Post by Jim H. on Apr 17, 2023 18:55:01 GMT -5
We never knew how far down the rabbit hole our culture had gone until Week 28 when we read that Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro were making a sequel to the 1976 film Taxi Driver called Uber. In it De Niro reprises the role of Travis Bickle, the vigilante-cum-folk hero, only now he’s 80 years old and driving an Uber in New York City instead of a taxi. Still he’s willing to drive “any time, any where” just like he did before. And he no longer bears a grudge against the criminals and lowlifes who infest the streets after dark; all his rage is directed against Trump, whom he wants prosecuted by a young, maverick DA played by Billie Eilish in her first supporting role. He drives all night and stews in his apartment all day, also angry that Rudy Giuliani closed down the fleshpots of 42nd street where he once found escape. Now, for comparable escape, he watches Stormy Daniels films.
Jodie Foster is back playing Iris, the 12-year old streetwalker whom Travis rescued from the clutches of Harvey Keitel in Taxi Driver. She’s blossomed into a successful seller of Zumba apparel to one-percenters in Brooklyn Heights. She tries to rescue Travis from his brooding funk—get him to retire to Florida, but he refuses go as long as DeSantis is governor. They have a final, emotional tete-a-tete on a park bench at dawn with the Queensborough bridge in the background, thrown into stark relief by the rosy glow of sunrise. Travis tells Iris he won’t leave New York until Trump is in jail. Then Alvie Singer and Annie Hall show up and they all go out for bagels.
And, to top it off, the movie is AI written which distinguishes it from Old Bucks whose stories not even AI could dream up. Take Week 28, for example. Old Bucks returned after a two-week hiatus in honor of Passover and Easter. AI, in turn, would have had Old Bucks playing hockey on Easter, just like the Masters played golf, because AI is not religiously observant….Speaking of the Masters, how about Freddie Couples, making the cut at 63, the oldest player ever to do so. We have a couple of Freddies in Old Bucks too. Ken Blankstein comes to mind, his blue jersey entitling him to play as long as the goalies will put up with it. We saw him before the game, going between locker rooms just like he did when he used to divvy up the squads. Now Brian Urban does it, which is something AI can do just as well—and once that happens Old Bucks will be eligible for FanDuel and DraftKIngs betting lines.
Brian’s teams were a little lopsided, not in terms of talent, but in terms of Joes, with four on Blue and only one—Joe Tona—on Red. Talent-wise they were pretty even thanks to the last second shunting of Jim Heffern over to Blue to plug the hole left by the absent Mike Valenzano. Mike was a “yes” on the app but a “no” at game time, suffering from a stiff back after camping out on a sidewalk all night to buy tickets for Dead & Company. Dan Dougherty, incidentally, played goalie for Blue and Chetti for Red, and each of them seemed a little rusty after giving up a couple of softies to start the game, John Lupisella scoring for Blue and Josh Hunter for Red. Then Chris Chairmonte did his patented coast-to-coast rush with the one-armed backhanded dangle through Chetti’s five hole to give Blue the 2-1 lead. But another goal by Josh and a couple snipes by Joe Tona (whose burgundy jersey has gone the way of Kenny’s clean shaven look) had Red up 4-2 where the game lingered for a good 20 minutes stuck in an action-packed but still goalless drought.
John Lupisella scored again while Red was distracted, focused on shutting down the keystone of Blue’s offense, Joe Herbert. In fact Red shut down Joe Herbert, Joe Bruno and Joe McNamara. But they left Joe Peugeot wide open and he roofed it over Chetti with a sweet dish from Pat Saedal. The game was tied at fours and John Lupisella was sensing it. He buried a rebound for the go-ahead goal (and the hatter) and Ryan Crowell gave Blue the 6-4 lead. Blue went into its prevent defense where four players stayed back while Frankie harried the Red zone solo, each crush-and-rush resembling a greyhound loosed from its leash, each foray behind the Red net adding a comic touch to the elasticity with which Old Bucks defines “defense”.
But four back still couldn’t stop Joe Bruno and Brian Urban from hooking up and making the game a nail-biting 6-5. Jim Heffern went to work, fixing a broken play with the same doer mentality that is a hallmark of Home Depot customers nation wide, and glanced one off the post for the 7-5 cushion. But two-goal cushions in Old Bucks are famously tenuous. The next play was clutch. In fact super clutch. And you can read all the comparisons you want between Five Guys and Chick-fil-A but none will do justice to Gillian Kibbey burning Five Guys and a goalie to make the score 7-6. When Brian Urban tied the game at sevens the stage was set for the wildest finish in Old Bucks history.
Blue botched a clear so badly Mark Herr had the puck—and the presence of mind—to feed it to a camped-out Brian Urban—and Brian wasn’t there to buy tickets to Dead & Co. Dan Dougherty had no choice but to drop to his side and flail arms and legs wildly in an effort to ward off the point blank shot. It worked—but the rebound went right back to Brian where, again, he fired into the flailing Dan who batted the puck away with his blocker. Brian would’ve had a third crack at it had not Joe Peugeot skated up and grabbed the crossbar, throwing the net off its moorings. What the move lacked in fairness it made up for in chutzpah. It was not only delay of game but delay of game-winning goal.
The next time the puck was in play it got deflected over the netting. There was now 40 seconds on the clock and it was the only puck in the entire rink. Most people headed for the exits. The Red bench cleared, everyone skating across the ice to avoid the concrete short cut to the locker room. Meantime the Zamboni driver was making a valiant effort not only to retrieve the puck but to toss it back over the netting. His first throw came up short and the puck rolled away into the corner where they keep the surplus goals. Precious seconds ticked off the clock; the ice was now cluttered with players holding sticks and water bottles, but the driver was not deterred. He got the puck and tossed it over the netting with 10 seconds to spare.
By the merest of chances it went right to Chris Chairmonte. With no malice or guile—just an instinctive reaction to every motor neuron in his brain firing at once, he went on a one-man all-exclusive tear toward the Red goal, dodging in and out of players like they were in the Stanford Marching Band and he was a tailback for Cal. He even took a veering detour around center ice where Brian Urban and Dan Dougherty were having a family-friendly parley going on of the kind you see in handshake lines—before he crossed the blue line where Chetti awaited him, still at his post, notwithstanding the wholesale desertion of his entire team.
It was a literal buzzer-beating goal. And because of it these chronicles are enhanced thereby. And AI can never hope to write its equal.
Jodie Foster is back playing Iris, the 12-year old streetwalker whom Travis rescued from the clutches of Harvey Keitel in Taxi Driver. She’s blossomed into a successful seller of Zumba apparel to one-percenters in Brooklyn Heights. She tries to rescue Travis from his brooding funk—get him to retire to Florida, but he refuses go as long as DeSantis is governor. They have a final, emotional tete-a-tete on a park bench at dawn with the Queensborough bridge in the background, thrown into stark relief by the rosy glow of sunrise. Travis tells Iris he won’t leave New York until Trump is in jail. Then Alvie Singer and Annie Hall show up and they all go out for bagels.
And, to top it off, the movie is AI written which distinguishes it from Old Bucks whose stories not even AI could dream up. Take Week 28, for example. Old Bucks returned after a two-week hiatus in honor of Passover and Easter. AI, in turn, would have had Old Bucks playing hockey on Easter, just like the Masters played golf, because AI is not religiously observant….Speaking of the Masters, how about Freddie Couples, making the cut at 63, the oldest player ever to do so. We have a couple of Freddies in Old Bucks too. Ken Blankstein comes to mind, his blue jersey entitling him to play as long as the goalies will put up with it. We saw him before the game, going between locker rooms just like he did when he used to divvy up the squads. Now Brian Urban does it, which is something AI can do just as well—and once that happens Old Bucks will be eligible for FanDuel and DraftKIngs betting lines.
Brian’s teams were a little lopsided, not in terms of talent, but in terms of Joes, with four on Blue and only one—Joe Tona—on Red. Talent-wise they were pretty even thanks to the last second shunting of Jim Heffern over to Blue to plug the hole left by the absent Mike Valenzano. Mike was a “yes” on the app but a “no” at game time, suffering from a stiff back after camping out on a sidewalk all night to buy tickets for Dead & Company. Dan Dougherty, incidentally, played goalie for Blue and Chetti for Red, and each of them seemed a little rusty after giving up a couple of softies to start the game, John Lupisella scoring for Blue and Josh Hunter for Red. Then Chris Chairmonte did his patented coast-to-coast rush with the one-armed backhanded dangle through Chetti’s five hole to give Blue the 2-1 lead. But another goal by Josh and a couple snipes by Joe Tona (whose burgundy jersey has gone the way of Kenny’s clean shaven look) had Red up 4-2 where the game lingered for a good 20 minutes stuck in an action-packed but still goalless drought.
John Lupisella scored again while Red was distracted, focused on shutting down the keystone of Blue’s offense, Joe Herbert. In fact Red shut down Joe Herbert, Joe Bruno and Joe McNamara. But they left Joe Peugeot wide open and he roofed it over Chetti with a sweet dish from Pat Saedal. The game was tied at fours and John Lupisella was sensing it. He buried a rebound for the go-ahead goal (and the hatter) and Ryan Crowell gave Blue the 6-4 lead. Blue went into its prevent defense where four players stayed back while Frankie harried the Red zone solo, each crush-and-rush resembling a greyhound loosed from its leash, each foray behind the Red net adding a comic touch to the elasticity with which Old Bucks defines “defense”.
But four back still couldn’t stop Joe Bruno and Brian Urban from hooking up and making the game a nail-biting 6-5. Jim Heffern went to work, fixing a broken play with the same doer mentality that is a hallmark of Home Depot customers nation wide, and glanced one off the post for the 7-5 cushion. But two-goal cushions in Old Bucks are famously tenuous. The next play was clutch. In fact super clutch. And you can read all the comparisons you want between Five Guys and Chick-fil-A but none will do justice to Gillian Kibbey burning Five Guys and a goalie to make the score 7-6. When Brian Urban tied the game at sevens the stage was set for the wildest finish in Old Bucks history.
Blue botched a clear so badly Mark Herr had the puck—and the presence of mind—to feed it to a camped-out Brian Urban—and Brian wasn’t there to buy tickets to Dead & Co. Dan Dougherty had no choice but to drop to his side and flail arms and legs wildly in an effort to ward off the point blank shot. It worked—but the rebound went right back to Brian where, again, he fired into the flailing Dan who batted the puck away with his blocker. Brian would’ve had a third crack at it had not Joe Peugeot skated up and grabbed the crossbar, throwing the net off its moorings. What the move lacked in fairness it made up for in chutzpah. It was not only delay of game but delay of game-winning goal.
The next time the puck was in play it got deflected over the netting. There was now 40 seconds on the clock and it was the only puck in the entire rink. Most people headed for the exits. The Red bench cleared, everyone skating across the ice to avoid the concrete short cut to the locker room. Meantime the Zamboni driver was making a valiant effort not only to retrieve the puck but to toss it back over the netting. His first throw came up short and the puck rolled away into the corner where they keep the surplus goals. Precious seconds ticked off the clock; the ice was now cluttered with players holding sticks and water bottles, but the driver was not deterred. He got the puck and tossed it over the netting with 10 seconds to spare.
By the merest of chances it went right to Chris Chairmonte. With no malice or guile—just an instinctive reaction to every motor neuron in his brain firing at once, he went on a one-man all-exclusive tear toward the Red goal, dodging in and out of players like they were in the Stanford Marching Band and he was a tailback for Cal. He even took a veering detour around center ice where Brian Urban and Dan Dougherty were having a family-friendly parley going on of the kind you see in handshake lines—before he crossed the blue line where Chetti awaited him, still at his post, notwithstanding the wholesale desertion of his entire team.
It was a literal buzzer-beating goal. And because of it these chronicles are enhanced thereby. And AI can never hope to write its equal.