Life in the Philadelphia region (and beyond) from the ever-mobile desk of a Pennsylvania ex-pat living in South Jersey. Politics, sports, restaurants, food and drink reviews, family updates, considerations on celebrity, lots of photos and much more updated darn near daily.
It's a big weekend around Another Delco Guy, with Jump Rope for Heart, a visit to the grandparents and the Seneca War Eagles Beef and Beer on tap for tomorrow. Sunday it's time to settle in front of the TV to watch Danica in Daytona and THE OSCARS!
So the Oscars got me to thinking about best performances. DeNiro in Raging Bull, Brando in On the Waterfront, Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy, Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Amazing performances by some of the best actors who have ever lived.
Which got me to thinking...
What are the best performances from otherwise bad actors?
Nicolas Cage as Ben Sanderson in 'Leaving Las Vegas' - Cage is generally awful, thinking that YELLING a lot is acting, but this is a really nuanced, haunting role.
Brendan Fraser as Clayton Boone in 'Gods and Monsters' - Fraser may well be the worst actor on earth, but his minimalist approach to this role was impressive.
Helen Hunt as Carol Connelly in 'As Good as it Gets' - I've never liked her and she was passably appealing in this one, so I will give her the #4 spot.
The restaurant where I ate lunch had ESPN News looping when I went in today. The Tiger Woods statement was shown in its entirety at the top of the hour. It wasn't a pretty 13 minutes.
Is it just me or has someone scooped Tiger's brain out with a melon baller and inserted an android processor which just mouths words in a nearly human manner? i know the guy is known for his focus and lack of emotion on the golf course, but this was just unreal.
The presentation varied between the world's #1 golfer and uber philanderer staring at the papers in front of him and reading, or apparently freezing up in his speech and looking straight at the camera. Not pretty either way.
The best part was at the end when the robot known as Tiger walked over to his mom and his programmers had them embrace ion a long hug while the rest of the people in the front row stared at them, praying 'please god don't let him try to hug me.'
My brother and I had a spirited IM discussion about the Tigercast. He was amazed at the 'entitlement' the public felt toward Tiger and how much is being expected of him. Matt notes a belief that Tiger owes us nothing. I beg to disagree.
One of the reasons this guy has such problems is that he has no emotion beyond himself, not for golf, not for his wife, not for me, a fan of the game, or apparently for anything else. And he showed it again today.
While it's very true that infidelity is common in the world and probably more common among sports stars, that isn't really the issue. What I saw today was a guy trying to come before the public for its blessing and doing it with such hollowness that he was rendered unbelievable and even more pathetic.
He didn't have to do this. Tiger chose to be part of the public theater. If he was going to go out there and do this, he had a responsibility to do it well. If he couldn't do it well (which was apparently the case) someone should have told him to just stay silent and move on to the next phase of his therapy and ignore us. Because otherwise he ends up looking like a guy who felt like he had to go out and say that he was putting his wife and family first, but not because he necessarily felt that way.
I am not at all saying I won't be a fan of Tiger the golfer when he comes back, but I'll be a fan for the same reason I always have been- because he can do amazing things on a golf course, not becasue he is the accessible everyman on the golf course, a la Arnie Palmer. In the mean time, I want him to go away and get better and stop wandering though my life, blathering on about things it's clear he has no solid grip on yet.
I'm staying out of the 15 degree temps here this afternoon and trying to stay warm through fuming jealousy that my brother is down in Florida, looking out at the Atlantic Ocean from his 30th floor room. Here in Moorestown, it's so frigging cold that the water in my washer froze over night.
So while I am letting that thaw out, I've been perusing the internet. Now some of you may know of my fascination with both celebrity and real estate. Probably because I have neither. Somehow this afternoon I found the perfect blog that combines BOTH celebrities and real estate. For instance if you wanted to know that NASCAR driver Elliott Sadler (getting married today)has his 7000 sq. ft. place at 108 Conway Court in Mooresville, NC up for a cool 4.5, the Real Estalker has that for you. Looking for a fixer-upper? She'll put you onto that resurgent former tiny pissed off guy from NYPD Blue, Nick Turturro, who has his 5 BR in Tarzana up for $1.25 mil. Could be his recent separation from Lissa Espinosa or the red leather furniture holding the price down.
It's pretty LA-centric, but they also have some stuff from Florida and NYC celebs with places on the market. The author's (she calls herself 'mama') reviews of each place remind me of well every real estate agent I ever met and the commenters (she calls them 'children') are vicious.
Try to stay warm. Unless you're my brother, who should try not to fall off the hotel into the ocean.
This is a year people will talk about for a very long time, both locally, as well as nationally and globally.
On a local level, the major story is the Phils breaking the curse of Billy Penn and winning it all for the first time in 28 years. What a season and what a parade! Chase Utley said it best. We also had the usual vultures circling Andy Reid, only to see him pull a rabbit out of the hat again and get the Eagles to an improbable playoff bid.
The economy collapsed, despite every effort to give billions of taxpayer dollars to wealthy people. Gas prices rocketed to over $4 and then dropped back to $1.35 here in Moorestown. More than 300 Americans died int Iraq War, a fact that is sadly well down the list of 2008 events.
Michael Phelps outswam everyone in Bejing, including tiny 14 year old Chinese gymnasts. The big story in China for the year was the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in May. Terrorists struck Mumbai in an bloody week of fighting that killed more than 300. Israel began an assault on Gaza this week, preparing for an invasion.
And I made an important decision about my future that I will talk about another time.
In many ways 2008 was a rough year. I feel very lucky to be able to be looking forward to 2009 while still being able to say that 2008 was a pretty good year here.
From Another Delco Guy to you - Happy New Year. Be safe and enjoy!
Yesterday I got the news that Paul Newman died just before John and I left for the ball park. It's not something I was ready for or the kind of thing you want to hear on a Saturday, or I guess any day for that matter.
Paul Newman played the kids of guys I easily identify with. Guys with fast smiles, quick wit but a darker, more intense side. There's a reason he played the hero in two film adaptations of Richard Russo's books, Empire Falls and Nobody's Fool. He was dashing and cool, but a thinking man's star. And, despite those devastating blue eyes, his on-screen relationships didn't seem to come easily to him. He was, for all his star power, an everyman.
My favorite role is from Nobody's Fool, where he played Sully, the town handyman and 60-something teenager who enjoys his beer. It's really Newman's first role that acknowledged his age and he is it with his usual grudging panache. I'm also a big fan of his work in Absence of Malice, playing the son of a mafia boss who's just trying to make his way when he is accused of murder. He does anger so well in this film and also brings a mis-cast Sally FIeld along to create excellent intellectuial and sexual tension. My son knew exactly who Paul Newman was when I decsibed him as the voice of Doc Hudson from Cars. Newman cut across three generations.
To me, his work as a philanthropist and supporter of liberal causes in addition to his business and racing interests go a long way to demonstrating that Paul Newman didn't just entertain, he worked to show us what we too could do with our talents if we just worked as hard as he did.
I met Tim Russert last May in Buffalo, New York as he spoke as the home-town guest to a conference he attended. It was a few weeks before father's day and he spent most of his 40 minute speech talking about his dad, Big Russ. He also spun some fun yarns from the set of Meet the Press and took us inside what his day is like.
Afterwards, he stood around the makeshift conference bar with a few of us political junkies and had a beer, talking about the possibilities of the 2008 race that was still a year away at the time. He was down-to-earth, extraordinarily well-informed and generous with his insights and time.
I chose the image today from the 244 on flickr because it was not your standard headshot and seemed to capture the guy I met over a beer in his hometown. Thanks to Timothy Pedersen.
For quite some time I really didn't think that much of Tim Russert's work on NBC. For some reason, his style and I did not connect and I generally avoided Meet the Press, which I considered a poor competitor to This Week.
Then came the White Board Moment.
On a night when seemingly no one on television was able to explain just what was happening, Tim Russert threw aside the technology and the maps and the millions of dollars of stuff at his disposal and communicated directly with the American public. He clearly showed us what was happening and how important Florida had become.
With a $2 white board.
In that moment I felt understood this guy and how well he connected with the US populace. Last year, I was gratified to find that my analysis was correct, but more gratified to get a chance to hear him talk about his dad and his son, to thank his wife for all of her time spent helping him and to thank those of our group for helping students like his son Luke go to college.
Last week he got to see Luke graduate from Boston College. Russert had done an awful lot in his career, but I am glad that "Little Russ" got the chance to see that moment before the screen went dark yesterday.
I learned the hard way a few years back to always make sure I log off my email when I step away from the
computer. The FBI seems to think that Larry Mendte didn't learn that lesson until this week.
A Philly.com story today notes that the FBI was called into the Larry Mendte - Alycia Lane email case when a CBS3 staffer found a computer logged into Lane's Yahoo Mail account months after the station had fired her. The staffer let Lane know. No one is saying WHO exactly called the FBI, but Mt guess is the station wanted to make sure it wasn't on the hook for this one and made sure it was covered by getting the feds involved.
Delco Guy Mendte is in trouble here. The feds have been on this for months. He's off the air until it gets cleared up. His wife is still on the air over at Fox29, but my guess is that she is SERIOUSLY pissed. I'm not thinking 29 is going to pick Mendte up to fill the Huddleston gap.
Fellow Delco Guy Larry Mendte, anchor on CBS3's evening newscasts and husband of Channel 29 anchor (and super hottie) Dawn Stensland, is in hot water with the FBI.
Philly.com is reporting that the FBI is investigating Mendte for possibly reading former co-worker Alycia Lane's private email. On Thursday, FBI agents seized Mendte's personal computer at his home. His lawyer confirmed it. You might remember Alycia Lane from her own e-mail scandal where she sent racy pictures to sportscaster Rich Eisen, whose wife found them. Oh. and that incident with the NYC cop.
This looks bad. First, the feds do A LOT of homework before they make a move. They're darn sure they have Mendte here. Secon, he's a journalist and they took his personal computer. That's a pretty touchy area and I've got to think that the judge issuing the search warrant gave this some careful review.
Why do I care beyond the obvious prurient interest? Mendte grew up in Lansdowne, Delaware County and went to nearby Monsignor Bonner High School. He's always seemed like a good guy to me. I can't imagine why a guy like him would get involved in a mess like this. He's off the air at CBS3 right now, but his bio is still up on the website. So was Alycia Lane's for a week or so before she got her walking papers.
Ashley Alexandra Dupre has already posed naked!!!! I am shocked. And apparently GGW producer Joe Francis had no idea he already owned 'hours' of footage of Eliot Spitzer's $4300 career crasher. I guess if you had Francis's legal problems you might forget Dupre, but I think If I had the footage every college guy and pervy governor is looking for I might remember it.
Francis apparently forgot Dupre's 2003 18th birthday debacle in Miami Beach when the Jackson, NJ teen got thrown out of her hotel after a fight with a friend and then joined the GGW bus for a week. I generally avoid bus transportation, but I might consider this one. Anyway, somebody in the GGW empire remembered the now-infamous Dupre's body of work from the bus and saved Francis ac cool $1 million.
My guess is that she'll still get a deal from the bunny mag. The GGW website is like $30 for a month. Or so I have heard. The bunny magazine is a few bucks. And it has great articles. Hef's got the change. He'll put it up to give horny American men a cut-rate look at the Girl Who Went Brought Down the Spitz.
Remember this past summer when some moron at Southwest Arilines took it upon herself to decide that a paying customer was wearing a too-short miniskirt and threw Kyla Ebbert off the plane?
Then, blessedly, she disappeared off the face of the earth, except for parody writers and on myspace.
Until yesterday, that is, when Ebbert announced that she had posed nude for Playboy. Like we all didn't see THAT one coming! It took about 12 minutes for the photos to be leaked to the internet. If you must see the images, here they are, but you have to go to confession later.
Somehow we all knew that it would eventually end like this for Eddie Griffin. Maybe the details of his death were not set in stone, but somehow you knew that his life would be tragically short, and that we would read of his violent passing in the paper one day.
Griffin was a wonder on the basketball court at Roman Catholic. 6'10" with explosive speed and a nice outside jumpshot. He wasn't afraid to mix it up inside either and was capable of domination against high schoolers as well as playground foes.
I remember seeing him steal the ball from an opponent going up for a shot in a summer league game, go around a defender, take it coast to coast and slam it home behind his back. It was pure virtuosity.
All I could say was "Jesus!" Coach Dzik sat beside me and just laughed.
But all was not well with Griffin. Teammates didn't have much good to say about him. There were rumors out of Roman of dark moments, a horrible temper. His one season at Seton Hall was marred by an ugly locker room fight.
His NBA career never lived up to the potential. There were car wrecks, problems with teammates and stays at Betty Ford and mental hospitals. The Twolves cut him this year after finally deciding that it wasn't going to get any better.
The lights appeared to be going out on Eddie Griffin's life. I remember thinking that maybe he would get it together this summer and play again, but it was not meant to be.
After medical examiners had to use dental records to identify his remains following the train wreck that ended his life, his lawyer spoke with uncharacteristic bluntness for an attorney:
"Eddie was a wonderful, gentle soul, but he was an alcoholic," Rusty Hardin, Griffin's attorney, told the Houston Chronicle. "Alcohol always got in the way. The one thing the Rockets didn't know and none of us knew was the extent of the problem. It's really tragic."
Alcohol and depression are a tragic combination. They rob the world of great people every day. My heart goes out to those who knew Eddie Griffin well and I hope they remember him as I do, smiling and laughing, giving teammates high fives after a summer league game.
As you may have noticed, it is currently June 5th, wich means you have only 12 shopping days left to buy my Father's Day present. While my ex wife co-parent probably would not agree, I am nominating myself for Father of the Year and deserveto be rewarded properly. Since my kids are too little to do much shopping on their own, I've got a few ideas for you all!
Samsung's Deluxe Q1 Ultra - This thing is HOT!!!! An ultra mobile 800mhz wireless computer with full keyboard and 7" screen. A STEAL at only $1200.
Apple iPhone - this is probably the convergence product that would break what my lil Bro calls my "PC brainwashing." It's pricy, like everthing from Apple, but I am guessing that when Paris gets out of prison, she will be ditching the Sidekick for one of these and I want to be right there with her.
Wireless XBox with 20 GB Harddrive - this one is more for the boy than me. He loves his baseball on the Box, but ours is getting a bit elderly and needs to be kicked up a notch. If ya can spare the change, spring for a pair of wireless controllers too!
Former cutsey child actor turned 20 year old trainwreck Lindsay Lohan wrecked her Mercedes SL-65 on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills last night. She walked away from the wreck and was treated and released for injuries to her chest (God, I hope she's ok. She's already had so much work done on that chest.)
TMZ reports that investigators found 'a usable amount of cocaine' in the car. Jesus. she MUST have been destroyed to leave an ounce of blow on the front seat in The Hills. LAPD charged Lohan with DUI.
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