at all, it was the assistants' fault. That's really eye-opening.

One Man's Opinon: Mr. Stern and the Irish Donaghy Conundrum

Reports are coming in that the NBA may have been investigating this guy twelve to eighteen months ago . . . I don't know when the feds got in on it . . . but that really left Mr. Stern in quite the dilemma . . . if he suspends the guy, it sort of blows the federal investigation . . . the g-men tend to frown on that . . . you'd think they would have had enough to do, digging up them damn dead dogs down in Virginia, but don't get me started on how our tax money is spent . . . so . . . Mr. Stern has got to sit there and watch as Irish Donaghy made any number of phantom calls against the Suns in game three against the Spurs . . . in retrospect, one can really enjoy the humor of Coach D'Antoni's anger, particularly with the benefit of the hindsight that he was probably intentionally being screwed so that Irish would cover . . .

There was once a performer in the WWF named Danny Davis . . .he was a wrestling "referee" whose actions in the ring quickly revealed he was in league with The Hart Foundation . . . quick three counts and the like . . . eventually Danny Davis donned the trunks and stepped into the squared circle . . . Mr. Stern should take this one completely over the top . . . embrace the scandal rather than run from it with mealy-mouthed excuses . . . that is, have a team sign Irish Donaghy as a player . . . and put him in the game only at very key moments for the gambling public . . . for instance, if Irish's team is leading by 8 and the spread is 7, and one second remains in the game and all Irish's team has to do is inbound the ball under its own basket and the game is over . . . so his coach puts Irish in . . . the crowd is going wild . . . the ball is inbounded to Irish and he shoots it into his own basket to make sure his team doesn't cover . . . by God, that would lead on Sportscenter . . . there's your "Who's Now" for ya . . .

"24"

That was close . . . those jokers at Channel 57 on the UHF decided to start 24 at 10:30 p.m. rather than 10:00 p.m. . . . tried to pump fake me with an episode of "Will and Grace" . . . but I checked back . . .

And this episode was absolutely infuriating . . . the President, this guy, Logan, was really ticked off when he found out that Jack had to get rough with some witness to get the information he needed to get the job done . . . so this Logan character orders the Secret Service to arrest Jack! And of course, Jack is right on the verge of capturing the terrorists, when the Secret Service shows up and blows everyone's cover and the terrorists take it on the lam. Jack was really steamed, handcuffed and sitting in the back of the car like a common criminal. And then . . . get this . . . the President changes his mind and orders Jack released! After the terrorists got away! I don't think I've ever been so mad in my life.

British Open Report

Long-time ISP reader, Irish Jimmy Clancy, checks in, on site, from the British Open:

I'm not afraid to admit to you that I broke down and cried like a baby . . . because it was threatening to be a bad week for our people . . . what with Irish Donaghy at the center of this whole NBA scandal . . . I don't understand that at all . . . I mean graft in politics, the Irish have always been big on that, a wink and an envelope, nobody's the wiser and nobody gets hurt . . . but this . . . and then along came Irish Paddy Harrington . . .that Garcia was threatening to give him a bad time of it . . . but when Paddy won the playoff and was waving the Irish flag around . . . himself doing a victory jig, right there on the green . . . very emotional.

Whatever happened to the Sweathogs?

With the imminent release of the first season of "Welcome Back, Kotter" on DVD, I cannot recount for you the number of inquiries that we have received regarding, "Hey. Whatever happened to the actors besides Travolta who played the Sweathogs?"

As the first in a series, we provide a link to Mr. Robert Hegyes, who played Juan Epstein. Mr. Hegyes is a prideful man, but his website would seem to reveal that he hasn't had so much as a cup of coffee in Hollywood for many years.

http://www.roberthegyes.com/

News Update: Temporary Transfer of Presidential Power

Saturday, July 21, 2007
CAMP DAVID, Md. … President Bush transferred the powers of his office to Vice President Dick Cheney for more than two hours Saturday while under sedation for a colon cancer screening.
Doctors removed five small polyps during the procedure at Camp David.
"None appeared worrisome," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said. Polyps are precancerous growths in the colon.All the polyps were less than a centimeter and were sent for microscopic examination to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. Results were expected within 72 hours.The colonoscopy lasted 31 minutes.
The transfer of power from Bush to Cheney covered two hours and five minutes.The president invoked Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution "out of an abundance of caution," Stanzel said. The amendment, approved in 1967, four years after President Kennedy was assassinated, had been used only twice before.
At 7:16 a.m. EDT, Bush invoked the disability clause and transferred his authority to Cheney. The vice president was at his home on the Chesapeake Bay in St. Michaels, Md., about 30 miles east of Washington.
The Vice-President spent the morning using his new authorization of Presidential powers to grant a full pardon to former aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Additionally, Cheney granted full Presidential pardons to former Enron executives, Andrew Fastow and Jeffrey Skilling, former Adlephia CEO, John Rigas, former World Com CEO, Bernie Ebbers, former Tyco Industries CEO, Dennis Kozlowski and Martha Stewart.
Cheney said he was not concerned with a backlash from the Congress.
"To hell with them," Cheney said with a gruff laugh, "If they want to bitch, I'll give them something to bitch about."
Bush reclaimed his presidential powers and duties at 9:21 a.m. EDT.

"Irish" Tim Donaghy: Career Switch?

Several of my sources are telling me that dependant upon the resolution of any possible criminal charges, ESPN is "very much interested" in having fomer NBA referee, "Irish" Tim Donaghy, join its "NBA 2-Night" pre-game and half-time crew, which currently consists of Mike Tirico, Stephen A. Smith and Greg Anthony. Reportedly, ESPN is enamored with Donaghy's "edginess potential".

Coach Joe Paterno

I have been reading a biography of the legendary helmsman of the Penn State Nittany Lions, Coach Joe Paterno.

A particularly telling episode concerns the recruitment of future NFL Hall of Famer, Jim Kelly. At the time, the Nittanys thought were very close to getting Jeff Hostetler and Dan Marino to sign on the dotted line. As the story goes, by way of inducement, Coach Paterno told young Mr. Kelly that he could play linebacker. Turning whimsical at the memory, Kelly now says that had he been foolish enough to accept Paterno's offer, "I would probably be a bartender now in East Brady, Pennsylvania."

While not denying the story, one can read between the lines and tell that Coach Paterno does not care for its re-telling, nor does he believe that it portrays him a particularly flattering light. In his defense, he states that it was unlikely that Kelly would get any playing time with the other two on the team. By switching him to linebacker, the Coach would have allowed him to still attend Penn State on scholarship and possibly follow in the school's great tradition of minting linebackers.

A second story involved a visit to Penn State University by then President Richard M. Nixon during his 1972 re-election campaign. After giving a speech on campus, Nixon went to Paterno's home for dinner. Evidently, Nixon got pretty deep into the Coach's private stock, his homemade grappa. The drunken President sought empathy from the Coach, noting that "we've both got that weasly look that we've had to contend with our whole lives."

The reader gets the impression that Coach Paterno cared for neither the President's drunkeness nor his conversation, but patiently listened out of respect for the office. The President, growing maudlin, told Paterno of a bad experience he had had playing football at Whittier College. It involved a cruel prank, not uncommon when young men seek to cull the herd. On the first day of practice, the upper classmen had assigned Nixon a task which would insure that he would be the last one out of the locker room. As the undersized Nixon at last came running out late for his first day of practice, he slipped on a large pile of horse feces, which the upper classman had laid at the exit of the locker room door. Henceforth, he was bestowed the nickname, "Old Shitheels" Nixon, which he was unable to shed in his four years of college.

Paterno had some sympathy for the President, sitting in an almost hypnotic trance, swirling the grappa in his glass and muttering, "Old Shitheels Nixon . . . Old Shitheels Nixon . . ." However, Paterno finally had to give the President the hint that he had "an early practice." An almost comic-tragic episode then ensued, when the President fell and broke his nose due to the effects of the strong Paterno grappa. Out of his sense of patriotic duty, Paterno made sure that word of the incident never reached the outside world. At that time, before the world went crazy, the Coach had everything wired and not so much as a single press release left Happy Valley without his say-so.

Proof Positive That Joe Namath's Drunken Attempted Seduction Of ESPN's Suzy Kolber Was Only His Second Most Embarrasing Television Appearance

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WyOM7CSuDfQ

"24"

So anyway . . . Sunday night . . . whewwwwwwwww!!!! . . . this terrorist who had foolishly used a credit card allowing CTU to track him . . . he knew the jig was up and called his head honcho . . . who sent this American turncoat to pick him up . . . and the American guy sniffs it out that this terrorist guy is going to kill him, too . . . so he shoots the terrorist right as CTU is closing in on the both of them . . . says this terrorist was going to kill him and he acted in self-defense . . . so the head honcho terrorist gets wind of what happened and calls some outfit called "Global Amnesty" and tells them that this turncoat needs a lawyer immediately . . . and right when CTU is about to get in to a no holds barred interrogation . . . this lawyer character from Global Amnesty shows up with an order signed by some hand wringing, left-wing federal judge that prohibits CTU from questioning the guy . . . worried about this guy's so-called "Constitutional rights" . . .well, needless to say, Jack gets back to CTU, finds out what's going on and absolutely goes through the roof! . . . asks for a moment alone with this guy's mouthpiece . . . tries to be civil, patiently explains that a nuclear warhead is going to go off unless this guy spills his guts . . . still no dice . . . now, the President has been incapcitated, as these terrorists blew his plane out of the sky in one of the shows I missed because the Phillies-Rockies game went long . . . but this Vice-President who got sworn in . . . absolutely spineless . . . won't let Jack take the actions necessary and specifically forbids CTU from questioning the subject while he's in custody . . . but Jack's not licked quite yet . . . Jack write a letter of resignation from CTU . . . then CTU releases the suspect from its custody . . . Jack's lurking out in the parking lot . . . and when the guy gets in a car, Jack puts a gun to him and instructs the guy to handcuff his own arm to one of those things you hold on to in a car when it makes a turn . . . and then Jack tells the guy in a way that does not invite debate that he has one final chance to tell Jack what he needs to know . . . the guy continues to say that he doesn't know anything . . . so Jack gets a firm grip on this character's thumb . . . and this is always the best part of the show, when the viewer knows that justice is about to prevail . . . Jacks wrenches the guy's thumb and it snaps like a dry twig . . . this character only manages to hold out through the index finger and then was more than happy to tell Jack whatever he wanted to know . . .

Decision, 2008: Update

Plagued by stagnant fund-raising, staff firings, defections and resignations, and repeated dunning calls from a tenacious, abrasive collection agent for American Express, who identifies himself as "Sam White", my sources advise that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has been observed biting his lower lip, muttering to himself and breaking out in seemingly unprovoked laughter at inappropriate times. My sources further indicate that the remaining campaign staff is thus far resistant to the Senator's proposed strategy to "throw a 'Hail Mary' pass and then 'circle the wagons' for 2012."

The Vick Case: Pertinent Questions

How could Michael Vick get boxing gloves on them dogs' paws? And even if he could, how could he get them to then stand up and fight each other? To me, the whole case against him falls apart just based on that.

To Our Readers In France

A happy and safe Bastille Day!!!!!

Many regular readers of this blog will recall how in 2004 the Bush Campaign really put the screws to Massachusetts Senator, John Kerry, by spreading it around that he "looks French".

"24"

Many of you have noted that this blog went "dark" for a few months. A full explanation as to the causes of this inactivity will be forthcoming, as soon as the person whose actions were mainly responsible for this condition obtaining, steels himself to make a full breast of it. Suffice it to say at this time, financial considerations were at issue with an apparent embezzlement by a company retained to manufacture beer cozys, combined with a too rapid expansion of the motion picture wing of ISP. Also something called an "injunction" was involved, the details of which were never fully fleshed out to me.

For those of you for whom this blog is your only source of what happens on the show, "24", my most abject apologies. In the season just concluded, Jack Bauer managed to keep the Chinese and the Russians from getting into it, and also wiped out a terrorist gang that had blown up part of Los Angeles with a nuclear device. For reasons too lengthy to recount, Jack had to let his father get blown up. The viewer never actually saw the father get blown up, so they may be leaving themselves a little "wiggle" room. The father was played by the same actor who played the part of "Stretch" Cunningham on "All In The Family". I am not aware of any other roles he may have had in the interim.

Before Jack concluded his mission, he got into a bit of a sticky wicket, where the head of CTU was telling him to do one thing and Jack just knew it was a bad decision, so decided to act of his own volition. When the head of CTU got word of Jack's unilateral action, he called the President and told him, "Jack Bauer's gone rogue."

Well, I gotta tell ya, when I heard those words, I couldn't even feel myself breathing . . . my blood ran absolutely cold.

Now, regarding "24 Weekend", which is supposed to be shown on Channel 57 on the UHF every Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. . . . real problems have developed there . . . I can't provide you a current update . . . the station also carries the Phillies' games, and what with games running long due to rain delays and poor pitching, "24" has been "bumped" to 1:30 a.m. on Monday morning. Why they don't "bump" "CSI", a perfectly awful show, is beyond me.

Red Meat Political Commentary

Man . . . one day, Cindy Sheehan, is writing a dairy on The Daily Kos blog . . . goes ahead and decides to run against Nancy Pelosi . . . next thing she knows, she's thrown off the deck into the ocean and probably still doesn't know what hit her!!!!

A Rememberance of Things Past

With the recent Chris Benoit situation, one's mind can't help but return to the year of 1986 . . . as America focused with laser-like clarity on the sport of professional wrestling . . . the elements of great tragedy were all present . . . as the friendship of two great athletes, forged in the crucible of the Vietnam conflict, was rendered asunder by filthy lucre . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S12q7Mrb_I