TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

It’s odd how backlogged this thing has gotten with my random vacations and days off and such. I made a note to write down some thoughts on Mike and the Mad Dog when I first heard about the break-up a few weeks back. While it’s extremely old news now, I really want to start blowing through the 12 columns I have backlogged here.

I listened to Mike and Chris for the first time ever on YES in 2003. They were just about the only thing on in the afternoon when I used to go to the gym on my lunch hour. For whatever stupid reason, I remember the conversation. They were talking about the NFL and how it’s likely they’d move to some sort of subscription service within the next ten years. Mike’s stance was the NFL had no reason to offer their games to people for free if they could make more by offering them for subscription. Chris said that they had the was fan-unfriendly and they should do what’s right. This was a bit before the NFL had become the fan-unfriendly juggernaut it is today.

I didn’t like them much at first but got in to it more the more I listened. When I first moved to New York and had to work at home for the best six months of my life, I started listening every day. After I had to go back to the office, I started listening on wfan.com until copier corporation X bought my company and decided we weren’t mature enough to balance streaming radio with our workday. It was (and I guess still is) still the only sports’ talk radio show I like.

The best reason I can come up with is because, while they are a little overbearing at times, they have something that other talk radio shows they don’t have. All talk radio hosts are pretentious to a certain degree. These guys are certainly no different — but their pretentiousness is different. If I had to guess, it’s a function of the fact that they’ve been around and been number one for so long that their show is essentially the same as it was in the 1990s. Their show existed long before ESPN and Fox decided to get in to radio and long before everyone decided the recipe to success was to be Opie and Anthony with some sports talk thrown in. They don’t have the Boomer Esiason/Mike Golic “you’ve never played so you don’t know as much as me” attitude.

I’ll be the first to say that their schtick can get old after a while. I’ll also be the first to say that if you aren’t a baseball fan the show’s appeal would disappear quickly. But the multitude of haters out there who say they were hacks or who suggest they suck are stupid. You don’t stay on top of the radio business in the New York market if you’re terrible. Without the success of these guys your favorite sports talk radio show wouldn’t exist. These two guys did remotes from the Super Bowl when they were the only guys there.

I will say that I think the right guy got the chance to go national. Dog’s antagonizing schtick has a better chance to catch on nationwide than Mike’s. Dog also has broader interests. Tennis, golf — all things that will give him a better chance to connect with a different audience. Mike, on the other hand, is a fan of New York sports and has been a Yankee fan all his life. I don’t think he much cares what goes on outside the five boroughs. It’s arm-twisting to even get him to talk about the Bills or Nets.

That said, Mad Dog Radio will be the first show simulcast on both XM and Sirius — so I at least look forward to give it a shot.

Since I moved to Manhattan I’ve been sort of a reverse food snob. That is: I wouldn’t shop at stores like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s because I figured that it was for ridiculously stupid organic snobs who wanted to spend $12 on a head of lettuce. You know what else cleans a head of lettuce? Fuggin washing it.

Of course, that’s left Ms. L and I to shop at one of the other super market chains in NYC. Removing the sketchy discount places and overinflated bodegas where you’re just as likely to find a decent six-pack of beer as a can of Chef Boyardee that’s actually PAST the expiration date — that left two places.

In this corner, there’s Gristede’s (pronounced Gris-TEE-dee’s or, for purposes of this piece, Nasty’s). Nasty’s has been “feeding New Yorkers for over 100 years.” If you take a look at This handy map and take a gander in the bottom left-hand corner where there are two stores within two blocks of each other, my apartment is handily located smack in the middle of those two locations. These, by default, have become our primary super market. When we need a $5 gallon of milk or a $6.50 box of Cheerios… Nasty’s is the place to go. Nasty’s also has the irritating habit of carrying different things between the two stores. Nasty’s North has the better $12.99 per 6-pack beer selection, better produce selection, a bakery and deli section, and ground chicken. Nasty’s South has a better deli, less lines, and better meat.

In the other corner, there’s the Food Emporium, a Manhattan. The Food Emporium is much closer to what I’m used to calling a supermarket. There are two within reasonable distance from me. One is on the outer edge of walking distance (I say outer edge because I then have to carry the groceries home and honestly, kids, a gallon of milk gets heavy about halfway through a 20-minute walk) and the other is a subway ride away. The Emporium within walking distance has a great deli, good seafood, good produce, and a good selection of stuff. The Emporium in Union Square has the beer selection (which has slowly climbed in the last few months from the originally very reasonable $8.99/6-pack to the Nasty’s level $12.99/6-pack) and the prices in general have slowly climbed to be equal to Gristede’s.

As an obviously huge fan of local super markets, I continued to suffer through them rather than try something new. That’s how I keep it real, yo. Then something wacky happy. I stumbled upon the newest “how did it take this long for someone to do this” website at Beer Menus.com. The site’s goal is to get the beer list for all of Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s bars and allow you to both find a bar and see the beer list or search for your favorite beer and find what bars around you serve it. Great idea. Immediately, I tried to search for Sixpoint which is by far my favorite the New York City microbrewery. When searching for Sixpoint, however, a hit came up for the Bowery’s incarnation of Whole Foods.

Re-he-heaallly?

It turns out the Bowery Whole Foods has an entire beer store with growler stations letting you buy half-gallons of various NYC brewed beers. On top of that, there’s an entire beer store surrounding the growler station that lets you buy beer at actual reasonable prices. The growlers are $7.99 and the sixers are $8.99. Since we were there, we did our week’s shopping and guess what? Cheaper than both Nasty’s and the Emporium and even threw its hat into competing with Fresh Direct.

So, thanks to beer, I’m a Whole Foods convert. Is there anything alcohol can’t do?

Nothing makes me more angry than the fact that my apartment doesn’t have actual windows. It has sliding glass door sized set into one wall starting at waist level. So, of course, the building supplies air-conditioners since there’s no earthly way any air conditioner would work in the window.

Saturday was 95-degrees and, wouldn’t you know, the A/C doesn’t work in this worthless apartment. No problem, call down to the super. The super doesn’t work weekends. Called him after work today. He leaves at 5. So, for those keeping track at home; the first three days of the first extended heat wave of the year have featured Tom with no A/C and windows that barely open.

For F*ck’s sake.

Two years ago, I made tentative bar-hopping plans coinciding with the New York City Marathon. The general idea was to start at the bottom of First Ave and work our way up the street until it started feeling a little too close to East Harlem, then work our way back down. For whatever reason, this fell through and I ended up staying in my apartment to watch football. Last year, we didn’t really even attempt plans.

This year, however, forces aligned properly. A friend of a friend (conveniently, the same one whose apartment I looked at, decided to throw a marathon party. His apartment overlooks First Ave, which means we had a great view of the runners from the third floor. He also had a fire escape and a refrigerator full of beer.

I headed out about 11:00 am to try and get there by noon. I figured that most of the normal, human runners would be passing by there about then. I got to his apartment about 12:15 pm (after having to let three 6 trains pass by the 59th street station because they were too packed to get on. The irony that, in the time it took me to take the subway from my apartment uptown, some runners had already finished 3/4ths of a marathon was not lost on me). If I was remotely athletic or cared about running, it might bother me. As it was, I got out to a packed First Avenue just as the bulk of the normal runners were coming through. After shoving through the crowd and reaching the blessed front door of the apartment, I went upstairs.

The host had a full spread of snacks and beers and his windows were wide open allowing easy access to the fire escape. This, my friends, was the way to watch the marathon. No crowd, no shoulder to shoulder, and only drunks that I wanted to associate with bumping into me. So, after having some bagels and cheese and such, I stepped out onto the fire escape and proceeded to shout encouragement to people who had their names on their shirts. This was incredibly more fun than it had any right to be. Just random name shouting followed by “WHOOOOOO!!!!” and “LEG IT OUT!”. I will say, if I was seventeen miles deep and was being told to “leg it out” or “dig for it” by someone with a mouthful of bagel with a double-fist of beer, I’d probably want to spit in their eye. As it was, it got progressively more fun to shout names and then try to figure out the correct ethnic pronunciations. Carrrrrrrrrrlos, Pedrrrrrrrrooooooooo, Helmut, Jedvic, Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuy, and Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaa were amongst the favorites. This shortly devolved into random things the person was wearing if a name was not available… such “yeah, balloon tied to your back guy!” and “go, shameless promo for Dunkin Donuts dude!”.

There’s something to be said for cheering people on and not being forced to associate with the masses on the side of the street. I’ve decided that, if I ever do Times Square for New Year’s, this is how I’ll have to do it. I need a balcony, a constant source of alcohol and food, a bathroom, and a distinct separation line between me and everyone else. That’s the way to do it.

Of course, after this party, I’m even MORE disappointed that we couldn’t work out a sublet for this place. I’d have been excited to host this party for the next couple of years. On the bright side, I’ve checked something else off my “things to do in New York” list. Hopefully I’ll also be able to finish up “go to a Knicks game” and “go to a Rangers game”.

So I handed in my keys to the old place today. I’m officially moved. I still haven’t started receiving mail at the new place yet. I filed my change of address last week and, surprise surprise, it still actually takes 2 weeks to get a forwarded mail request done… even if you’re moving within the same zip code. The conversation went something like this.

Me: “I need to file a change of address.”
Guy: “Fill this form out. When do you want it to go into effect?”
Me: “Tomorrow.”
Guy: “OK, it will take about two weeks to process.”
Me: “But I’m moving down the street. I’m still in the same zip code.”
Guy: “Doesn’t matter.”
Me: “Of course it doesn’t.”

The move mostly went off without a hitch. The movers were late (for the second time running) but, in a twist that I didn’t see coming, they pushed for their tip before they actually moved anything (as opposed to the leg-breaking Russians who negotiated for their tip before they brought the stuff up from the truck… this seemed much more effective). Y’see, we used a company called Flat Rate Movers, who are supposed to send someone to your apartment to “estimate” the flat rate. They do this by pieces of furniture and apparently by how much stuff can fit into their industrial sized boxes. Ms. L spoke with them and, since we have very little furniture following the incident, they gave her a quote. The quote assumed 1 box (and, when I say box, it’s huge… something like 10 by 15) of stuff. Of course, when the movers got there, they discovered that our stuff will need 3 boxes. So, after telling us they’d have to call the main office and figure out how much extra to charge and they weren’t sure if they could move everything and a lot of quick talking in Spanish which I didn’t understand (but assume it was some talk about baseball, stupid gringos, pretending to sound panicked, and discussing how much they could suck out of us) they came back with “we don’t have to call the company, we’ll take care if it if you want.” Which was code for: “how much extra will you float us to take everything now so you don’t have to go through the hassle?” Turns out $50/guy (3 guys) was enough… which was fine because we were planning on giving them $30/guy anyway… I love Mexicans.

New twist on the moving, each building wanted a $300 cash deposit from me, which meant I had to walk to the bank, withdraw $600, and walk home… on the streets of New York… with half a grand in my front pocket. I can think of roughly 150 things I would rather do than walk around with that much cash on me. Fortunately, I likely looked enough like a paranoid crack addict looking for a fix that I was certainly left alone lest I draw the attention of the NYPD.

After getting here, my goal on the first day (obviously) was to get the Internet and cable set up. Points for Manhattan… when you have actually 2 competing cable companies, none of this nonsense about waiting a week for a cable hookup to come. The cable guy was here when I got here. Wired up the cable and the Internet before the movers even showed up.

A day after we got here, Ms. L left for Orlando. She called it “Senior Staff training.” I called it “conveniently getting out of Dodge to skip out on all the unpacking.” I, of course, reminded her about the time she decided to start a fight with me just long enough to bail on helping me paint my townhouse. I asked her if it would be a running theme: having “work trips” whenever any sort of labor is required. She said no… I say when it comes time to paint this place that she’ll conveniently have that trip to India to meet her Team India Accountants.

However, it actually didn’t work out to be that bad. I basically got to spend a couple days setting up the apartment how I want it. I also discovered that I have significantly more floor space in this apartment than in the old one. Now, granted, I still don’t have a couch or anything, but I have gaping wall space where I can finally get some sort of DVD shelving.

So, Thursday night I got home from work and spent the night unpacking clothes. I can officially say this: gentlemen, you have not suffered until you’ve unpacked the girl’s clothes and tried to put them away. To set the stage: our old apartment had two small closets in the bedroom and a coffin sized closet near the front door. To this we added two four-drawer dressers and one two-drawer dresser. On top of that, we have four plastic bins.

Now, the new place has a walk in closet in the bedroom and a coat closet that’s about six feet wide. I take up, officially, one dresser and about 3 feet of the walk in closet. Stupidly, I assumed both dressers and the walk-in closet would be enough. After filling the dresser with just shirts… Just shirts!! I moved on to the closet. After filling the closet, both dressers, and all four bins, I then started on the laundry. As I was pulling clothes out of the dryer I had one thought:

Where the f*ck did these clothes fit in the old apartment? I was trying to figure out what dimensional portal I missed in the old apartment where these clothes were stored. After I finally finished the laundry I walked in to the living room and noticed four more black garbage bags, I could do nothing but stare. I think I looked like Brett Favre after a concussion. There couldn’t possibly be more clothes in them… yet somehow, there were. Is there a magic girl power that I don’t know about? Like… do Bags of Holding and Portable Holes actually exist and I missed a meeting? If so, I’d love to have one. I had the same moment yesterday with books. On our bookshelf in the old apartment, it was interspersed with books and random decorations. As I was putting the books up on the shelf this time I still have a good 50 books sitting on the floor and the shelf is completely full. Where did all this stuff fit?

It’s starting to wind down now… finally. Tomorrow I have to set the DVD player and video games up. Then, I get to finally get a couch and a bed and hopefully finally put the incident totally behind us. There is an hour long massage waiting for me somewhere when this air mattress finally dies a burning, horrible death.

Of course, I’m relatively certain I’ll have to move everything somewhere else when she gets home, but for now… Miller time.

Battery Park City’s demise has been greatly exaggerated. For a while it was touch ‘n go, but it fought it’s way back valiantly.

The apartment we found in Rector Place turned out to be the winner. Most of the other places we looked at were only $300ish/month less than this place, and this place is much more convenient to subways than Murray Hill or Yorkville. Unfortunately, it means my days on the 4/5 will be extended indefinitely. My ultimate desire was somewhere in the East 70s that would be close enough for me to walk to work but, alas, it is not to be. I get to pry myself into the 4 every morning.

So, we are officially making the shortest move in the history of moves.

$300 to the movers.

As it turns out: an owner of an apartment would rather deduct $200/month for 2 years instead of painting his apartment. I guess there’s something to be said for living in a city where people are certainly too rich.

Now, feel free to let me know why staying down here for another 2 years wasn’t a bad idea.

We had really decided that we weren’t going to look in Battery Park City. The rents here have gotten so out-of-hand that people are paying $2600/month and $3100/month for 1-bedrooms. I don’t get it. I mean, my apartment’s nice, but it’s not THAT nice.

For shits and giggles, though, I checked out one of the local brokers. There are three down here in this little neighborhood… which makes renting down here a pain in the ass. One of them, though, had places in another building by our same management company for $2300/month… with “negotiable.”

Hmm.

Turns out the building is also in Rector Place; literally right down the street. We looked at two places, both by owner, not by the management company.

Apartment One: A small one-bedroom $2400/month. Basically the exact same apartment I have now but a little smaller. Come to find out it was a studio when it was purchased and the owner installed a wall to make it a one-bedroom. Big bathroom and huge closets. Cons: one entire wall was mirrors. Real creepy. I know I don’t hang out with a whole lot of people down here but watching TV with myself is a little strange.

Apartment Two: The one we actually saw online. It’s “negotiable” because the owner hasn’t painted it or really cleaned it since the last tenant left. The negotiable part was how much work we expected to be done on it. One of the benefits of living in a city where everyone is posh and lazy, I guess, is that if you’re willing to do a little bit of work, you can save yourself some money. I agreed to paint it, clean it, and handle the replacement of the blinds for if he came down from the asking price.

Leaving BPC is starting to look dim.

Ms. L and I are huge fans of Rent, so when we found out that Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, the original Roger and Mark respectively, were going to be reprising their roles on Broadway for a couple of months we figured we’d go. Then, with Ms. L’s work schedule and the whole “we’re going to need like six thousand dollars to move pretty soon” thing, we kind of decided to let it go. Then, her sister decided that she wanted to go see it, so that gentle push was enough to get us to go. As an added benefit, Tamyra Gray was on the bill as Mimi. Second bonus: it turned out we got tickets to the last night that Pascal and Rapp were going to be there which told us two things: 1) there wouldn’t be understudies… everyone in the cast would be there for the last show and 2) the crowd would likely be split 70/30 between people who were Rent fans and tourists… with the balance being in the Rent fans favor for once.

One of my favorite parts of going to a Rent show is searching the crowd for people who will be offended and leave before the second act. Usually people with kids under 10 are a good bet. Without fail, there are a couple… and without fail, they usually leave. The second are obvious tourists… after being down here for a while you are able to sniff them out. These are usually the folks who decided to see Rent because they were going to New York and they’ve heard of it… but they have no idea what it’s about. These are the folks most likely to be put off by the… er… explicit parts.

All that said, I’m really happy we decided to drop the money for this show. It was the best version of it I’ve seen so far. The cast was really into it and the crowd, which really turned out to be more 80/20 than 70/30 knew their cues… they knew where to start cheering and Mooing and such. I made excellent time to the bathroom at intermission and hit it without having to stand in line (MONEY!). All-in-all, I had a fantastic time. It’ll probably be the last time I go to this for quite some time since I can’t imagine it being any better. Might as well go out on top.

Unless I somehow swing some of the $20 front row seats… but as I have a job I don’t see that happening any time soon.

A friend of a friend is in the process of buying a place in Brooklyn Heights. It’s a nice neighborhood one subway stop outside Manhattan. As such, when realtors call it an “Up and Coming” neighborhood, it really is. It’s not a hole that someday might be up and coming… it actually IS up and coming.

So, since his landlord wasn’t really down with giving him a month-to-month lease until he was able to get everything coordinated, he’s looking for someone to sublet the apartment when he moves. The apartment was on the Upper East Side, the same area where the apartment with no bathroom was located. It’s out on First Avenue, which means it’s going to be a half-mile hike to a subway… or for me a mile hike to my office. Doable.

The apartment was really nice. One of the nicer ones I’d seen thus far. It was smaller than the place we have now and there was no dishwasher, but the kitchen was located in a nice little alcove (which we could use our liquor cabinet to extend the alcove space and make it more defined), the bathroom was a reasonable size, closet space was good, and the bedroom and living room was actually separated by a little hallway. The window overlooked First Ave which made it a prime location for an NY Marathon party.

Unfortunately, our lease is up at the end of October and he doesn’t expect to be out until Mid-November… which makes me very sad, because I dug the apartment and it was under $2k/month. It was also no-fee (since it’s a sublet) and dubbed “pest-free” by the current resident.

Now I’m officially bummed.

On Sunday we continued or tour of “Not Manhattan” by checking out Riverdale in the Bronx. Riverdale is actually a pretty ritzy location. It boast two Metro-North Stations and the end of the 1. The apartment complex I looked at was Skyview. It’s a co-op; which just means that all of the apartments are individually owned while the building association takes care of maintenance and the grounds. Unlike Manhattan, Skyview boasts space… space enough to have a large pool, tennis courts, a dog run, and parking. Glorious, lovely parking.

We looked at one apartment, an alcove studio, which was roughly the size of our current apartment if you took out the wall that makes this place a “one bedroom”. Bonus: it was fully furnished… which means that we’d save a little bit of cash by putting off replacement furniture for a couple of years. This led to the following conversation:

Ms. L: Doesn’t it creep you out a little to sleep on a used mattress?
Me: I spent six years of college retrieving furniture from the dumpster at Raymour and Flanigan. I’ll get over it.
Ms. L: But it’s gross.
Me: Is there any chance that we’re not buying a mattress cover anyway?

Interestingly, Riverdale’s right next door to another neighborhood in the Bronx that I didn’t know existed: Fieldston. Fieldston’s like… real houses with real yards located in the Bronx. Most of the places are absolutely gorgeous and probably worth millions of dollars. In fact, driving through it in my buddy’s Matrix, I was pretty sure we were going to be asked to leave.

Negatives. The commute is on the Metro-North, an Express Bus, or a MTA Bus/Subway combo. Neither of which is great. The Metro-North is a pain because I’d have to live on a train schedule (even though I work near Grand Central). Express Buses, while great in theory, are a disaster because they have to deal with traffic. Absolutely pass on the bus/1-train combo. The lease is a maximum of 2 years. That’s the maximum that the building allows people to rent their places. Then they have to either shit or get off the pot. Negative number 3: It’s a co-op… which means we both have to go through a whole interview process followed by the board voting on whether or not we’re worthy to stay in their building. The problem with this is that by the time the application process is completed it would be the end of the month. Negative number 4: the girl doesn’t like it. It’s a studio, the owners want double the security deposit because they don’t trust the Ninja on their furniture.

Unfortunately, I love the place. The terrace (Good Lord, I’m going to end up turning down a place with outdoor space all my own) even had a nice view of the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge. For $1400/month + $100/month for an off-street parking spot I get a place in a complex that I like, my car back, and 1 building over from one of my old college roommates.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure the 51% of the vote that women own will over-rule me.