March Madness Predictions - Friday's Games

March Madness 2009

And here are Friday’s picks:

East Regional

Pitt over ETSU. East Tennessee State sounds like a historically Black college, doesn’t it? But it’s not. Outside of that, not much on the ETSU front. Pitt by 25.

Tennessee over Oklahoma State. Red state match-up. But Tennessee’s guys have the NCAA experience. And I’m betting that the players all voted for Obama.

Florida State over Wisconsin. Toney Douglas will make the cheese-heads look like, well, cheese-heads. The Big 10 can’t win a BCS bowl or this game.

Xavier over Portland State. The X-Men, not to be confused with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, will rule until the government bans them.

South Regional

Temple over Arizona State. Temple’s star is named Dionte Christmas. Or Dionte Xmas. But never Dionte Happy Holidays.

Syracuse over Stephen F. Austin. The Orange parlayed 6 OT’s into a 3 seed. They’ll put this one away by the half.

Midwest Regional

Louisville over Morehead State. Morehead just won the play-in. Now they get to play-out. The ‘Ville by 25.

Ohio State over Siena. And the Saints go marching out.

Arizona over Utah. The 12 over 5 plays out here as ‘Zona has 2-3 NBA prospects and Utah has the ghost of Keith Van Horn.

Wake Forest over Cleveland State. Years ago Cleveland State pulled a major upset and that coach ended up in a crack-house. Gave new meaning to the phrase – “Take the rock to the house.”

West Virginia over Dayton. Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins looks and dresses like an Irish mobster extra from Miller’s Crossing. His players call him “Don.”

Kansas over North Dakota State. The kids playing for the Bison are the only young people left in the entire state of North Dakota. Or as most people call it, “Uhhh, Canada?”

USC over BC. The Trojans have length. And height. And mass. And a win.

Michigan State over Robert Morris. The one Big 10 team that can make a very deep run.
And please, ZZ in Italian is pronounced TZ so his name is IT-ZO, not IZ-ZO. Just as it is PETE-ZA, not PIZZ-A. It doesn’t matter how you pronounce Robert Morris. After this game you’ll never hear the name again.

West Regional

Marquette over Utah State. A good team minus a good guard beats a team with guys in their late 20s back from their 2 year Mormon missions.

Missouri over Cornell. They both go up and down the court with some speed. Only the Tigers will score.

Everything Matters-2/19/09-Oscars Edition - part 6 (the last)

Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 6

SUPPORTING ACTOR – the nominees are Josh Brolin/Milk,
Robert Downey Jr./Tropic Thunder, Philip Seymour Hoffman/Doubt,
Heath Ledger/The Dark Knight, and Michael Shannon/Revolutionary Road.
Has there ever been as great a lock to win anything as Heath Ledger to win
Best Male Supporting Actor? Maybe Secretariat to win the Belmont after
winning the Kentucky Derby by something like 37 lengths. And I’m not so sure Secretariat’s performance was any better than that by Heath ledger as The
Joker. He will be missed. And nice of the Academy to announce today that when he wins his Oscar will go to his daughter Matilda… when she turns 18!
Hmmm, somebody go to Shirley Temple’s house. She got one when she was like 6.
Oh, but she was already sleeping with Harry Warner… Never mind.
So Josh, Robert, Philip and Michael, thank you playing. We’ve got some wonderful parting gifts for you including the home version of the Academy Awards and
some Z-Brick wall tile and we hope to see you again sometime.
Just not here on this stage tonight.

BEST ACTRESS – Anne Hathaway/Rachel Getting Married, Angelina Jolie/Changeling,
Melissa Leo/Frozen River, Meryl Streep/Doubt, and Kate Winslet/The Reader.
Okay, Melissa Leo, great that you’re here for a small, indie film. You represent all the talented indie actresses out there who aren’t murdered by Phil Spector and just continue
to do quality work year in an year out. But there’s no way in hell you’re getting an Oscar tonight.
And Angelina, with your pipe-cleaner arms and legs you’re almost believable as an actual human rather than an action heroine who packs a punch. If you made a fist I’m afraid the bones in your hands would poke through the skin so please don’t. You do look good in a cloche. But Oscar hasn’t given an award to anyone in a cloche since 1935. Next.
Meryl, you’ve got about 9 Oscars but please, not for this overblown, hyper-melodramatic
soap opera about priestly and sisterly (nunly?) shenanigans in the Bronx years ago.
Priests molesting children and the twist is SHE NEVER MADE THE CALL TO HIS OLD PARISH BUT HE LEFT ANY WAY??? Like O. Henry. Unpublished O. Henry.
Anne Hathaway gave the best performance of the year as the sister interrupted in Rachel Getting Married. She was tough, she was crazy, she was victimized, she was cold-blooded. In other words she totally inhabited this character. Terrific.
But she won’t win cause the Academy likes Holocaust stories and special needs stories.
And Kate Winslet plays an unrepentant Nazi, BUT SHE CAN’T READ. A special-needs Nazi. Her final solution is learning to read. I hated this film but she will win because the Academy does not ask me to be the final arbiter on taste. Yes, Germany needs to constantly reevaluate their national soul. A good place to be would be with their Hitler Youth Pope and his friend, the Holocaust denying Bishop.
Kate Winslet, Oscar winner.


BEST ACTOR – and the nominees are Richard Jenkins/The Visitor, Frank Langella/Frost/Nixon, Sean Penn/Milk, Brad Pitt/The CC of BB, and Mickey Rourke/
The Wrestler.
Again, Richard Jenkins, the male Melissa Leo, thank you for playing our game.
Make sure to get Brad’s autograph on the way out.
Frank Langella, nice caricature, nice cartoon, but I’m tired of hearing how great he was as Nixon. I always felt that I was watching Frank Langella ACT. A great actor, a great performance, would’ve made me forget that. Sorry, Frank. (The great Mr. By-the-by from The 12 Chairs)
Brad Pitt, a true triumph of something, lets call it PEP, performance enhanced performance (technology akin to steroids in baseball) but certainly not acting.
No way.
It’s a contest between two heavyweights – Sean Penn, brilliant as dead gay martyr Harvey Milk, and Mickey Rourke, brilliant as soon to be dead WWE martyr
Randy”the Ram” Robinson. Penn was great except for the guns. Harvey Milk had arms like Angelina Jolie. Sean has guns like Suge Knight. Just weird when they were on screen.
And Rourke looked like he really did have staples shot into his back. I think he really had a bypass. He’s got to win. If only to hear his speech. And he might just bring his surviving dogs on stage with him to accept. With a shout-out to Loki. Yes!

BEST PICTURE – and the nominees are The CC of BB, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire.
Basically a two-horse race between Milk and Slumdog.
The CC of BB will go down in history as the most nominations and the fewest wins.
But hey, it’s history.
Frost/Nixon, about as historically accurate as The 13th Warrior and that at least had Vikings and Neanderthals. On horseback!
The Reader, the reveal that she couldn’t read was about as subtle as the Woman is really a Man reveal, clear to anyone who ever lived in a big city, or had ever seen men and women before, in The Crying Game from a few years back. And do we really have to hear Kate Winslet prattle on about how she’s proud of her real woman’s body and how she likes her ass these days? Good for you, Kate. I’m glad you’ve beaten that whole negative self-image thing. But I go to the movies to see people I might not see in my bedroom. Oh wait. That’s what the internet is for. Never mind.
Milk would’ve won in any year without Slumdog so sorry, Harvey, and all the sons of Harvey. Your story will continue to inspire people. And maybe in your next life you’ll be allowed to get married. Just not to that moron Jack. What a maroon!
So the winner, Best Picture, as if there was any doubt, the single best picture of the year, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. Because, as well all know, it is written.
And because freida Pinto is the single most gorgeous woman in the movies today.
Jai Ho everybody! Please drive home safely.

Everything Matters - 12/11/08 Afternoon Edition

Brad Pitt’s new movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is up for a slew of Best Picture awards from major critics across America. It’s about a man who ages backwards – starts out old and ends up young. In L.A. it’s also known as The Dyan Cannon Story for the actress who was born in 1937, married Cary Grant in 1965, and based on her appearance at L.A. Laker games, is now 19 years old.

Also at the movies, Ron Howard’s new film, Frost/Nixon, about the 1970s David Frost interviews with disgraced former President Richard Nixon is getting good reviews but is not expected to do well at the box office. That’s because a similarly themed movie came out a few years back and did terribly – how many of you remember Griffin/Hitler, about the weird Merv Griffin interviews with disgraced former Fuehrer Adolf Hitler?
In the works however, should Frost/Nixon do well are Kimmel/Cheney, Letterman/Mugabe, and my favorite, The Ladies of The View/Putin.

Rod Blagojevich is refusing to resign as Governor of Illinois. He’s been indicted on federal charges of trying to sell the open Senate seat of President-Elect Barack Obama.
Funny, usually when your last name’s Blagojevich you’re not the Governor of Ilinois, you’re the former Serbian strongman being tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity. On second thought, having seen his hair, he should be tried at the Hague
for crimes against humanity.

Blagojevich is blaming the whole thing on bad luck. Yes, a black cat did cross his path. And then somehow it ended up on his head.

The Congress voted to give 14 billion in loans to GM, Ford and Chrysler. They’ll also create a “car czar”. The “Car Czar” will have 3 duties - oversight over the auto industry, raise environmental standards and create greener cars, and of course, as Czar, bring the Romanoff monarchy back to Russia.

I love how in the United States, a democracy, we’ve “borrowed” or “co-opted” the word Czar from Russia, our big enemy during the Cold War and the model for totalitarianism.
Need someone to run the war on drugs – Drug Czar. Need someone to oversee the bailed-out auto industry – Car Czar. I shouldn’t worry, it’s just a word. I’ll worry more when the Car Czar sends out the Cossacks to kill labor unionists, intellectuals and Jews.

The indicted Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is claiming he did nothing wrong. He wasn’t selling off the Senate seat. After watching the Federal Government bail out the banks, Wall Street and the auto industry, he was just looking to for the bail-out of Blagojevich Incorporated. Of which he is the only employee.

On the taped phone calls the government is using to build their case, Blagojevich can be heard saying “Fuck Obama” and Obama’s people “don’t want to give me anything but appreciation.” Soon he’ll be getting much more – an 8 x 12 cell, a metal toilet, and a 6’8” roommate with a shaved head named 8-Ball.

When Blagojevich says “Fuck Obama” on the tapes he’s upset because Obama didn’t represent the change that he needed. Matter of fact, he didn’t want change at all.
He wanted a million dollars in small bills, non-sequential serial numbers. But no change.

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, has called the auto industry bail-out “ass backwards”. Considering Vitter was a client of the DC Madam and liked to be dressed
in big, adult diapers when he met with prostitutes, thinking of Vitter and anything “ass backwards” is almost as unpleasant a picture as the roadkill perched on top of Rod Blagojevich’s head.

Ever since the Watergate scandal brought down Nixon in disgrace and he was forced to resign, every scandal anywhere has to have the suffix GATE attached. The current one in Illinois is no exception – Blago-Gate is what they’re calling it. First of all, Blago has no rhythm, no poetry. Blago sounds like someone who fights Popeye, or a weird minor character from Lord of the Rings, like a cousin of Bilbo or Frodo.
How about these alternatives to Blago-Gate –
1. Senate Fantasy Camp – Not just a week-end, spend 6 years with the Senators – only a million bucks.
2. Bla-Gate-Evich – it gets the Gate in there but keeps his Serbian heritage intact.
3. F@@k Obama Gate – it keeps Obama’s name front and center and is the number one choice among Republicans.
4. Spinning Lincoln-Gate – based on the great line about Illinois corruption from U.S. Attorney Patrick Sullivan.
5. Dirtier than Louisiana/New Jersey/Nevada/Arizona Gate – pick any of the other scandal-ridden states to make your comparison.
6. Spitzer wanted Pussy, I wanted Money Gate – two stupid Governors in one. And you get 2 of the 3 biggest cities in America.