TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

For the second time in my New York pedestrian career, I nearly bowled over a person far more famous than me. The first one was a bit more important… I put a shoulder in Rudy Giuliani’s arm on the day of the 9/11 Wall Dedication.

For anyone who hasn’t heard this story, I had taken my cousin up to Grand Central Station so she could catch a shuttle bus out to JFK. Her flight was at 10:30 so we were up at 6:30 to get up there on time. After saying good by, I decided to walk home (Funny side-story, it was a Saturday during the World Cup, so at least five bars I passed were mobbed at 8 AM. Good times). Grand Central to my apartment is about four miles and it was a nice morning. After stopping for some breakfast and such (3 eggs, toast, OJ, homefries, sausage, and coffee for $2.50… I heart NY) I finished the walk home. There was a huge crowd in front of the Trade Center Site, so I crossed over to see what was going on. I couldn’t really tell, just that some areas were barricaded off. As I turned to leave, I ended up bumping directly into Giuliani (who’s way taller than I thought). It wasn’t hard enough to really stagger anyone, but enough to make a couple of burlier looking gentleman make uncomfortable steps toward me. I backed up, saw who I’d bumped into, said “oh sorry, man” and got out of his way. I’m pretty sure I was closer to death right there than I’d been at any point in my life.

So, today, I walked home from work. I enjoy walking home from work. It really only takes me about 25 minutes longer than taking the subway (after waiting and such) so I do it a couple times a week, specifically on nights where I end up working too late to go to the gym. Tonight, I had gotten to the corner of Houston (that’s How-stin, because NYers have to be different) and Thompson, and am about to head into the intersection when a short, portly dude with long hair and scruffy beard comes around the corner talking into a cell-phone. I don’t know what he was talking about but for purposes of my telling this story henceforth, it’s going to be about how he wrecked Iron Chef Cora, flourishing it with some crude joke about red snapper being the mystery ingredient. My story, my embellishments.

Mario Batali and I come about half a step from crashing into each other. I now have TWO Iron Chefs on my resume (I saw Bobby Flay sucking down a Starbucks on 23rd and 6th). As it usually goes for me in New York City, I paused, stepped around him, and continued on my way. I got about three steps further before realizing who it was. At that point I turned around, smirked, took a minute to wish that I actually had barreled into him as it would have made for a better story, and then continued home. It was too cold to contemplate further.

At some point, I should have posted about the night we saw Stiffler out and about in the Flatiron Club Scene, but it occurred on the night of a bachelor party. As any self-respecting man knows, bachelor party nights are wiped from the memory banks the morning after they occur. It’s safer that way.

Due to the Royal Rumble, I didn’t start watching this show until late and, since it’s a two-hour special, it means I’ll be wrapping this column up at about 2:30 am. I’m going to ask you to forgive me a typo or two and hope that some good editing goes into this.

The show kicks off with a montage performance of You’re the one that I want. At this point, I still don’t know the names of the competitors, so I’ll just say the whole thing was passably good. It was choreographed and arranged so each performer got a moment in the sun, except Austin, whose mic was apparently out. Awesome production there, kids. I see they’re already trying to sabotage my pick.

The two-host on-stage dynamic is kind of strange. Billy Bush introduces the fans, band, and panel. Both of them are very obviously reading off of cue-cards, which is kind of crappy. At least Seacrest can do it without a teleprompter.

The panel is re-introduced. Olivia Newton-John is also introduced, apparently having gotten a botox done especially for tonight. Women, it doesn’t look good… seriously.

The first segment introduces Derek and Austin.

Derek starts with Crazy Thing Called Love. I don’t know if I would have picked this song only because there isn’t much one can do with it. He makes up for in choreography, working the song. For what it’s worth, I felt like he came off as an Elvis impersonator.

Austin introduces himself with Mony, Mony which might be an even odder choice. It is a crowd participation song, which is good for voting. I will say again: thus far he is the only one that sounds like a Broadway singer. He didn’t stay in tune for all of it, but I liked it. He’s also my pick, so take that with salt.

Billy Bush gives a quick interview to the contestants after the performance. The other host then asks the judges, who all loved both of the performers. Billy asked David Ian if he saw leading man in the two of them and he said absolutely. I disagree. I don’t know how much I dig the two people being judged at the same time. I should also mention they are putting an adjective in front of Danny or Sandy (Allie, for instance, is “baby” Sandy) to differentiate the contestants. I will not do this, because it’s lame.

Now our first two Sandys, Allie and Kate, are introduced.

Allie goes for I Love Rock n Roll. She has a very monotonous delivery through the first part of the song. She certainly does not “own” the stage like a leading lady has to do. She sang an easy song pretty well but did nothing to make it hers or to make you remember her. She also is completely un-animated.

Kate does All By Myself. She has a bit of tune problems at the beginning. I have said before about contestants on Idol that they shouldn’t start the season with a blah slow song unless they can completely own it because it’s not usually memorable. I think Kate might fall victim to the first week chopping block due to this rule.

Either my ears are off (totally possible) or the judges are not being critical. So far they’ve liked everyone. I’m sorry, Allie’s performance didn’t make me think “leading lady.” It made me think of “first person eliminated on Idol.” If that’s “bringing it” I can’t wait to see what “bad” is.

Billy Bush informs us that our final 12 will become our final 14 after the break as a new Sandy and Danny will enter the competition. Awesome.

And we welcome back to Matt Nolan and Ashley Anderson. Matt Nolan is the guy who the judges have had a hard-on for since the first week. He’s the kid from Long Island who, at this point, I want to win so the New York Times can review his singing.

Matt is singing Pretty Woman. To be fair, this is an easy song and he sings it well. However, David Ian said it before he started performing. He was very “green” at Grease Academy. He has the same problems singing as he did then. When he goes up in register, his voice breaks down. He also has trouble doing anything else while he’s singing. His movements are very robotic because he seems to be concentrating on staying in tune. Unfortunately, now that he’s in it, he’s a New Yorker and I have to root for him.

Ashley A is doing Still The One. This falls under the “slow song the first week” rule I mentioned above. It’s semi-OK, but barely memorable. She also has “own the stage” problems. She is still tentative and I stand by my statement last week that her voice is not strong enough, right now, for Broadway.

The judges are critical for the first time. David Ian tells Matt he was all over the place toward the end of the song and tells Ashley she has a ton of work to do. I think they were right to cut them both in the first place. In fact, if you told me both of them would be cut first again, I could buy it.

Jason and Max are up now. Max is the mop-haired slacker who has the best voice out of everyone. Jason has done stuff Off-Broadway, so he’s got some dancing. Max has the kind of annoying personality that will likely get him along far in this kind of thing.

Jason kicks off the pair with Faith. This could work if he does it well. He’s 31 and it might be tough to buy him as a high school student since he, you know, looks 30. He’s also rocking two microphones for whatever reason… oddly, with both microphones, the crowd is louder than he is, which is obnoxious. They call him “boy-band” Danny, which works, because he’d be much better in an ensemble.

Max goes with Summer of 69… and nails it. Best performance of the night so far. He’s got stage presence and a voice that fits him. He’s high school student passable. He’s also acting the song, which is a small touch, but helps. The microphone volume is really, really annoying when they get to center stage. You can hear yelping girls better than the singers.

This was probably the best and worst so far. At the moment, Jason goes home tonight… even ahead of Matt.

Laura and Kathleen are up now. Laura is currently Sandy in Minnesota. She’s engaged, which will not help her with the horny guy vote. Kathleen was my early pick as of last week. She’s married and in a “worship group.” Thomas Daniels here for boring.

Laura does Why Do Fools Fall In Love. I don’t love the song, but she’s singing it very well… probably one of the better girls tonight. She made a boring song work. Good for her. Good enough to stick around this week, I think.

Kathleen does Suddenly I See. Have you ever seen the episode of How I Met Your Mother that talks about “The Crazy Eyes”? Well, she’s got them. I think she’s stealing my soul. Still probably the best voice among the women (for me) but she scares the bejesus out of me. She was also my pick last week, but I may have been hypnotized.

Olivia Newton-John tells her secrets of Sandy, I fast-forward because I don’t care.

Kevin is another New Yorker, from Greece, NY… which I have no idea where it is… and Chad, who’s in a band.

Kevin sings Walking In Memphis, which seems an odd choice for me. He sounds like Broadway, which is good. He doesn’t seem terrified, which is another plus. He lost his voice a bit when he tried to get cute, but closed the performance well. Probably the second best guy of the night so far.

Chad sings Signed, Sealed, Delivered, which is another odd choice for me. He does it kind of poppy, which may or may not connect with the audience. Somewhat of a boring performance for me, but he luckily has Matt and Jason to fall back on for elimination purposes tonight. This did not give me “leading man.” He also steals my “Go Big or Go Home” line, which makes us mortal enemies.

The judges see something in Chad that I don’t. They love him. They think Kevin has a sort of James Dean cool about him, which I can see.

The final performers are Juliana and Ashley S.

Juliana starts with First Cut Is The Deepest. I really like her voice, although I put this under the Slow Song On The First Week Rule. Her voice is good and she performs it well, but there’s nothing awesome to differentiate her from the rest of the pack other than being not blonde. Fortunately for her, I think she was more memorable than… other people I mentioned earlier who I can’t remember. I could scroll up, but that wouldn’t help make my point.

Ashley has It’s In His Kiss. See, this is the right kind of song for the first week. Something different and high energy. I’ll remember this, I won’t remember First Cut.

The judges echo my rule without actually echoing it.

Now we move into some filler with a final ensemble performance from all 14 players.

Now each of the judges tell us who their favorites of the night were. David liked Derek and Ashley S. Kathleen liked Austin and Allie. Jim liked Chad (who I thought was terrible) and Kate (who I didn’t like much either). Olivia copped out and chose no one. Personally, I thought Max and Ashley S were the best. I could completely see the two callbacks being put out this evening, but I doubt it because they weren’t the worst or most non-memorable. Just by being “the callbacks” they’re somewhat memorable.

Quick closing thoughts: I know this was the first live show, but they really need to clean up some of the production. Cutting to the wrong camera, the host saying there’s a graphic on the screen when there isn’t, and microphones not being on all make the show look bush league. Secondly, for the love of God, get the crowd back away from the stage or fix the microphones to not drown out the singers with yelping girls. It’s annoying. I want to hear them, not “YAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” for the entire performance.

I would also like to see the judges not judge two people at a time. Hopefully this will go away as people get eliminated.

I’m also going to complain momentarily about eliminating people from the show. We have to wait until next Sunday to see who gets bounced? Does this mean you make these poor kids (or 30 year olds) prepare a song for next week and then tell them at the beginning that they’re eliminated? How much of the show do you spend on eliminations? Starting each show with a downer seems somewhat counter-productive. We can’t find a spot on the schedule so each week doesn’t need 15 minutes dedicated to crushing someone’s life? Just the way I want to watch the rest of the show after my favorite gets voted off.

Elimination Prediction: Jason and Kate.

This is why, every time I start thinking about opening an account with some shady gambling website, I stop myself.

I would have gone 1-3. The Colts even covered.

Go Bears+7!

I will admit that I missed the first sixteen minutes of the show this week because of the AFC Championship game and totally forgot that I’d never set up a series recording. So, during a commercial break, I switched over to NBC and started recording. Because of this, I received a good 15-minutes of abuse, including this gem by Tailgate Crashers’ own Mike Hulse: I forgive a lot of the cockamamie things you watch, but now you’re watching a crappy knockoff of a crappy show about casting a crappy musical based on a crappy movie.

Yes, pretty much. And that brings us to this week.

I come in sixteen minutes in during a sing off. All of the Dannys and Sandys were given two hours to learn a new song, if by “new” you mean “one of the songs that are in Grease and that all these people should have known cold by the time they got to Grease Academy.” The song is Tears on my Pillow. The gimmick: as they sing the song, David Ian will stalk around the room and touch people on the shoulder. If you are touched, you leave. At the end, 24 people will be left for a live performance in front of invited guests. I come in 36 hours before final eliminations, which means they compressed a full week of Grease Academy into sixteen minutes of airtime. With commercials, it must have been about 13 minutes.

The live performance starts with a quick ensemble dance piece with all 24 people. After the ensemble, it moves into groups of four performing a song together.

The first group sings Michael Jackson’s I’ll Be There. Oddly, they don’t show the whole song. The first group features Laura Osnes goes first and sounds very good. Ashley Anderson is second. I doubt she’s going to be a strong enough singer to go through. She’s very shaky. Kate Rockwell tries to be a bit too animated and doesn’t sound good to me. Juliana Hansen also doesn’t sound good to me.. Nothing I think that’s going to get through. Of group one, I’m going to guess only the first girl, Laura, gets through.

The second group (they don’t mention the name of the song and I don’t recognize it) starts with Max Crumm who, for whatever reason, showed up to a Grease audition with a mop haircut, but who probably has one of the best natural voices of the 12 guys. Derek Keeling has a great voice. Reed Prescott is way too nasaly and sounds very bad. Nathaniel Flatt does a falsetto that’s no good for me. Based on the little I see of this performance, Max and Derek go through.

The third group sings Avril Levine’s Complicated… which is an oddly good pick. Kelli La Valle, who we’re informed the judges are concerned about her age doesn’t do that well. She doesn’t have the oomph quite yet. Kathleen Monteleone is very good. These are the only two we get solos for. Kathleen goes through, Kelli does not. I have no idea about the others as we didn’t see them do a solo.

Group four includes Rockville Center’s own Matt Nolan. They do Jailhouse Rock by Elvis. How Matt Nolan is still in this baffles me. It’s entirely David Ian’s man-crush on him. George Pellegrino is easily the best of the group. Nick Dalton cracks through the thing, not good. Chad Doreck is no good. The judges seem fascinated with Matt so I assume he gets through. If I was doing this, George and Chad go through. I can’t imagine that they will put Matt through. They can’t open a Broadway show with him at his current level.

Group five does Don’t Want To Miss A Thing by Aerosmith. Kevin Green and Steven Calakos both sound average to good.. Austin Miller who is one of the few who actually SOUNDS like a Broadway singer. Jason Celeya also sounds average to good. This whole group is good. I would actually put all four through but I’m going to call Austin and Jason (more the look than the other two).

Group six sings True Colors by Cindy Lauper. Ashley Spencer is good. Cara Hille has a very monotone and static delivery. I don’t think she’s animated enough to go through. Lexi Rhoades and Allie Shultz both sound the same and both good. Lexi, Allie, and Ashley can go through from this group.

We get to the final cut portion of the show, with a little bit of the cutting process. People are brought up two at a time and told whether they are cut or moving on.

At the end we’re left with Max, Juliana, Derek, Laura, Chad, Kathleen, Kevin, Kate, Austin, Ashley, Jason, and Allie. Most of these I had and I’d take Austin and Kathleen as the early favorites.

Previews for next week promise Olivia Newton-John as a guest judge and a twist: “They think they’re the final 12, but ARE THEY??!?!?!”

OK, the bad. After almost three hours of awful audition shows, they compress the entire Grease Academy week, which they spent a huge part of the first two weeks pimping up, into one hour? We got hardly any of the training, any of the workout, or any of the choreography. Why even show it? And, still, it was the best episode of the season.

To top it off, we don’t even get full performances of the songs? The whole point of this show is to be a singing competition and we can’t even get six whole audition songs? The audience got one single line from each performer (if we were lucky) followed by the whole quartet singing. The audience barely got to form an opinion about any of the competitors. The entirety of the show was boiled down to these performances, and we saw nothing.

Next week promises to be the beginning of the live competition. I don’t know what their “they think they’re the final twelve” tease was, but it can’t be anything good. They picked the right twelve, don’t start getting cute. And, once people start voting, don’t start invalidating their voting or you lose the entire point of the show. Real television competitions can’t have Dusty Finishes or the purpose of the voting gets invalidated. I could see them doing some sort of “vote-in” for the cut people, but that’s it.

The meat of the show starts next week, finally. I’m looking forward to it.

I’m sitting here bored for the night preparing myself for the Beirut Tournament at The Big Easy. By preparing, of course, I mean sitting here watching Scrubs instead of going to bed.

Regardless, putting up picks because I have nothing better to do.

New England Patriots +3 over INDIANAPOLIS COLTS: There’s absolutely no reason the Patriots should win this game. None. The Colts have superior receivers, an elite quarterback, a running back not on his last gasp, a huge game kicker, a prevent-style defense that should completely quash the awful Patriot receivers, and are home. Unfortunately, it would violate my rule of never ever EVER bet against the Patriots getting points. Also, with the game Brady played last week, does anyone in the world see him having two bad playoff games in a row? It’s never happened. Last week he was over-throwing receivers, throwing interceptions, and was all over the field. Does anyone think it’s going to happen again? Doubtful

Maybe I’m completely wrong, and maybe the fact Brady is throwing to receivers who belong in the AFL (if they’re lucky) will be too much to overcome. I don’t see it, though.

Patriots, Under 47.5

New Orleans Saints +2.5 over CHICAGO BEARS: Back in college, my friend Mike and I came up with a theory. We call it the Boardroom Theory. The Boardroom Theory states that in some city, somewhere in the United States (probably New York City, because, well, duh) there is a giant smoke filled Boardroom. In this Boardroom, an association of Freemasons, Hibernians, and Knights Templar (who still exist) meet once a month and, among other things, script sports’ seasons and decide what music is going to be popular. The Boardroom Theory was recently proven by the Patriot victory in 2001, the Mike Piazza 8th inning home run against the Braves (after what was probably an emergency meeting) and the Yankees making the World Series that year. They, of course, had to make the Yankees lose to not be far too obvious. More recently, the Boardroom has allowed the Red Sox to finally win a World Series (what else explains the inexplicable management of that team, other than being presented a free win?), the NHL strike, the D-Wade foul, the Iverson trade, the inexplicable popularity of Taylor Hicks, and most recently, the Saints’ push to the NFC title game. In the future, expect the Boardroom to script a Cubs’ World Series push in their century since year.

This long winded thing states: ain’t no fuggin way the Boardroom scripted the Saints to go this far only to lose to the Bears. Keep in mind, only twice in the last twenty years have both road teams won on Championship weekend. It’s a 4-1 bet right now. I’m still not changing my mind.

Saints: Over 42

From an article on the Philadelphia Eagles website:
Fans will dwell on the loss to the Saints throughout the offseason, and coach Andy Reid’s decision to punt on fourth-and-15 with only two timeouts and 1:56 remaining might become the most questioned — and ridiculed — call in recent Philadelphia sports history.

So let me see if I have this straight.

The ball is on Philly’s own 39 yard-line. It’s 4th and 15 with 2 minutes left and the Eagles still have 2 timeouts. I’ll be honest and say that I have no idea what the 4th down conversion rate is on plays over 10 yards, but I’m going to go out on a limb and call it absurdly low.

Let’s assume they turn the ball over own downs.

Best case scenario: The Eagles defense comes up huge, burns all their timeouts, and get the ball back on the 20 with a minute left, effectively losing 20 yards in a minute of clock.
More likely case scenario: The punt gets pinned inside the five with a minute left, losing 35 yards.
Even more likely case scenario: The Eagles defense comes up big, gives up 8 or 9 yards on three downs, leaving the Saints a 45 yard field goal to go up six. Now, they have to go the length of the field for a touchdown.

If they punt, the defense has to make the same big plays, but there’s no chance of them giving up more points. If they can force the Eagles to go three-and-out, they get the ball back in roughly the same point on the field with a minute of clock left, and only have to go about 30 or 40 yards to put the game into overtime. Going for a 4th-and-15 in that situation would be idiotic. At 4th-and-10, when they were going to go for it, the field position was better and even giving up 9 yards would have left the saints with a 50+ yard field goal they wouldn’t have taken.

Any Philly fan who really thinks that a punt was called for there is dumb.

And, if you can sit there and say the most idiotic move in recent Philly sports’ memory is trading Allen Iverson, not a punt in a playoff game.

I only saw three of the four playoff games yesterday because I was on a train for the Bears/Seahawks game. Before I get into it, I’d just like to say that this weekend was the most excellent gambling weekend in the history of gambling weekends. Three games were mind-numbingly obvious if you’d been paying attention all season. Patriots in January with points? Indy with points? Any NFC team giving any other NFC team NINE? If I had a farm, I would have doubled it.

For the games that I saw:

Baltimore/Indianapolis: One of the first really, really awful playoff games Steve McNair’s ever put on. There were a couple things I didn’t understand out of the Ravens in this game. First, why in the world with a full minute left in the half, and a good quarterback at the helm, do you take it to halftime down six points? This makes no sense to me. I fully undertand that, with 10 seconds left, you don’t take a stupid shot downfield, but this was with time remaining. Trent Dilfer isn’t your QB anymore… it’s Cyborg McNair.

The decision to try to thread the needle into the end zone on 3rd and goal was equally inexplicable. Whoever called that play should be fired. When you have The Cyborg and Jamal Lewis, you run one play and one play only on 3rd and Goal inside the five. You fake a handoff to Jamal Lewis and bootleg McNair out to the right. He either finds someone in the end zone or walks in. It’s impossible for that play to end any other way. With most of the team worried about Lewis or McNair walking in, someone’s going to be open.

As for Indy, Peyton Manning was playoff Manning and still managed a win. He threw two interceptions to Reed and only Ray Lewis being too mobile stopped him from throwing four to the same guy. For all the ballwashing Manning receives, he still has the same problem in January. When under good pass rush, he gets the jittery happy feet and throws stupid passes over the middle. It’s got to be frustrating for a Colt fan to watch.

Saints/Eagles: This was the one game I never would have bet a dime on. It could have gone either way. It was, from top to bottom, a tremendous game. What can you say other than the Saints defense kicked it up a notch (BAM!) in the fourth quarter? They forced the Eagles to a three and out on their first possession and then came up huge following a Drew Brees’ fumble, forcing a high pressure four and out. Just ridiculously good by the Saints.

Patriots/Chargers: And now, children, why do you not plan Super Bowl parades for teams when they haven’t made the Super Bowl yet? Two reasons: 1) you piss off the Sports’ Gods and 2) you look really dumb when you lose. Parades aren’t hard… you throw a bunch of cars in a row with some fire trucks and a band, re-route some traffic, and it’s a parade. Don’t tempt fate by planning it too early.

I’m going to end up saying more about this game than I want to because there’s a lot to say and a lot being said. First and foremost, though, if you saw Patriots +5 in January and didn’t take it… stop gambling. Seriously. I’m just trying to save you money here.

Onto other things. I’m very tired of hearing about how the Patriots don’t win games, other teams lose them. Really? Was I correct four years ago when I dubbed Brady and Belichick the Sith Lord and Apprentice? Because I only did it because I said Peyton Manning was a Jedi and he needed foils. Brady and Belichick have just lucked into their three championships? I can think of at LEAST six or seven Patriot postseason wins where this was being said. How many wins constitute a pattern? Could it be that the Patriots January game is to play a close to the vest game, take advantage of mistakes, don’t make many of their own, and finish strong? This can also be referred to as “how you win games.” Brady never gets rattled, never looks scared, never looks disappointed, and never looks anything but bored.

Secondly, yes, Brady played a terrible game. The Chargers, for the most part, dominated the game. But they didn’t dominate the fourth quarter. They didn’t see a direct snap 2-pt conversion coming when the Patriots have done that exact same play multiple times. They, inexplicably, went 3-and-out between Patriot possessions in the fourth quarter by having Philip Rivers pass the ball on 2nd and 3rd down after LDT picked up five on 1st down. Why in the world, when you have the best back in the league, would you not give him the ball three times in a row and see what happened? Why would you pass not once, but TWICE, conserving clock for the Patriots? No more about how good Cam Cameron is. I don’t want to hear it. You can’t give him all the credit when it’s going well and not lay every ounce of blame on him for these two calls.

Marty Schottenheimer is certainly not a clutch playoff coach, but this loss is not on him. You can go back to a 4th and 11 in the first quarter as a dumb call, and it was, but the rest of the game? I can’t wait for the Chargers to fire a coach that just got them to 14-2, first seed in the playoffs with a first year quarterback, only to watch them go 7-9 next year as a new coach puts a new system in place. Look at the following: A drive extending personal foul on what would have been 4th and 9? A muffed fair catch? A game-ending interception on 4th and 5 that you don’t just fall on or bat down, and instead try to run it back, but instead fumble it back to the Patriots for a first down?

Do you know the difference between the Patriots and most other teams? The Patriots scored on every one of those mistakes. Every one. Tom Brady threw three interceptions and the Chargers got zero points off them. The Chargers had three seperate opportunities to win that game. THREE! The flubbed interception, the three and out, and the two-point converision. And this isn’t even counting the 54-yard field goal miss which, whatever, a 54-yard field goal is a prayer for most of the league.

As for the post-game shenanigans, the Chargers were in the wrong. If you don’t want another team to celebrate on your home field, don’t lose. ESPECIALLY when your cheater defensive superstar does a little dance whenever he gets a sack and your quarterback walks into Mile High Stadium’s end zone and does a Mile High Salute. Don’t call Belichick out for being unclassy because his team didn’t roll over and die like you all expected them to. Don’t call a four seed out for upsetting and celebrating their victory over a one-seed.

Tomlinson is going to come out of this looking the worst. No one would have been mad at him for being hot on the field after a loss, but to carry it into a press conference an hour later is terrible. To then come out with: everyone knows I’m one of the classiest guys in the game and They showed no class and maybe that comes from the head coach… you kidding me? There is nothing classless about celebrating a win. There IS, however, something classless about walking off the field without congratulating the losing team. There’s also something classless about calling another team out on something your own team consistently does. Let’s also not forget which team had two “classy” personal fouls through out the game, not including an uncalled personal foul facemask on Roosevelt Colvin following an interception that could have given him a concussion.

And, when Deion Sanders is the voice of reason, saying LT, Don’t tell people that you’re classy. If you have class in life, you don’t need to tell people, something has going seriously amiss in the world.

There isn’t much I can say about the show this week that I didn’t mention Last Week. This week saw another set of open auditions, another set of the hopelessly embarrassing, another set of the talented without “the look,” and another set of hopefuls for the Grease Academy.

This week, the Palace Theater on Broadway played hosted the open audition. The fare was much the same as last week, with our applicants including a couple who wanted to enter the competition together, a 42-year old mother of four from Brooklyn, a Rockville Centre Bridge & Tunnel (for non-NYers, that refers to people from Long Island, the outer-boroughs, or New Jersey. It’s said with much more contempt when it refers to a teenage meathead with rich parents and a trust fund. More contempt is added if you’re in the West 20s or Penn Station on a Friday or Saturday night after said B&T’s have been “clubbing” all night. AJ Soprano and his gaggle would be your stereotypical B&T) troll who really has nothing going for him other than look, a pro from the touring version of Hairspray, and various other moderately uninteresting to wholly uninteresting stories.

Thankfully, this is the last week of open auditions as the show is exactly the same as last week. The guys and girls sing, collectively, about five songs from the show, then the survivors come back to dance the next day. For comic relief, we get a mother from Brooklyn who goes to the auditions with a decent voice but, surprise, she isn’t cast because she’s 40. For your tear-jerking moment of the say, we get a 16-year old girl from Staten Island who doesn’t look the part (as she’s overweight), sound the part (as she can’t sing), nor would ever be cast in the part (as she’s 16). For your cheaply manufactured drama, we get a boyfriend and girlfriend of two years entering together. He makes it, she does not. She storms off into the subway and we are informed that their relationship ended shortly afterward.

Now, my personal loathing of B&T’s aside, here is another issue I have with this show. The set-up is this: an untrained singer from Rockville Centre, Long Island came to the open audition. He was way, way, WAY out of his league even during an audition. He couldn’t go up in register and his voice broke down. He couldn’t move on stage to the degree required to be in the musical. Frankly, he’s not going to win. For the reasons I mentioned last week, this show, by it’s design, can’t have plucky underdogs to win despite all odds. When you put this guy up against, for instance, the guy who’s on the Hairspray touring cast, he’s going to get ruined. Taking one standard Italian-looking greaser over any other standard Italian-looking greaser with talent is a waste. He’s not going to win, and it’s disgustingly obvious that he’s there only to be a story.

As I said, not much to say this week, so we’ll hold off until next week which, according to the previews, is the first of the “Grease Academy” shows. Also, according to the previews, my prediction from last week’s column was correct. The previews are just loaded with tears and agony.

While I still have no idea how eliminations will work once they get to “Grease Boot Camp” I’m still interested. Thank God we’re moving on to the next stage, though.

I needed a couple of days before writing a Giants post-mortem. The loss was nothing like That Mets Game a few months ago, especially because I went in knowing the game was a toss-up. The easiest bet on the board last week was Giants +7.

(Fun side story: my ex-roommate went to Vegas last week for the World Series of Beer Pong. He doesn’t gamble except he makes exactly two roulette bets every time he goes on a trip that involves gambling. He bets black or red twice, betting no more than twenty dollars. He allows each person with him to give him twenty dollars, no more, no less. At some point in the night, he always delivers each person eighty dollars. This has never failed. Since I didn’t make this trip, and remembered the Roulette Game late, I asked him to spot me the $20. Later in the night, he calls me to confirm that I now had $80 dollars. Since it was free money at that point, I had him put it on the Giants cash line (+220). That made this game extra fun and extra awful)

As for the season, I guess it’s an improvement over last year. A first round playoff loss, but with points this time. As for the players themselves:

Tiki Barber: “Thanks for the memories and Go With God,” is all I can say for Tiki. Tiki made his retirement plans early in the season and we’ve spent the last four months hearing about it. How he’s convinced he’s going to be on the NBC Nightly News and not just another face on football commentary. He signed a four-year, $10 million dollar deal with the Mouse, which will land him either on ESPN or ABC. I could go into a rant here about how he’s a really good runningback but, when he’s not talking sports, he’s just another guy in a suit, like the hundreds of kids coming out of college every year with degrees in “communications” with “a concentration in sports journalism.”

Sadly, this is not the Giants’ biggest hole. They have one of the worst pass defenses in the league and, while I refuse to look at mock drafts before the season is even over, I’m sure that most of them will have the Giants taking cornerbacks or safeties in the first rounds, with a running-back not being selected until the third round at the earliest.

Michael Strahan: You have the season sack record and you’ve spent the last two seasons on the bench. The NFL Network, at the very least, has a comfy chair waiting for you to analyze pas rushes. He’s the defensive leader, but is another one of the guys who likes to air the team’s dirty laundry in public. I love Strahan, but it’s time for him to retire, too. He’s 35, he needs surgery on his foot. If he’s lucky, he’ll be ready for training camp next season. If he’s not, he won’t start the season. The Giants spent a bunch of money on Levar Arrington last year. I’d be very happy with a pass rush of him, Matthias Kiwanuka, and Osi. I’ll have to be, since that’s who I’ll have anyway. People killed Ernie Accorsi last season for taking Kiwanuka in last year’s draft. In retrospect, it was brilliant.

Jeremy Shockey: Has the amazing ability to go between “I hate him” and “he’s fine” almost weekly. I’ve decided that I’m going to think of it as “passion” and stop worrying. He’s going to make some big plays and he’s going to run his mouth. I think I’m OK with that.

Eli Manning: It’s not a mistake that he started looking extra awful after Luke Petitgout went out for the season. It’s also easy to forget we just watched Eli’s second full season and we’ve made the playoffs both times. At the very least, it’s time to find a new quarterbacks coach who can maybe teach Eli not to throw off his back foot, improve how he sees the field, and maybe, just maybe, work on his accuracy. Someone’s got to teach the kid how to hit a receiver on a short route.

Tom Coughlin: One of my rules about sports writing is “no complaining without a solution.” So, when it came time to complain about Tom Coughlin, I wasn’t sure what I would do. Most New York media hopped on the fire Coughlin bandwagon, but that was expected. The regular news guys really dislike Coughlin because he’s not as open, honest, and friendly as they like their head coaches to be. Tom isn’t a graduate of the “Joe Torre School of Media Relation” and, as such, the media can’t wait for Tom to get rushed out of town. The problem is: Tom is the last hiring Wellington Mara made before he died. It will be very hard for the organization to fire “Wellington’s Guy”.

That being said, there are exactly three guys I would be happy with as Coughlin’s replacement.

1) Charlie Weiss: He’s the “Parcells Guy” who people in New York seem to like. After Eric Mangini’s incredibly successful season, the Giants would likely rush to sign Weiss if they could. I’m not spending a lot of time on this because I don’t think any coach, after only 2 years, leaves THE college football gig to take the reigns of a mess.

2) Jimmy Johnson: The quintessential Filthy Cowboy. Johnson’s success with the Cowboys in my formative sports years is the reason I hate the Cowboys. He has said in the past the only way he’d coach again would be if it was a high profile job and if he could be both the GM and the head coach. With Ernie Accorsi, the Giant GM, retiring at the conclusion of this season, and the head coach on shaky ground, you have the perfect storm of circumstances to lure Johnson out of retirement. Again, not my perfect situation, but Johnson has three rings convincing me otherwise.

3) Bill Parcells: In even more of a perfect storm of circumstances, you have the GM and Head Coaching jobs both opened, Parcells’s hatred of the ongoing T.O. drama, and a heart-crushing playoff defeat last weekend. Addendum: NFL.com is reporting that Parcells may be the leading candidate for JUST the General Manager job for the Giants. This should terrify Tom Coughlin. If this somehow winds up happening, Tom will have the entire 2007 season to read “What if Bill was coaching” articles. Also, any Giant head coach with Parcells GMing will have the Pat Riley murder of Van Gundy over his head (seriously, has anyone seen the guy since Pat took over the Heat?).

More objectively, the team went 8-8 with the third highest strength of schedule in the NFC, won a tough division game on the road to get into the playoffs, played a good game against an Eagles team whose offensive line is playing on another level making a late comeback, and lost on a last second field goal. I don’t love what happened, but I can live with it. Frankly, if it were any team OTHER than the Filthy Eagles, I’d be rooting for the real life Rocky story.

The same thing I said at the end of last season, I’ll say again. I’m not looking toward next September with a sense of impending doom (other than trying to find a new apartment in New York City, but that’s beside the point). I can still honestly say that I think the team is making the right steps toward a championship.

And that’s really all any but one team can hope for come February.

Good game, son. Now why don’t you go home and get your f*cking shinebox.

Image Credit: NBC Sports