There's a Dragon with matches

 loose on the town

Take a whole pail of water just to cool him down (Hunter-Hart)

this being Chinese New Year and the year of the Dragon, i thought we should kickoff today by talking Hockey. I have not seen anything like this since Groucho Blondini stole a car and drove the length of New Zealand in the 1980 cult classic Goodbye Pork Pie......this kid Matt Rempe is having a hell of a week.......he made his debut at Giants Stadium in front of 80,000 fans and fought Matt Martin in his first shift.....he terrorized the Devils on Thursday Night getting 17 penalty minutes and a game ejection...and yesterday down in Philly he had another great Fight and scored the game winning goal.... and through it all this 21 year old cowboy from Calgary is smiling and laughing and having the time of his life...like a Cat on fire, his post game interviews are TV Gold....this may just be the spark the Rangers needed to advance far in May and hopefully June.

The Redwings are alive and well......i have been surmising that they may tough to play in the first round should they sneak in......I think it's safe to safe that they will indeed qualify for the post season, especially since Patty Kane is back with a vengeance....and he marks his return to the Windy City tonight at 6:00 on the NHL network.....they just happen to be retiring Cheerio's Jersey...Chris Chelios ..should be an electric night at the Madhouse on Madison.    

my Coyotes on the other hand have fallen out of bed......looks like another year with high draft picks in the dessert, they are in the midst of an 11-game losing streak and the league is too competitive to survive something like that. 

i don't want to rush the last 6 weeks of this great regular season, but these playoffs sb epic....potential clashes out west will be must see tv no matter how it adds up....Dallas, Winnipeg and Colorado are all hitting stride and evenly matched.......is Vancouver finally for real ? can they survive Edmonton and do they match up with Vegas ? i don't think so.....but you better watch out for the wild cards too.....Calgary, the Wild and The Kings and Preds are all stepping on the Gas in February and whomever sneaks in will be tough to face....you can definitely see the Canuckleheads falling to the curse of the Presidents Trophy....can you imagine the level of rioting that Gastown will see should the beloved Canucks finish with the most regular season points and get burned by the Flamers in round one ?    

It's too early to even talk about the East......too many spots are up for grabs and everyone is jockeying for position....should be an entertaining ride the rest of the way......stock that beer fridge, settle in and enjoy the games.

If mercy's in business I wish it for you
More than just ashes when your dreams come true

Fire - Fire on the mountain
Fire - Fire on the mountain

one of these things

 is not like the others.....

one of these things just doesn't belong

can you tell me which thing is not like the others

before i finish my song ? ( Sesame Street)

A)  Black George Washington

B) Female Pope

C) 2+3=BEEER

D) Black Female Vikings

3 of the 4 are actual Chatbot AI results......and one of them will be someday soon.

I close my eyes

 only for a moment, and the moment's gone

All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity (Kansas)

it's like a flash of heat lightning ...off in the distance....the other side of the lake on a hot summer evening, so far away that you will not even hear the rumble of the ensuing thunder. here and gone in a blink......as fast and furious as sweater nite can arrive...it vanishes in the same way...an intoxicating blur, a whirlwind of faces and sounds...conversations abruptly cut short by the arrival of another special guest or old friend, a seemingly never-ending carousel......a wake or a wedding...is there a difference? 

I try valiantly to stay (semi) sober and speak to everyone, but most years it becomes an exercise in futility. Someday we will all be gone, but the Oak Room will remain, the Oak Room and Liev Eirikson Park hold the stories of all who came before and those yet to grace these shores. As i walked the streets of Bayridge it struck me that nobody seems to hang out in the parks anymore....there was a time where every patch of Public grass....every concrete softball field and every Parkie house was claimed by the local Teens or 20 somethings.....you knew them, you were them.....whether you spent a day in Moon Man or Bliss Park, OLA, 102, 170  or Mckinley even schoolyards, the 79th street Hockey court, Old Glory, the Stairs  or the parkway adjacent to Liev Eirkson Park. You knew the inhabitants and you acted accordingly when visiting someone else's turf....we gave the neighborhood an identity, for better or worse.......i'm partial....but things were better when The Irish and the Norsemen were hanging around in volume....the world was a simpler and safer place with the beer drinkers on the park benches watching over it.

Tough break for Murph....he thought he hit the pool when Brock Nelson scored....but after the mathematicians were brought it in, it was determined that his jersey number   29 adds up to 11....(2+9).......and so whomever had picked #1 was the winner........and not 0 .....lousy beak.

of course 2+3 still = BEEER

Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.

Red sky at night

 

sailors delight.

Red Sky at morning,

Sweater Nite warning (Alvarez)

tomorrow we tackle any and all obstacles to storm the shores of Bayridge Brooklyn....in the spirit of Alvarez and all the Characters of the long dark Night, we shall seize the day .....the tunes will be rocking and the Jack Daniels flowing.....i am part of the advance scouting mission.....today i shall walk the streets of 11209 to ensure all is well.....i'll test the Guiness in the Lief and Listen to Mike Mclaughlin & The Bennets as they test the sounds system for Sweater Nite 26........2+3= Large quantities of Beeer

Well, I told you once and I told you twice
That someone will have to pay the price
But here's a chance to change your mind
'Cause I'll be gone a long, long time

Look who's back in town

Ain't nobody but Sally Sue Brown
All you boys better run for cover
If you don't a-wanna be a hearted broken lover. (Dylan)

 

Big history was made last night when Caitlin Clark broke the all time ncaa scoring record for girlies...but it may be short lived.......Mookie Schamooka-Zaire is a sophomore at U Cal Santa-Barbara and is currently averaging 5.3 more points per game than Clark was at this same stage of her career. She is on a pace to break Clarks record at the end of next season.

Sally Simpleton, The Previous record holder ; sent along her congratulations in a video from her job as head waitress at the cracker Barrel in Biloxi Mississippi.

and somewhere in these great United States there is a 25 year old Michael Jordan wannabe, someone who was not quite good enough for the NBA but is willing to wear a skirt and call himself Nancy for the chance to cash some lucrative checks from the WNBA and dominate the dykes on a nightly basis. (Someone like Moochelle "Big Mike" Obama).  One can only conclude that the "womans" pro sports leagues are colluding to block tranny entrepreneurs from joining their ranks......where's that mug runcher Rapinoe? didn't she want the boys to compete with girls? why hasn't she taken up that cause at the Professional level? are we supposed to believe that there is not one single man in this country willing to say he identifies as a woman in order to play professional sports and dominate the girlies in basketball, soccer, tennis, golf etc etc?  or is it a case of Rules for Thee , but not for me......they will push transgender athletes down your throat at the grade school - high school level.....but will go to great lengths to prevent it the mental illness from infiltrating the Pro level?

better question ...why are we talking about thespians when Sweater Nite looms on the horizon...and why does 2+3=BEEER ?

See her in that very tight skirt
Got what it takes
Just to make you hurt
Don't you see by those big bright eyes
Prefer to treat her nasty and low down lies.

Gentle Rain

 Falls on me

All life folds back
Into the sea
We contemplate eternity
Beneath the vast indifference of heaven ( Warren Zevon)

not sure what exactly happened in Kansas City yesterday, but a mother of two is dead after a seemingly senseless shooting near union station at the end of the parade......and that stings.

I immediately thought back to the Red Sox incredible comeback from a 3-0 deficit against their hated rival the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. In the chaos and mayhem and rioting around Fenway Park that ensued after the last out, a 21 year old Coed named Victoria Snelgrove was struck by a police fired rubber bullet....she later died from her injuries. The young woman was from nearby Brookline and she was a journalist major at Emerson College. She came from a family with a long line of Red Sox Faithful. I remember reading about her fate on the train to work and feeling a pit in my stomach, i thought about her dad who probably waited his whole life for a Red Sox world series, and now he would instead be burying his daughter while the city gathered in celebration. He probably wished he never shared his sports enthusiasm with his child and i am sure he never was able to enjoy their games again.......death sucks.... senseless death haunts.

don't look now but Russia is planning to take out our satellites. We know they got that idea from the camel fuckin Mullahs in Iran. They want nothing more than to bring down the worlds financial system and return the planet to the good old days of the Dark ages. As America and the West race each to a world dependent on computers, robots and Artificial Intelligence, our enemies are planning to take it all away in an instant. I hope enough of us still know how to Farm. my Advice to the Sweater Nite faithful is to stockpile Beeer, Water, Seeds and Beeer.........you said Beeer twice......i know, i like Beeer.

The past seems realer than the present to me now
I've got memories to last me
When the sky is gray
The way it is today
I remember the times that I was happy

Man, theres a lot of unexplained phenomenon

 out there in the world.

Lot of things people say
What the heck's going on?
Let me tell ya!
Who built the pyramids?
ELVIS!
Who built Stonehenge?
ELVIS!
Yeah, man you see guys
walking down the street
pushing shopping carts
and you think they're talking to allah,
they're talking to themself.
Man, no they're talking to ELVIS!
ELVIS! ELVIS!    ( Mojo Nixon)

saddened to learn yesterday that the One of a kind Maniac that was Mojo Nixon passed away last week....he had a cardiac event on the Outlaw Cruise in Florida.....one of our fellow skaters, The Admiral; said he was on that same cruise 2 years ago and Mojo was snorting coke in public for 6 straight days.......i guess it caught up to him.......if you've never had the good fortune to listen to his music, find some time and give him a try......Crazy Wife is one of my favorite songs.

how about a little Hockey chatter on Super Bowl Sunday ? The trade deadline looms on the horizon and this could be the defining moment in the Chris Drury era. Two years ago he smacked it out of the park by acquiring Andrew Copp, Tyler Motte and Frank Vattrano at the deadline without giving up any blue-chip prospects. All 3 players played significant roles as the Blueshirts advanced to within 2 wins of a berth in the Stanley Cup Finals. 

Last year was a horrible miss as he traded for a broken down Pattty Kane and a streaky goal scorer in Tarasenko.....no help on defense and no added grit......and of course we were bounced in the first round.

This year i have my eyes on a few guys that are older, veteran, scrappy guys ( sb cheap acquisitions) that are on teams that are out of the playoff hunt and sb available for a price. Kyle Okposo and Nick Foligno.....35 and 36 years old......would love to see these grizzled vets wearing read , white and blue come April.

At the start of the year i shared my high expectations for the Arizona Coyotes and the Detroit Redwings.....2 young, up and coming squads....i said they were both probably a year away, but this was going to be a big step forward.....as we creep into Mid-February both teams are playing well and still in wild card contention.....watch out if either team sneaks in to the playoffs.

next weekend of course is the Stadium Series.....The Flyers and the Devils will test the Giants stadium ice surface on Saturday Night in preparation for the main event....Rangers-Iceladies at 3:00 Sunday.....live from Bayridge Brooklyn it's Sweater Nite 26.

WINNER - WINNER......Dan Ribaudo of Flemington NJ  aka Elmo, was the winner of the 4 tickets to the suite for the Rangers-Islanders game........strangely there were only 3 total entries......not sure why so few decided to enter....i guess most preferred to be at the Lief.

next time you are on Google....do a search for P&C's bar 11209 and take a look at the photos.....you might see some familiar faces.

anyway, good luck to one and all with the boxes........I had lunch Friday with Lenny Dawson and he assured me that he and Ed Podolak are ready to go today....i expect a good close game.....but the Chiefs have the experience.....i suspect they will win in Overtime.....24-21....

Yeah man, you know people from outer space,
people from outer space they come up to me.
They don't look like like Doctor Spock.
They don't look like Klingons,
all that Star Trek jive.
They look like Elvis.
ELVIS!
Everybody in outer space looks like Elvis.

if your memory serves you well

 We were goin’ to meet again and wait

So I’m goin’ to unpack all my things
And sit before it gets too late  ( Dylan) 

Back in 1794 Tom Paine said that the distance from the Sublime to the ridiculous was but one step. That sentiment was reinforced last night.

Special counsel Robert Hur released a report concluding the Joe Biden mishandled classified documents regarding Afghanistan ...Hur did not recommend charges because he said a jury would see the POTUS as an elderly man with a bad memory and because of his diminished mental state, it would be hard to prove willfulness. Hur said Biden had a hard time recalling when his son died and the dates around his terms as Vice President.

That didn't sit well with sleepy Joe.....he sprung into action and called a Press Conference to push back.  The angry old man said he didn't think it was any if his dam business to ask me when my son died......."Every day since he died i wear the rosary he got from Our Lady ........."

and that's where he left it.....Our Lady of what exactly ?  the world wonders, but Joe never finished the thought.

"I don't need anyone—I don't need anyone to remind me when he passed away or passed away." 

cool...gotcha.

but he wasn't done....in speech to declare his mind was sound, he then confused the leaders of Egypt and Mexico.......that's disappointing........one country combined smashed avocados and lime juice to create a delicious chip dip .....and the other was where the prehistoric Aliens from Pluto built those Pyramids.

i honestly had a hard deciding on the quote for this Post...it came down to James Taylor and OH Mexico..........and the Bangles and Walk like an Egyptian......so just like Biden ; when faced with those 2 choices i went with Dylan.

again i say...if this plot was in a movie 10 or 15 years ago, we would probably have walked out early because it was too far fetched. I would love to sit down with the President and tell him that 2+3=BEEER.....but he'd probably agree.

No man alive will come to you
With another tale to tell
But you know that we shall meet again
If your mem’ry serves you well
This wheel’s on fire
Rolling down the road
Best notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode!

 

Walk into splintered sunlight

 Inch your way through dead dreams

to another land  (Hunter-Lesh)

ol Joe was at it again yesterday in midtown Manhattan. Like a malfunctioning robot , he attempted to tell that same tired story about the g-7 summit...but this time he insisted Helmut Kohl was sitting next to him and delivered the witty punchline........Kohl of course died 5 or 6 years before this anecdote supposedly took place...give it another week or two and he will have spoken to Gandhi and Winston Churchill about January 6th.....the problem with a serial liar is that the older they get the harder it is for the brain to remember fabricated events....... Vegas is considering a new prop Bet , an under/over on how many dead people Joe will reincarnate in his next fundraiser speech.......he's like that awkward guy that finally has a good joke and gets a laugh.....and then he butchers and beats the story to death for years, telling and retelling the old tired story , forgetting details or mixing anecdotes until it fails to illicit a response , reminds me of an old bob hope.....his jokes weren't even jokes at the end.......he would just take the flavor of the day and cramm it into an unfunny story........."like having coffee in Palm Springs with Brooke Sheilds and Mister T "....hahahahahahaha fake track laughter…..Happy 98th Birthday to Cowboy Neal Cassidy….aka Dean Moriarity…

Maybe you're tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted
with words half spoken
and thoughts unclear

was it over

 when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? 

Germans?

leave him alone he's on a roll  ( Animal House)

Dementia Joe Biden is having a John Belushi type year....on Sunday he fumbled and bumbled his way through a ridiculous exchange.....i will quote him directly so that in a hundred years when some martian is reading this blog, they will know exactly what the leader of the free world said.

"I sat down and I said, ‘America’s back,’" Biden recalled. "And Mitterrand from Germany – I mean from France – looked at me and said…"  "Well, how long are you back for?" 

The president continued, saying the "Chancellor of Germany" asked him how he – and by extension, the U.S. – would respond if, hypothetically, thousands of people stormed Britain’s House of Commons and killed two "bobbies," or British police officers, to stop the election of a Prime Minister. 

so....he quickly corrected himself the first time he confused Germany and France, but he ignored the fact that he said he met with Francois Mitterand  2 years ago.....Mitterand of course died in 1996.....he then immediately refereed to the dead frenchman as the Chancellor of Germany a second time and threw in some hypothetical nonsense about the brits.

he is consistent......he often shakes hands with people who aren't there and last year he scanned the room looking for a Congresswoman ( Jacqueline Walorsky -IN) he said she had promised to be at his rally "Where's Jackie?" he asked the crowd......the problem was Jackie had passed away 6 months prior and Biden released condolence statement acknowledging her passing at the time of her death...

it's harder to explain the confusion between the 2 European nations.....One brews delicious Spatan Beer and Gassed 6 million Jews.....the other puts butter on ham sandwiches and prefers red wine.

but perhaps the award for the most delusional politician goes to Tom Suozzi.....he's actually running ads for himself claiming to be a moderate and the one guy who can fix the border.....while his opponent for the seat vacated by George Santos is running an ad with a video of Suozzi bragging that HE was the one that Kicked ICE out of Nassau County a few years ago.

Gee Tom.... recent polls showed that the #1 issue facing the nation according to primary voters was the southern border and Illegal Immigration.....so how soon after those polls were released did you have the 180 degree change of heart? 

But hey...his new ad shows him sitting in a flimsy beach chair in a tiny backyard on a simple plot of grass.......he's just like you and me .....a regular Joe.....not an east hampton elitist at all.

it reminds me of the conversation i had last year with Jerry Garcia when he promised to be at Sweater Nite and reminded me that 2+3=BEEER

Way down in the south of France
All the ladies love to dance
Clap their hands and walk on air
Yeah, the feeling's really there
Won't you take a little taste
Raise it to your charming face?
When the rhythm's really right
You can burn it down tonight

 

If today was not an endless highway

 If tonight was not a crooked trail

If tomorrow wasn’t such a long time (Dylan)

The NHL and the Olympic committee reached an agreement yesterday that will pave the way for professional hockey players to return to the Winter Games in 2026. this means Sweater Nite 28 will either be held on Presidents weekend if there is a good qualifying game in the round-robbin... USA-RUSSIA perhaps, as we did for SN IV in Molloys.......or we will delay the festivities until the Friday afternoon semifinals , as we did for Sweater Nite 12 when the USA defeated Finland on a snowy afternoon to advance to the 2010 Gold Medal game.

The 2026 games will be held in Milan , Italy and they are 6 hours ahead of NY....so if my math and memory serve me......assuming they do not alter the time tested Olympic schedule...the first semifinal will be Friday at approx  10:00 a.m. our time........and the second semifinal around 3:00 p.m.   as you may remember in 1980 the US Olympic committee asked that the first semifinal between the USA and Russia be flipped in time slots with the Sweeden-Finland game.....so ABC could air the game live at 8:00 P.M.....and the Russians said No Fargin way......and so ABC made the disgraceful decision to NOT show the game live, but rather on tape delay at 8:00.......the game was also not on Radio.....I was in a bar across the street from the Port Authority (coming home from a ski trip) with Mac, Dermott, Freddie Roc and Whitey...yes, you could get served at 15 in mahattan back then......we pooled our money and were drinking mugs...the bar was jam packed.....and they had 1010 WINS on the stereo....every 5 or 10 minutes they would do a live update from John Montone or Pat Halas or one o those guys  who was OUTSIDE the arena and relaying details......i remember him saying there was a timeout with about a minute to play and the Americans were clinging to a one goal lead....the Bar (Mcanns) was chanting USA USA USA....and then finally he said "Well it's all over in lake Placid, the Americans have stunned Mother Russia" and Midtown Manhattan erupted like nothing i have ever seen before or since.......like Herbie Brooks said....I will take that memory with me to the grave.

The wheels are always spinning Holland.......we haven't even held Sweater Nite 26 and your President & Founder is already stressing over Sweater Nite 28......heavy is the head that wears the crown...but the truth is I LOVE the pressure......25 months and counting.....even if i am living on the beach in South Carolina, i will return to the 209 for the Gala.

occasionally the internet is good for something. There is a guy on Instagram that is worth checking out.......he releases reels every week or so....he is black guy (about 40) and he pretends to be blind with the glasses and a walking stick and he has a STUFFED black lab on a leash....he waits outside bodegas in Atlantic City or Brooklyn or Queens and waits for unsuspecting people to walk by and then he shakes the stuffed dog and starts  woofing at them..WOOF WOOF WOOF...the dogs name is Shadow and he immediately starts screaming Shado relax , Shadow Relax.... he swithces back and forth from his own voice to the fake dogs barking....and the rezction of the people is classic......they are terrified of the fake dog as only stymies could be...his instagram acct is J-Massiah @ jmassiah90 ....he is a comedian in real life........this is the type of stuff our good friend Dano would have loved.....i would have called him every week and worked SHADO RELAX into the conversation....we shared a great curiosity for these Characters of the Night.......and this guy j-massiah is definitely nuts...

2 short weeks until sweater Nite....and we know that 2+3=BEEER.....so drink up and enjoy that strange bright ball in the sky....feels like we haven't seen the sun in a long time.

I can’t see my reflection in the waters
I can’t speak the sounds that show no pain
I can’t hear the echo of my footsteps
Or can’t remember the sound of my own name