Bobby Murcer: 1946-2008
A sad tip of the Yankees cap today to Bobby Murcer, who passed away Saturday at age 62, after suffering since late 2006 from a brain tumor.

Murcer, the only man to have played with both Mickey Mantle and Don Mattingly, spent the last 25 years of his baseball career in the broadcast booth, proving that an Oklahoma drawl can succeed on New York airwaves if mixed with the right amount of charm, wit and genuine love for the Yankees.

Center field for the New York Yankees is perhaps the most revered position in all of sports. And unlike other high-profile jobs — say, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys or center for the Los Angeles Lakers — it's the only one in which you could do it at 5-11, 180 lbs.

As a player and broadcaster, you could relate to Bobby Murcer in ways that you can't relate to today's bulked-up gazillionaire athletes and polished talking heads who read one network promo/sponsorship after another. He carried himself as if he won some kind of Willy Wonka contest and got to be part of the Yankees for life. His appreciation was always apparent, his demeanor folksy but not clownish.

I'm glad he got to live the dream. He made being a Yankees fan that much better.

Murcer Links: Baseball-Reference.com | Wikipedia | Gallery | YES Network Reflections


In New York, Even the People You Watch People Watch
Shot downtown on Broadway.

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut. Sometimes You Don't
A Mounds candy bar commercial breaks out in Central Park.

Why is Preferred Photo Still Indexed on Google Shopping?

I'm in the market for a 50mm f/1.4 lens for my Pentax K10D and, as I often do, I included a Google shopping search to my price-comparing routine.

The cheapest price, by about 12.5% ($25 on $200) is offered by Preferred Photo. Being the highly usable app that it is, Google links not only to customer reviews of the product, but of the vendor. And the overwhelmingly majority of people say that Preferred Photo is untrustworthy. Like not even close.

Here is where reviews of Preferred Photo start, at 10 reviews per page. They're all 1-star reviews (seems you can't give zero stars) out of five stars, until the 49th review on the fifth page. That relatively excellent review begins: "Would not recommend this seller to anyone." From there, it's another stream of 1-star reviews from disappointed and angered customers.

The reviews on Epinions and ResellerRatings mirror those same frustrations.

So why are these crooks still indexed on Google's shopping engine? How could Google not have a system that flags administrators when a merchant receives an avalanche of dissatisfied reviews, and how could it not have a policy to remove that merchant from its shopping index?

Google's products search cannot benefit at all from steering potential customers to shady businesses, and it surprises and disappoints me that it could happen today to an honest person.


Need More Space? This Should Do For $70 Million
I don't know how gazillionaires go about finding new residences, but it probably doesn't involve laptops at Starbucks, Craig's List and bullshit descriptions like "cozy," "needs TLC" and "a fixer-upper's dream" — you know, euphemisms for "shithole shoebox."

But NYC's most luxurious for-sale homes do indeed live online.

Take this five-bedroom penthouse triplex at the Pierre Hotel. Take it, that is, if you've got $70,000,000 laying around.

What a bargain, though. Assuming a 20% down payment and a $56 million, 30-year mortgage at a current rate of 6.12%, your monthly payment (including a $38,720 maintenance fee) would be only $378,800.85. Sounds steep till you compare it to NASA's 2009 budget of $17.9 billion (don't worry, all the problems on this planet are solved) or even or the $80 million the Yankees paid for Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa.

For the more budget conscious: Four-bedroom space at the legendary Dakota for $18.5 million.

Also see: Priciest NYC real estate available.


Ladies and Gentlemen, the Batshit Hogan Family

• Sept. 26, 2006 — ticketed for 115 mph in 70 mph zone
• Feb. 8, 2007 — ticketed for 57 mph in a 30 mph zone
• April 25, 2007 — ticketed for 106 mph in 70 mph zone
• Aug. 10, 2007 — ticketed for 82 mph in 45 mph construction zone
• Aug. 26, 2007 — crashes while racing on public stretch, causing injuries to former U.S. Marine Graziano that are expected to keep him in a nursing home for life


How I Hope Giambi's Walk-Off Homer Impacts the Yankees

Let's see 'em go from this:

To this:

Imperfect Central Park Has Flying Cars?

Review sites come in handy when researching the quality of consumer electronics and the trustworthiness of online retailers. They may even save you from sharing a hotel room with roaches. But when it comes to must-see destinations, the write-ups can be quite silly.

Take the Yelp.com review of Central Park, for example.

I'm a little shocked to see that anyone would take the time to give Central Park less than five stars. Not saying that everyone must hold the place as one of their dearest, but who comes out of there thinking, "Pffft. I gotta warn the masses about this place!"

People like these:

Kymberli C. from Clayton, Calif. says the place was "a lot less scary than I thought it would be." A lot less scary. A LOT less scary. How f**king scary do you think Central Park is? Do these pictures resemble a gangland or something? Let's get this out of the way first: If you're an adult and you believe Manhattan to be a city where people dodge stray bullets to get to work, you're a f**ktard of the highest order. Feel free to watch your judge TV and briefcase game shows, but please don't f**k without birth control.

Diane M. of San Francisco, Calif. contends that while the place is huge, "there isn't much to see." As opposed to ... a circus on Mars? Yeah, Diane, if you're up for people-watching, definitely avoid this lame place.

Casey W., a local who probably didn't attend Columbia, writes, "the only reason I'm knocking a star is because it's so far uptown." Yeah, that's why I give the Grand Canyon only three stars. Who wants to deal without airport security? Ugh.

Mr. Met is from Stony Brook, NY, but must be by way of Uranus. He says, "There are several roads that allows cars that literally 'fly' through the park, so watch out." Yes, they literally fly. Up in the sky; it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a Central Park car. Very accurate review, Mr. Met. Thanks.

Finally, my favorite review comes from Jared R. of New York, who laments "There are not enough places to have sex here. I sat around tapping my foot all evening, but only the horses tapped back." Hahaha. No wonder that wimp from California was so scared.

Other Web Finds:

• Man Who Photographed 3,000 Women's Asses in Venice Is Arrested — You'd think after the first 2,500 he'd have enough spank material. This shit has been going on for years. Creeps abound at tourist spots, beaches, etc. They suck at life, but don't let them ruin your day simply because every one of theirs is closeted and lonely.

• IMDB.com: I'm a Dirty Filthy Cocksucking Cunt! — Eighteen reviewers gave this flick an average rating of 8.6/10, on par with Citizen Kane and It's a Wonderful Life.

• Yogi Berra's New Book: You Can Observe A Lot By Watching: What I've Learned About Teamwork From the Yankees and Life — Does anyone really think that 83-year-old Yogi Berra is sitting around writing books? The cover says "with Dave Kaplan," but I'm about 129 billion percent sure that Kaplan did the lion's share of the work. Like all of it. Hey Yogi, wnna hit that great Italian place we discovered last week? Nah, gotta bang out Chapter 6 tonight, or the publisher's gonna be on my ass.


I Would Have Stopped at Four ATM Signs Myself

Oh, they mean cash machine? My bad.


Before Grand Theft Auto IV, There Was Journey (Yep, Them)
I don't recall how I came to learn that there was a 1983 video game based on the band Journey. Perhaps I searched Google for "bar + man + singing + totally + gay" or maybe I was researching the history of coin-operated arcade games, a genre for which this game would place as my all-time second-favorite. (With all the rest being tied for first, of course.)

The object of the game, as described by the righteous Killer List of Video Games, is to "recover the instruments for the five members of the rock band Journey," without explanation as to why those instruments were seized in the first place. (Though I have a pretty good idea.)

In the bonus round, you act as a roadie who must push fans away from the concert stage. I'm presuming a healthy ratio of the rambunctious fans are women. Being trapped in 1983 is good for only two types of people: Baltimore Orioles fans and roadies for Journey. Gotta figure that the women pushing their way to Journey stages in 2008 are the same ones as from 1983. Try sharing those tales from the road with anyone who may have worked even a month with Motley Crue in 1985.

Other Web Finds:

• $1.18 Million Diamond on Amazon — When you're in the market for seven-figures' worth of precious jewels, you really can't go wrong with a place that bills itself as the world's largest bookseller.

• Clone-A-Willy — And to add to that million-dollar-plus shopping cart, Amazon also sells a sex toy in which you mold your hard dick into a custom vibrator for your gal.

• NFL.com's Outdated Giants Super Bowl Commemorative Jacket — For $200, you can proudly show off your Big Blue pride with this jacket adorned with patches celebrating the Giants' victories in Super Bowls XXI and XXV. Hmmm, anyone see something missing here? (As an aside, anyone who buys this NFC champs "helmet head" should be committed and sentenced to a lifetime of playing Journey video games.)

• Big Huge Labs' Flickr Toys — A bunch of free effects, frames and generators that you can apply to your library of Flickr photos.

• YouTube: Rob Halford Singing in Court — This is from when Judas Priest was on trial after it was alleged that subliminal messages in their song "Better By You, Better Than Me" had triggered suicide attempts in Nevada by two young men, one of which was "successful." That's some scary-ass shit, how only 18 years ago — in this supposed most advanced country in the world — a band could be put in trial because of how others may have interpreted their words. Guaran-f**king-tee you religious brainwashing and a fight against "Devil's music" played a role here, as pious loons continue to let thousands of years of telephone override common sense.

• People Riding Buses to Atlantic City For Profit — The New York Times illustrates how, for some, the vouchers Atlantic City casinos hand out to treat bus riders exceeds the cost of the fare itself. Hence, a profit without gambling a dime and a meager source of income for downtrodden folks.

• Dopes, Get Your Dirt — Phil Mushnick of the New York Post on more ridiculously priced collectibles from Steiner Sports and the New York Yankees, including a "2005 Opening Day Batter's Box Dirt Collage" for $120, an Ian Kennedy locker room name plate for $500 and a Jose Veras "game used" duffel bag for $250.


Links I Like

It's been awhile since I did a good, ol'-fashioned link dump, so let's see what's caught my interest of late:

• The Bare Necessities: A Generation Tries to Imagine Life Without iPods — A terrific Wall Street Journal column on the misguided attitudes of people who think they and the country are mired in financial malaise. "Americans of all income groups have made enormous gains in their standard of living in recent decades," writes Stephen Moore, who illustrates how cell phones and laptops are taken for granted when, only a generation ago, today's ho-hum possessions such as air conditioning, washing machines and microwaves were considered luxuries.

Yeah, it sucks that Canadian lap dances don't come at that 30% discount anymore, but a $150 guitar, a $150 digital camera and a $150 used bike can provide years of enjoyment, if you focus on those potential, self-directed positives instead of paying $150 to see Van Halen for two hours and then complaining about it.

Also, your closet doesn't have to be overflowing. Not sure if you knew that.

• Front Desk Tip — Did you know that greasing the front desk a mere $20 at a variety of Las Vegas Strip casinos can usually net you a cheap room upgrade? Here are more than 1,300 tales of success and failure.

• Gianna Michaels' Wikipedia Bio — I love this first line: "Gianna Michaels (born June 6, 1983) is an award-winning American pornographic actress." It's amazing how just one word, "pornographic," changes the entire context from something millions of women would want as their Wikipedia lead to something we sure never got from Britannica.

• Bear Stearns Mementos on eBay — When the company collapsed, people were spending up to $85 for BS hand puppets. Now the demand has quelled and people are treating this junk for what it is. Seriously, a café card? Jeez.

• Pettitte Vows to Teach of PED Dangers — Yeah, he must really care about the kids when he — like Clemens and all the other phonies — elected to not speak with George Mitchell's investigators, not before and not after he was fingered by Brian McNamee. Remind me to carry a Bible with me the next time I bullshit someone.

• Whiten Your Teeth the Natural Way — Strawberries + baking powder. Who knew? I do know that hot dogs and beer does not work.

• Liquid Ass Fart Spray — Jeff Bezos' dream of becoming the biggest seller of fart-smelling products has become a reality! This is where the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" feature makes for a few funnies. Hmmm, what should I buy with this liquid ass fart spray? Ah yes, insta poop!

• YouTube: Man Trapped in Elevator for 41 Hours — This freaky video, which will certainly give me nightmares, accompanies "Up and Then Down," an article in the New Yorker detailing Nicholas White's looooong cigarette break in 1999, when he was stuck alone in a McGraw-Hill Building elevator for almost two days.

Time to play: Who would you most and least like to get stuck in an elevator with?

Most:
1. Anyone with a deck of cards and a lot of money
2. The CEO whom I will threaten to sue every 10 minutes

Least:
1. The dude who had Taco Bell for lunch
2. Anyone who thinks Jesus is going to help us
2. Ugly receptionist who hasn't gotten laid since the dork in accounting banged her after the 2002 office holiday party


My First Photo Exhibition
For the past eight years in the space, I've shared with you hundreds — and perhaps thousands — of my photos. Everything from baseball to boobies to booze. From the Brooklyn Bridge to the Bronz Zoo to Bon Jovi. You get the idea.

Like William Hung, however, I had never received any formal training. (Shock of the century, I know.)

That all changed in February when I enrolled in a 9-week Photography II course, taught by Charles Lavoie, at Photo Manhattan. With weekly lectures, tutorials, homework assignments and small-group critiques, it was the perfect bridge between the Super Bowl and Opening Day. Certainly better than watching the f**king Knicks continue to torch the heralded legacy of New York City basketball.

The course wraps this Thursday, April 10 at 7 p.m., with a public exhibition by approximately 20 students from three classes. All are welcome to attend the showing at Photo Manhattan (51 W. 14 Street). (See past exhibits.)

My contribution will be six photos from my chosen subject of NYC underground. The subway system allowed me access to a wealth of people, lines and colors, without being exposed to rain or cold, and without limitations of shooting only during daylight hours.

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