Quit Crying Lebron!

Good morning everyone,

To start off this week, I wanna say how pumped up I was when I read one of my favourite bands of this decade, MGMT (AKA "The Management"), is set to release a new studio full length album in early 2010. I remmember the first time I heard them very well; I was studying for the mcat during my senior year of college (wow-2005 doesn't seem so long ago...) at the Dripolator Coffee Shop which was playing the song "Kids". I had never heard the song before and asked the guy working there who it was- he responded by telling me "some new group from New York called The Management" (their original name before changing record companies). I went and got their first full length CD which was "Climbing to New Lows" (worth getting by the way) and absolutely dug it. Later that year, they released the "Time to Pretend" EP which, to me, is a classic. I'll never forget hearing "Time to Pretend" for the first time and thinking to myself how much it reminded me of listening to The Doors; the honesty and passion reminded of Jim Morrison but mixed with an electronica feel that came together so well. I was a little dissapointed with "Oracular Spectacular" when it was released, not from a musical aspect, but from the lack of new tracks (I think only 3 out of the 10 tracks hadn't been released previously on Demos and LPs), but to newcomers to MGMT "Oracular Spectacular" has to rank among the top 5 CDs of this decade. Since its release MGMT has toured extensively, won a legal battle vs. the French Government, released several singles and LPs (Metononia is great!) and is set to release "Congratulations" next year. I know I can't wait!

Welcome back NBA! So, in watching last night's 95-89 Celtic's win over the Cavaliers, as a Celtics fan (I'm originally from Boston)  I was ecstatic about how good KG looked, how great 'Sheed fit in, how great our D looked and can't help but think that we are once again the best team in the league. But it was kindly pointed out to me that last year I said we were the best team ever after our 27-2 start to the season, and well all know how well that worked out (terrible!); so I'm gonna hold back a little this year. But, to me the biggest dissapointment to me in last night's game was Lebron James; who has without a doubt replaced The Great Tim Duncan (AKA the Big Fundamental) as the biggest cryer in the NBA. Now, I'm a little biased because I love The Great Tim Duncan; I think he's one of the greatest players in NBA history and it's unfortunate that his lack of flair has kept the big fundamental from getting the respect he deserves. For those who don't know, The Great Tim Duncan is a 2 time MVP, 12 time All-Star (in 12 NBA seasons), has made 12 All-NBA Defensive teams, has made the All-NBA team all 12 years in the league, has won 4 championships, has been finals MVP 3 teams and holds the career numbers of 23PPG, 12 RPG, 3.5APG and 2.5BPG. He's clearly the best power forward ever. Unfortunately one stat that doesn't show up is that in his mind he has never committed a foul in his NBA career, which has left many with the lasting image seen above as the way they think of Great Tim and his constantly being ranked in the list of top whiners in the league. But, in my mind, Lebron has passed Tim over the past season and certainly did nothing to help his image in last night's opener. I know times have changed in the NBA and there will never be another team like the Detroit bad boys and never another play like McHale close-lining Kurt Rambis (this play was called a personal foul- no technical, no flagrant, a personal foul); but can men still play make men and please not turn around to the zebras everytime they miss a shot with the look of a pathetic 5 year old who just had his ice cream money. Yes Lebron, I'm talking to you! You are already the best player in the league, there is no need to turn around and whine every time you get called for a foul or miss a shot. But, hey, I guess it works since you did go to the line 13 times last night... brutal...

So, always good when my predictions come true and if you read last week's blog, the absolutely horrendous work of the SEC officials in Starkville should come as no suprise. This is the call in question. The play was an interception return that put Florida up 29-13 and pretty much sealed the game- but replay clearly shows the ball being stripped before the player scored which would have instead made it 23-13 and state's ball. I'm not saying the bulldogs would have won, cause let's be honest they suck; but, once again Florida was in a little bit of trouble and the refs bail them out. I agree with Coach Mullins. How is it possible to blow a replay call? I mean I get missing stuff on the field sometimes but there was a clear, definitive, goaline shot of the play; and the replay official's only freaking job is to sit in the booth and watch replays!! Well, the SEC may act tough and suspend the officials- but let's be honest; they're not losing sleep over keeping Bama and UF at #1 and #2....

The World Series Starts tonite!! And of course I am going for the Philies- because I hate the Yankees. Despite going to college in Phily, I never really could ever get into the Philies but I am loving their new "Defend Broad Street!" slogan.... plenty of good world series tickets are still available as well for all yankee and phils fans!

Several cuts from Lil' Wayne's new mix tape have been leaked but the mix tape still is set for Halloween release. Guess this will be the last we hear from him for a while as he is set for jail time relating to a weapons charge in NYC. However, MTV compares this to T.I. and Tupac and thinks his career will push forward....

Michael Jackson's This Is It is on pace to break movie records... Amaing considering everyone had forgotten about that guy at this time last year....

Always nice to see a our website getting some props. Click here and vote for us! And as always, be sure to check the "near you" button our homepage, www.roosterfly.com for a list and tickets to music, sporting events and concerts around you!

Till next time,
MN

Arkansas 20, Florida 16, Refs 7....

Good morning all,

First up this week I want to give big ups to my man, Pedro Martinez, for his masterful performance in LA last week. As an avid Red Sox fan, I had the pleasure of watching most of Pedro's starts during his tenure in Beantown and he never ceases to dazzle. During his time in Boston, it was amazing to watch a 5'10", 160 pound dude blow hitters away with 98 mile an hour gas and then make them look stupid by yanking the chain with one of the best changeups the game has ever seen. His 1999 and 2000 seasons were probably the best in the modern era: 23-4 and 18-6, ERA 2.07 and 1.74, innings worked 213.1 and 217, hits allowed 160 and 128 (are you serious 128 hits in 217 innings???) and strikeouts 313 (yes that is no typo- 313 ks in 213 innings, Tim Lincecum struk out 265 in 227 innings last year and is heralded the best strikeout pitcher in the game today with 50ks less and 14 innings more and he pitches in the weak NL west with no DH and the pitcher hitting!) and 284. All this done while pitching in the AL East. Unfortunately injuries and age have taken its toll and Pedro is no longer the same guy who could've probably told hitters what was coming and still have gotten them out. But, to see him throw 88-90 with great movement, command the entire strikezone with all 3 pitches and still make the game's best hitters look foolish while waving at his changeup is awesome. It reminds me (though not on the same scale of course) of watching a 40 year old MJ score 20+ per game with the Wizards- no longer the athlete he once was but still finding a way. However, in Pedro's case, it unfortunate to once again see the all-to-familiar-to-Boston-fans way he pulled himself out of the game. After 7 innings of 2 hit ball and only 80 pitches, he pointed to the sky while walking off the mound; which as Grady Little and all Red Sox fans know, means that he is done and don't send him back out to the mound (and I apologize to all Sox fans for the flashbacks of the 2003 ALCS everyone is probably having right now)... So I guess my MJ comparison above seems a bit more foolish now...

OK, back to the blog title. So in this case, I am actually going to have to agree with Terrell Owens twitter posts (you have to scroll back several pages since T.O. apparently is trying to set the world record for most tweets per day) from the Arkansas-Florida game and bring up a bigger question- is college football rigged? I've always thought there have been some suspicious happenings over the years and given the ridiculous sum of money involved in getting a BCS bid ($19.3 million to the conference for each BCS bowl bid it receives), I started wondering about this a few years ago (we'll get back to that). So, after getting a text saying that Florida was in trouble against Arkansas this weekend, I flipped over from watching my Trojans trying to choke away a huge lead against the Irish to an upset in the making in the swamp. Right when I switched over, Ryan Mallet hit Greg Childs for a 75 yard TD to put Arkansas up 20-13 with about 9 minutes to go in the 4th quarter. At this point, Florida was in real trouble; they had 4 turnovers, about 250 yards of offense, 6 sacks allowed and looked absolutely awful. Then, led by questionable officiating and a missed FG by Arkansas, they came back to win. The questionable officiating involved 3 absolutely enormous calls, (well 2 calls and 1 non-call) all going against Arkansas on the final 2 drives. As T.O. tweeted,

Refs r str8 CHEATING n this florida/arkansas game!! A phantom P.I. call on #26, personal foul on #96 & no OPI call on UF's #11

The calls T.O. is talking (or tweeting as soome would say) about were beyond awful; in fact so bad the only recent thing I can think to compare them to (other than other college football calls I'm about to get to) was the phantom foul ball in the Yankee-Twins series the outfield umpire missed even though he was standing about 10 feet from it (worth reading just for Joe Nathan's quote). Instead of describing them; here are youtube links to the plays in question #1, #2, #3. Now- 1 of these calls by isolation would be bad; but all 3 of these in the last 7 minutes of the fourth quarter with the #1 team on the ropes at home, especially considering this is the same crew that famously screwed Georgia keeping LSU undefeated a few weeks ago. So what would the motivation be if this wasn't a coincidence? Think about the implications LSU losing to a bad Georgia team or Florida losing to Arkansas might have...the Orlando Sentinal agrees with me- it's $$$!! As of now, the SEC stands to get 3 BCS (LSU with 2 losses- one to #1 Florida, and #2 Bama, the loser of Bama/Florida) bids and a team in the BCS national championship game (winner of Bama/UF). So 3 teams at $19.3 million per team, not a bad end of season bonus... Now, what if Florida lost to Arkansas or LSU lost to Georgia (both would've been very very bad looking losses to unranked opponents); That would put a 1 loss UF team against Bama (yes, I said it- if you are following the theme of my blog- the Vikings could put on LSU uniforms in Bryant Denny in a few weeks and still not have a shot), leaving either 2 one loss SEC teams and a 2 loss team (LSU) or an undefeated team and 2 2-loss teams; and if LSU had lost at Georgia a 3-loss team. Also a problem, considering the weak non-conference schedule LSU and Florida play, they would have no good wins. So, there is no way 2 2-loss SEC teams with no quality wins or a 2-loss and a 3-loss SEC teams would get top-8 BCS bids with another school going to the national title. So an LSU lost at Georgia or a Florida loss at home vs Arkansas might have cost the conference $19 million. Pretty big deal really. And, justifies Michael Wilbon's opinion that "The calls will always protect the big market and big money teams." This is not a new trend- conferences protecting their teams most likely to go to huge bowl games. Anyone remember the Texas-Kansas game in 04- when Coach Mangino was hit with a massive fine for what he had to say after the game?? Texas went on to beat USC and win the national title that year. I could deatil many others- including the "Swindle in the Swamp" (when the Gators were on the other side of getting screwed), the 1999 UCF-Georgia debacle, the USF-UCF game from a few years ago; but I don't want to get the Auburn fans too worked up (especially before they have to play LSU again) but Sally Jenkins is right- what ref would want to be the one that costs their conference millions of dollars and themselves a bonus... Just some food for thought.


So, as you can see on the right, the Empire State Building went Tie-Dye on Monday in honour of the Grateful Dead. Bob Weir and Phil Lesh were in town for a charity fundraiser kick-off for the opening of the Exhibit The Greatful Dead: Now Playing at the New York Historical Society. The exhibit is an impressive compilation of multiple forms of media celebrating the bands numerous tours from 1965-1995 and even has a section honouring their fans, who we all know as the deadheads. Though I definitely can't compare with Bill Walton in terms of Dead fanhood, I have always loved the dead, mainly their early stuff. I like some a few of their 90s live sets with Hornsby (their 91 show in the Boston Garden was pretty awesome) but, to me, nothing can compare to their '78 3-day stop in Egypt. If you like the dead and haven't heard this show- think Nubian drummers, Phil playing old Egyptian folksongs and Egyptian percusionist joining in to play Fire on the Mountain to close it out. The Dead inspired millions for decades and, like them or not, it's always good to see some of the orginal members receive such a great honour.

Sir Elton and Billy are back!!!!! Their newest tour starts in Seattle on November 4th. Having been fortunate to have been to one of their concerts before, this duo is well worth the ticket.

Willie Nelson hits the road today to start a multi-city nationwide tour with multiple destinations in the southeast as well as the west coast...

The countdown is on till the Phish Festival which runs Oct 30-Nov 1 in Indio, California. This is Phish's first festival in 5 years and should be awesome...

Lady Gaga, who was supposed to tour with Kanye before it was cancelled, will instead kick-off her own solo tour Nov 27 in Montreal. The 22-date tour will land at several famed venues, including Radio City Music hall Jan 20-21, the Fox Theatre in Atlanta Dec 29 and the Chicago Theatre Jan 8-9.

As always, be sure to check the "near you" tab on our homepage, www.roosterfly.com for tickets to games, concerts and shows around you. And, as always, please post all of your opinions, and any good shows you know of!!!

Till next week,
MN

October 14- Welcome back John Mayer and What is Kanye Doing??

OK- so I have to admit I am a Kanye fan. Like everyone else, I was a weirded out by his antics at the VMAs, but let's be honest- did you think anyone would care or even remmember a few weeks later? So, I was a little suprised when I read this, -and learned his upcoming 34 stop tour (which ironically was callled the fame kills tour) with Lady Gaga was kayboshed before lift-off. I guess I underestimated how much he upset people at the VMAs because one thing is for sure, he can bring it musically and is known to be amazing live and his last tour, (the Glow in the Dark tour) was sold out nationwide within hours of its announcement. A couple things that suprise me about the magnitude of the post-VMA public uproar is Kanye is not a thug and has always been a different type of dude- he never listens to rap outside of work, says the Killers are his favourite group, uses his home page/blog to promote indie groups and has a history of other public blow ups (remmember the euroMTV awards when he did virtually the same thing?)- and, to me, other celebreties have done things uncomparably worse without any reaction. Just to name a few less than perfect celebs- Ray Lewis (so what did happen in that alley?), Kobe, Michael Jackson, Carmelo (the "stop snitchin'" tape), Axel Rose assaulting fans- but apparently in the eyes of America, Kanye punking out Taylor Swift is worse (seriously?? why???)... But one thing is for sure, I guess he's either gotta grow up or risk never getting his fans back... Too bad though about the tour- I, for one, still think
College Droupout is one of the top 5 rap CDs ever and was looking forward to his newest live sets...

So by this I can see I'm not the only one excited about the new John Mayer release and subsequent tour. I've always been a fan of John, especially his live stuff (which he has always said defines his career).

What is up with the baseball playoffs having a week off? The Angels-Yankees start on Friday and I hope the Yankee Universe's prediction is wrong and they go down. Does anyone else have a problem with one team having the highest paid starting pitcher, relief pitcher, catcher, first baseman, shortstop, third baseman, outfielder and DH in the game???

Bob Dylan keeps adding concerts to his 2009 tour with Nov 13-15 in Boston and Nov 17-19 in NYC as new dates...

The Kings of Leon will be in Birmingham tomorrow (Oct 15)! and Nasheville the next day (Oct 16th)....

U2s tour has been amazing so far and they still have several dates left...

As always be sure to check out the "near you" tab at our homepage http://www.roosterfly.com/ for tickets to events around you!

Till Next Week,
MN