Shawn Peters: No Pun Intended

Ego and the Oracle on Radio

Jim's Big Ego did a set today on WERS (Emerson's Radio Station)   and a portion of it was spent plugging the show and giving the on-air host a customized answer to her question. Click below to listen... and in advance, I apologize for desecrating the airwaves with my nasal twang. (oh, and you can see the whole show Thursday, 8:30 PM at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge... be there or be their.)

Live on WERS 4-13-2010

Totally Uncoordinated

While the title of this blog post could certainly refer to the current mood in Congress or a description of me when I get dressed in the dark... or ski... or ski in the dark, it's actually a nod to the fact that my beloved New England Patriots have announced they will enter the 2010 NFL season without an offensive or defensive coordinator. In terms of the NFL groupthink, this is akin a car manufacturer debuting a new car that doesn't have power steering or anti-lock brakes. 

On most teams, while the head coach sets the tone   for the entire roster and game plan, these coordinators quite literally lead their respective units, calling the plays they run and deciding which players are utilized, and how. So why on Earth would football czar Bill Belichick possibly choose this course of team management, especially when this past year the team played with no offensive coordinator on his staff, resulting in one of the most disappointing and uneven seasons in recent Patriot history? Most media outlets are focusing on one likely answer, but I'll admit, I see several other potential reasons, and can't help wondering if one or more of those couldn't be in play. So here they are, from popular opinion to the farthest fetched hypotheticals in roughly descending order. You decide which you think apply.

Critical Mass: One MA Voter's Take on What Happened

I do not blog politics. 

I don't pretend to think anyone cares what I think about health care, abortion, prisons, job creation or campaign finance reform. If I were smart enough to figure any of those issues out, I'd be a right bastard for not throwing away my writing/advertising careers in favor of serving the common good.

So this is blog post isn't about "politics." It is, however, about the Massachusetts special Senatorial election of January 19th, 2010, in which the course of the nation's lawmaking landscape was altered with monsoon-force winds of change. With so many of my friends from across the country wanting to know, and I'm not paraphrasing, "what the hell happened," it felt like it was time to dust off the keyboard and offer what it looked like from inside the storm's eye.

Day 5 - CritiSchism

If I said to you, "That pasta you made last night was amazing. The scallops were seared perfectly, the asparagus was firm, but tender, and the sauce was absolutely delicate. It was so good, I almost cried when there wasn't enough for seconds." How would you you feel? 

Good? Flattered? Proud? Or would you have  a gnawing feeling that what I was really saying was, "You didn't make enough food and I left the table hungry."

The fact is, people hear what they want to hear, and when it comes to anything critical or, God forbid, negative, it's sometimes all they hear.

Case in point. The Boston sports world is abuzz after the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessey, a well known controversy-monger, wrote an article about the team's star first-slash-third baseman, Kevin Youkilis. It started out being about the popular player's versatility, but halfway through, it became a quote-fest of Youkilis criticizing the fans and media in Boston for being negative and reactionary. This, from a guy who sounds like he's getting booed every time he comes to the plate, but only because 35,000 people are cheering "Yooooooooooouuuuuuuuuk!" This is not a guy who is disliked by one but Yankee fans, and who cares what they think.

Day 33 - Off to the Races

The subject may be political, but this post isn't. It's social... "demented and sad, but social" as Judd Nelson once said.

I'm putting that disclaimer first since I recently dedicated  a few thousand words to the fact that I don't blog politics. I'm not here to foist political opinions on anyone... but I do like to observe, and that's what this is: an observation.

The media is still abuzz regarding a story out of Cambridge, MA last week, where an African American Harvard professor was arrested for disorderly conduct by a White police sergeant after the cops were mistakenly called to the professor's home with a report of an attempted break-in.

In an effort to grossly simplify and summarize:

Professor Henry Louis Gates claims that when the police arrived at his house after receiving a call from a neighbor reporting a possible break-in, he identified himself, then argued with the police, followed them outside, and was placed under arrest.

Sergeant James Crowley, of the Cambridge PD, claims... the exact same thing.

So where is the conflict? 

Day 36 - Political Incorrections

By my count, I've written over 500 online columns, blogs and articles in the past decade.  I've expanded upon having sex in hotels and not having sex because of facial hair. I've posted about hating leaving Los Angeles for Boston and hatting Manny for leaving Boston for L.A..  I've compared basketball teams to sexy actresses and used the metaphor to successfully pick the eventual NBA champion. I've even been quoted in newspapers for making fun of Phil Mickelson's man-boobs.

Clearly, I'm not concerned about political correctness. 

But the one thing I do not write about and have no interest in writing about is politics. In fact, the closest I've ever gotten was during a fantasy football column for ESPN.com where I compared the bad year being had by running back Reggie Bush with the bad year being had by then president George Bush. I got hate male for making a last-name joke. Whatever... with a capital "get a life."

Tip of the Iceberg-Gate

I'm all done with the media's practice of taking any conspiracy, cover-up or scandal and adding the word "gate" to the end. 

The Watergate Scandal wasn't about a secret agreement to put tap water in Evian bottles or to kill a candidate's houseplants by withholding H2O. It was the name of the hotel where the break-in occurred. Adding "gate" is just a lazy way to avoid coming up with a real and appropriate name for the scandals of the day. Worse, it trivializes real controversies by making them sound like country club communities. Seriously, if it was revealed that Microsoft's newest operating system was a failure because of corporate sabotage on the part of Apple, we'd all be hearing about "Vista Gate" for a year. Heck, I'd love to live in Vista Gate. They have 27 holes of championship golf, banquet facilities and three community pools. 

That said, all the "Spygate" talk in regards to the New England Patriot's proclivity for taping opposing coaches (contrary to the NFL's rules) has my ass chapped both as a fan and as someone that wants to slam the "gate"isms once and for all. However, now that Matt Walsh, the Patriots' former video assistant, has spoken to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as well as Senator Arlen Specter, it appears that the Commish and the Senator have opposing views of what happens next. Goodell says he has closure, while Specter wants to open an independent investigation. 

I'm not sure which is the right path, but I do have strong feelings about what's really going on in this whole deal. NOTE: The following is utter conjecture and meets no journalistic standard. 

What seems most likely to you? A) The Patriots are the only team that has ever taped an opposing coach and they have turned over everything the have, so the league has punished them and is ready to just move on. B) The Patriots are the main or sole transgressors in this regard and probably have many more infractions than have been let on, but the Commissioner has decided to turn a blind eye to any new findings because the Patriots are a marquis franchise. C) The Patriots, when they got caught, turned over evidence that not only incriminated themselves, but also included video of several other teams doing the same thing to them. A deal was struck wherein Goodell would take away only one pick from them and some money, destroy the tapes, and the Patriots agreed not to implicate any other teams so the NFL could sweep it all under the rug without having to punish several franchises. Personally, only C passes the sniff test for me. 

However sticky things have gotten for the league and the Patriots, surely the NFL would rather deal with this recent morass than hosting a rookie draft where a quarter of the first-round picks have been forfeited by camera-happy teams. Imagine the ugliness of Gridiron McCarthyism running through the 32 teams, with each accusing another, refusing to go down alone. It actually is one of the few explanations that makes some sense. Why does Goodell destroy the Patriots tapes? So they have no hard evidence they can use to reveal other teams doing the same thing. Why does the NFL act hostile at first and then take so many legal steps before talking to Matt Walsh? Because they want to make sure he isn't going to talk about anything but what the opposing coaches he taped for the Patriots. If he captured a few frames of other teams' video assistants, that would be bad. Why have the Patriots been allowed to keep proffering the lame alibi that they "misinterpreted" the rule? Because they can say whatever they want as long as they don't say "Everyone is doing it." 

Arlen Specter wants an investigation. He wants one bad. He's waving his Congressional powers around like they're a billy club and he's the cop. Maybe it's because he smells a rat. Maybe it's because he's from Pennsylvania and the Patriots have beaten both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in key playoff and Super Bowl games since the cameras started rolling New England. Maybe, as some have asserted, it's because he's in bed with Comcast and the cable giant has a beef with the NFL over the NFL Network. All speculation I admit. But if Specter gets his way, and this cover up is a case of the Goodell protecting the league, rather than one team, it will surely open the flood... gates.

Interview with a Tramp-ire?

The revelation that Barbara Walters revealed to Oprah that she had an affair with a married U.S. Senator in the 70's has got me... and I'd imagine everyone else... asking the same question.

"Who is going to do the exclusive follow-up interview with her?"

I mean, this is exactly the kind of story Barbara Walters was built to cover, but she can't do double duty... or can she?

You know, I was a little disappointed when the U.N. couldn't get a worldwide cloning-ban pact done, but I think we've finally seen why the big guy upstairs has let us develop the technology to "play God." It's so we can clone Barbara Walters and have her interview herself on-air.

Will she ask the hard questions of herself? Will she make herself cry? What will she wear... and will she wear different things as interviewer and interviewee?