Emptying The Steroids Bucket - The Rest of The Steroid Reposts

(Bill James recently came out entirely on my side in the steroids dispute (1) the impact of steroid use in MLB is overblown (2) in context of the history of baseball, from changes to ball, to park, to segregation, to amphetamine use, it's just without merit to argue that the record book reflected a level playing field that has now been tarnished by the steroid era (3) steroids weren't against the rules of baseball prior to 2003; the 90s memo by Fay Vincent that some now prop up as being evidence to the contrary is an attempt to give the commissioner a power he did not possess and most importantly (4) history will look at us as foolish, that this moralism of classifying steroids as a "bad, evil drug" is temporary, that future generations will not view their use as anathema but as part of an anti-aging regiment. 

I've been steadfast on all of these issues for years; life is long, we change our views; the next time a member of the BBWA says "none of these guys is ever going into the Hall of Fame" - just remember that; ARod will still be on the ballot 30 years from now - virtually everyone who currently has a HOF vote will be long gone; our lives will have changed in literally unimaginable ways (for example, until the age of 29 I never owned a computer; I'm not 38 and make half my living as an online college instructor; the next time I read the words I'm writing now will be on my phone - words that will circle around the globe seconds after I finish them; it took George Washington 2 weeks to find out he was President and I think I knew Michael Jackson had died before LaToya did - the idea that our view of steroids in fixed in the American consciousness forever because Mike Lupica says so is small)

Anyway - here's the rest of my old steroids talk)

In a typically unfunny and wrongheaded piece, Rick Reilly called for the MVP Awards won by those caught up in the PED hysteria to be turned over to the "clean" runners-up.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3915217

Putting aside that the degree to which the drugs aid performance in a statistically significant way has not been quantified, among the players Reilly chose as his new NL MVPs are Mike Piazza, Albert Pujols, and the player pictured above, Luis Gonzalez.

These are Gonzo's career home run totals for each of his 19 big league seasons:

0, 13, 10, 15, 8, 13, 15, 10, 23, 26, 31, 57, 28, 26, 17, 24, 15, 15, 8.

Should we play "one of these things is not like the other"?

I don't know what Gonzo took and I don't care, but it highlights the silliness of asterisk-mania. Yesterday's "A-Rod will give us a clean home run king!" becomes today's "look at how his lip quivers, that means he's telling a half truth!"

You don't know who took what, and you don't know what impact any of it had.

But yet, still, we are ripping and shredding away at a handful of guys, destroying legacies, threatening liberty. We've gone all Shirley Jackson, seemingly randomly choosing to destroy Player Y while leaving Player X intact. Barry Bonds goes to jail - Jason Giambi gets moustache day at Yankee Stadium.

It's foolish when placed in any kind of context.

In a baseball context, you have NL umpire Tim McClellan from Monday's Dan Partrick Radio Show saying somewhat bravely that he doesn't care at all about what anyone took prior to the drug testing policy in 2004.
McClellan's argument wasn't complicated. PED use wasn't against the rules prior to 2004 (and no, memos from commissioners didn't make it so, the office didn't have that unilateral ability - nor, of course, were the memos serious - there was never an attempt to enforce any type of PED policy, too much money rained down upon the owners for that to happen) and there has always been a boatload of actual breaking of the baseball rules, doctoring bats, balls, diamonds has always been part and parcel of our national pastime. Gaylord Perry's a confessed career long cheater; with full knowledge of that, the BBWA put him in the HOF. Whitey Ford cheated with winks and smiles, but his manipulation of the ball is legendary.

Patrick's response was typical, effectively saying: Can you really compare corking a bat to taking steroids?

Why not? Why no congressional hearings, meetings with the commissioner, years of outrage from sports pundits? When will Mike Lupica call Whitey Ford a disgrace? Isn't cheating cheating?

Patrick's additional response was, of course, that even if PEDs weren't against the rules, they were against the law - and that matters!

Know what else is illegal? Gambling. Is there a baseball clubhouse where illegal gambling doesn't occur constantly? Card games. NCAA pools. Golf. Constant violations of the law.

Where is the outrage?

I read Ball Four just like everyone else; I can never recall being a sports fan and not knowing that ballplayers gobbled speed like candy. Baseball players took illegal drugs to gain an advantage. They did it in the 80s, the 70s, the 60s and the 50s.

John Perricone, who has consistently and thoroughly been right about steroid use, recently unearthed a Sports Illustrated piece from 40 years ago in which the entire 1960s sports landscape was said to be awash in steroids.


Is there any debate about this? Taking drugs without prescriptions have always been part of baseball culture. And that's putting aside the gallons of cortisone athletes have pumped into their bodies their entire lives. Kirk Gibson gets shot up to hit a home run and he's a hero, Alex Rodriguez gets shot up to hit a home run and he loses his reputation.

How will the future regard this current hystorical period?

There's a book by Ray Kurzweil, called The Singularity is Near, the thesis of which is that by 2045, people will have merged with machines in ways that will effectively mean the end of the biological human being. The idea that when Alex Rodriguez retires ten years from now and then is first eligible for the HOF five years after that we'll still be consumed by what type of ointment he used in 2002 doesn't really seem worthy of serious discussion.

We've had a bad decade, you and me. There was a C-Span poll of American historians last week ranking each of the 43 US Presidents. I tend to distrust rankings like that, viewing American Presidents much like I view baseball managers - largely as fungible figureheads. The Phillies won the World Series in 2008 and Charlie Manuel was "in charge" but he deserves as much credit as McKinley does for "winning" the Spanish-American War. You can take the guy sitting in the dugout, I want Cole Hamels charging up San Juan Hill.

But there are exceptions. Malcolm Gladwell's new book Outliers discusses the commonalities of exceptionally successful people; I tend not to view the world this way; I see as outliers the people who are truly, painfully destructive - so painfully bad at their jobs that they cause incalculable harm. I didn't vote for Barack Obama because I thought he would bring hope to the hopeless - I voted for Barack Obama because George Bush spent 8 years destroying the ballclub. I don't need Obama to be Earl Weaver; I need him to stop giving Neffi Perez 450 plate appearances.

In two decades, historians may analyze the first decade of this millennium as the one from which the US couldn't recover. The economy never comes back, the engendered international hatred blows back time and time again - and the environmental collapse leads to conversations like "Remember when we had running water all 7 days a week? We were like Aqua Emperors! Now sacrifice the rabbit to Poseidon and pray we are allowed to bathe this week."

The American Empire was collapsing, will go the thesis of book upon book in 2030- and the media was consumed with Alex Rodriguez taking a variant of a drug that we now put in pre-natal vitamins. Instead of hearings about subprime lending and torture we hauled Rafael Palmeiro to Capital Hill. Alberto Gonzalez and Karl Rove got to walk free and Roger Clemens was a grand jury target. Dick Cheney, who hasn't left the US since 2010 for fear of being captured and hauled to the Hague for his much deserved war crimes trial lies in his hyperbaric chamber but Barry Bonds's trainer's mother in law had her house stormed by fifty-five federal agents.

We'll be owned by the Chinese. But at least Luis Gonzalez will have his MVP Award.

Slowly but surely, people outside of the traditional sports media, people less invested in institutionalism, are questioning the establishment view of the Bonds case. The sports media for years - for years - have treated Barry Bonds in a mocking, sneering way - the level of invective hurled at him for the better part of this decade has surpassed any for similarly positioned athletes. While NFL players who failed PED tests like Shawn Merriman and Rodney Harrison worked as network analysts last season, while NFL players like Ray Lewis and Leonard Little, implicated in actually serious crimes performed on the field week after week, while Kobe Bryant has been able to return to the life he had before Colorado - the sports media and an arm of the US Government has made it a mission to destroy Barry Bonds. Victor Conte got 6 months, but Greg Anderson did 12.


This is Jonathan Littman's article in Playboy entitled The Persecution of Barry Bonds; you'll read phrases like perjury trap and repeal of the 4th Amendment.

http://www.playboy.com/magazine/features/barry-bonds-2009/barry-bonds-p1.html


Many of us have recognized that the last decade has involved unchecked federal government power designed to suppress dissent, to attack those who would question it; and that government power relied on a compliant media, whose silence or overt support helped lead to as disasterous a decade as has occurred in our lifetimes.

Sports is not immune from this. The Jim Calhoun episode from last week is an excellent example.

Calhoun was asked at a press conference if, as the highest paid government official in the state of Connecticut, he'd join the Governor in giving up a fraction of his salary to help offset the billion dollar budget shortfall in that state.


To me, the story wasn't so much that Calhoun scoffed - screamed - told the reporter he was a clown and to shut up - to me, the story was the reaction of the sports media.


Reporters uncritically accepted Calhoun's line that he was beyond criticism given the 12 million dollars taken in by the UConn basketball program.


Beyond that Calhoun was wrong, UConn took in 7 million last year and spent 6 - Calhoun's implicitly taking credit for that money earned, despite never (far as I know) hitting a single jump shot.


But the sports media, having created this coach worship culture - where we are taught to lap up whatever pearls drip from the mouths of these great leaders of men - didn't make that distinction. Moreover, the question as to where that 12 million (actually one million) goes wasn't asked - it's not the science lab that gets that money, it's the UConn basketball program. Big time college sports is hermetically sealed - the success of a basketball program doesn't translate to success anywhere else on the campus - which is why at schools like UConn all across the country Universities are in the midst of hiring freezes and layoffs. I've previously written about the intense difficulties, really unprecedented difficulties, that PhDs are having in the professorship job market. This is a time when everyone employed by Universities - everyone employed at any level by state governments - are faced with salary cuts at the very least.


But if you ask the highest paid government official in Connecticut about his own salary - he'll tell you to shut up and do it to the full support of the media.


Sure, Calhoun's tone might have gotten him a tsk, tsk (not from Greg Gumble, however, he was just fine with the coach bully boy tone) but it was the identity of the questioner that was most slammed by the sports media - he was immediately marginalized as not a mainstream journalist - he wasn't from a real newspaper - he was a provocateur - he was a leftist, after all - he was once arrested for taking photographs at a parade!


In a different generation, we'd call him a muckraker, doing the job that the mainstream media used to do.


He gets bullied, he gets arrested, because we allow it. Because we have so little questioning of power in this country that any that occurs strikes us as offensive. And that's what most interested me - what most interested me was that the sports media spoke in one voice to rip the journalist for asking the question in the forum...a press conference...where he chose to ask the question.


'Cause why would anyone ask a serious question at a press conference? Craziness.


Talk about offensive rebounds. Like we do. Ignore the broader social issues. Don't you know there's an accepted narrative - a right way to think about everything?


Barry Bonds is a cheater and liar and doesn't deserve the home run record. The "story" isn't the San Francisco Giants building a stadium on his back and then throwing every trace of him out of it - the story isn't MLB growing at an unprecedented rate and then declaring those who caused it to grow weren't ethically sufficient to go to the HOF - the story isn't Babe Ruth hitting home runs off entirely white pitchers - and then Hank Aaron hitting home runs in a tiny ballpark in an era where bowls of amphetamines were placed in open view in clubhouses - the story isn't the US government, at a time when there are no hearings for torture, 2 unwinnable wars, environmental catastrophe and a complete collapse of the American economy spending 55 million dollars to chase Barry Bonds for 6 years -- the only story you're allowed to tell, over and over and over again, is how Barry Bonds cheated baseball.


I love me a daily newspaper. But if some of the "journalists" who have sucked up to power wind up without jobs, there's positive outcome of the collapse of that industry.


Edit: Here's 91 year old Marvin Miller - more right than anyone in the sports media about the persecution of Bonds - and the attempt at union busting in which the sports media has been complicit. If you aren't registered it may be behind the firewall.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/sports/baseball/02rhoden.html?_r=1


It really has been remarkable - dial back a handful of years and all you heard from the sports media is that the union was at fault for being too stringent about drug testing - too much in opposition to management. And now, after the 2003 test results somehow escape - the union is blamed for being too compliant - not standing up and fighting to get the results destroyed. I actually saw Costas make both points in the same breath on the MLB Network the day the ARod story broke. The Union is simultaneously too rigid and too compliant for the sports media - because, of course, it's really organized labor that's to blame for the media - as we watch the wealthy loot this country into oblivion.

I Feel Deliciously Light and Cool - I Rank the Noble Eightfold Path

Over the weekend, I heard from a reader that the blog had become overly sports focused. In the spirit of this, here is my ranking of Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path which outlines a model of discliplined behavior designed to achieve Nirvana.

No, not that Nirvana.



Although, now that we're here -



8 Best Nirvana Songs. 8-1.


8. You Know You're Right

7. Polly

6. All Apologies

5. Smells Like Teen Spirit

4. Lithium

3. Come As You Are

2. Where Did You Sleep Last Night

1. Heart Shaped Box

Hey, that's not a sports list either. Score! I recognize my multiple constituencies; some of you are here for wrestling, some for academia, some for delicious holiday recipes:

Christmas Eve Whore Cake


1/2 cup of butter

1 ½ cup of sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon of lemon extract
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
½ teaspoon of salt
3 cups of flour
1 cup of milk


Preheat to 340 degrees
Bake 22 minutes.


What? Whores don't like cake? Whores don't like to celebrate the birth of the Baby Jesus with a tasty lemon cake before they are paid cash monies for intercourse? Awfully judgmental.


Judgment's our new national pastime. Least about the small stuff. You'll hear tell of the United States being a "forgiving" country; I'd argue that's like saying we're an "early parole for good behavior" country - what we really like to do is get our righteous condemnation on. Michael Phelps - Boom. Alex Rodriguez - Boom.


Wait - that's drifting back toward sports and we're throwing a bone to the non sports reader with this blog.

Hell, consider just writing your own blog from a list of terms that I can helpfully provide here:

flyboy, haymaker, feverish, tommyknocker, dreamworld, taco, Euclidian, katzenjammer, ukelele, white slavery, thermodynamics, vector, gas, chum, ineffable, traverse, wondertwin powers activate, barkeep, bayonet, needlepoint, kinky, salt water taffy, RICOH, entropy, epigram, nonlinear, Nikola Tesla, bikini line, sly, lucidity, Teletubbies, moisturizing, Sonnets to Laura, toxic, boneless, Vichy, pathos, rabbits, uncouth, marrow, linger, amalgam, mercury, enamel, uncoiled, beefy, reductionist, Medicare, thug, soda, ravioli, shaky, Zappa, syphilitic caramels, nutmeat, never-ending nervendings


What I really could use is a Choose Your Own Adventure mechanism wherein those of you who want to read about Honus Wagner's best 4 seasons by WARP3 could take one path and those of you waiting to see which of the Eightfold Path will be ranked 5th (spoiler alert - Right Concentration) could just flip to different screens.


Do you know Choose Your Own Adventure, people?


If you decide to commit genocide, turn to page 4.


If you decide to bone Neil Diamond, turn to page 5.


Choose Your Own Adventure was a series of kids' books in the 80s and 90s; they stopped publishing in '98; it's based on the Lionnais schematic of tree literature that he presented at the 79th meeting of the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle in May, 1967. Using a present tense second person narrative, the text gives the reader a series of choices that shapes her reading of the story. So, in, for example, The Cave of Time, the reader is portrayed as the protagonist of the story, visiting her Uncle Howard at Red Creek Ranch when she stumbles upon a cave, which serves as a portal to multiple time periods. It teaches children that they are the captains of their own ships; if you choose to jump on the boat, you go to page 14 and perhaps sail to Byzantium to find fortune and glory. If you choose to stay behind, you go to page 20 and are slowly devoured by wolverines, the beasts enjoying the full flavor of your every orifice before settling you into their rabid gullets.


There aren't many lessons, let me suggest, more important to learn.


I'm not a motivational speaker; when I see a bumper sticker saying "destiny is not a matter of chance, it's a matter of choice" my first thought is "I hope William Jennings Bryan's estate is getting a cut from that bitch, 'cause dude said that a hundred years before Hallmark put it on a card" and my next thought, "tell that to Mr. Neil Diamond, 'cause he has absolutely no say in the matter when I turn to page five and bring him to a thunderous orgasm while singing the chorus of "Cracklin' Rosie."


So, don't consider me Pollyannaish when I gently suggest that our individual circumstance is more within our own control that we like to recognize. There's a psychological concept known as the fundamental attribution error, and it goes something like this: when something happens in our own lives, we tend to attribute it to external causes, situational factors outside of our control – it's the boss, it's the kids, it's the planets being out of alignment, it's god or fate or my weak genetic traits perhaps caused because my great-great grandparents were first cousins.

Oh, I assume most of you aren't aware, in Florida, it's legal for first cousins to marry.


This is an outlier in terms of domestic relations laws across the country, and leads one to wonder how such a law was passed. I'm going with this theory:


One day, there was a guy in the Florida state legislature who desperately wanted to do his first cousin.


But she was a good girl, and while she had no interest in this guy, kin or not, she also didn't want to hurt his feelings irreparably, given the possibility that they'd be running into each other during future family reunions, and wanted to avoid an ugly scene during a particularly high spirited strawberry pie eating contest. So, she politely declined his advances, saying that since, you know, their mothers were sisters, such a rendezvous would be inappropriate.


He, however, as men can occasionally be, was dumb as dishwater and didn't see any of the "please go away, you creepy, creepy man" signs, and turned the full force of his legislative energy on getting a bill passed in the Florida statehouse saying that, forevermore, first cousins not only could marry, but, in fact, must marry – if the girl is hot enough.


Hey, I don't make these things up, read the Florida Statutes.


So, if you are one of my many Florida readers, and you get the big pants for your little cousin, it's all legal down here, just like concealed weapons and crank and mountain bikes made of diamonds.


Anyway, the fundamental attribution error states that when it comes to our own problems, we find circumstances on which to blame them, but, when others fail – we tend to attribute those failings as internal. Why didn't things work out for me? Bad luck. Bad bosses. Fate. I'm married to the sea. Why didn't things work out for that guy? It's 'cause that guy is lazy, soft, old, weak minded, crazy, mildly retarded, he smells like feet, etc...


When you blow it – it's circumstance.


When he blows it – it's an inherent characteristic, a weakness, a flaw. And the best day of Mr. Neil Diamond's life. Cracklin' Rosie indeed.

It's an easy trap in which to fall, and that's why I like Choose Your Own Adventure; no one else makes you turn to page 24 where you suffer an epileptic seizure and go to a Russian debtor's prison; no one makes you turn to page 39 where you are a macromolecular chemist in the 1920s discovering nylon for DuPont or Thomas Smith, inexplicably spending the first half of the 16th century writing De Recta et Emendata Linguae Anglicae Scriptione Dialogus; no one else makes you turn to page 53, where you are the tattoo artist misspelling the word Heart Breaker on Jenna Jameson's right butt cheek before she goes to film The Wicked One.


You made your choice. You take the consequences. It's an unavoidable conclusion. You can't hide from it. It's on you.


For reasons that will soon become apparent, I had to thumb through a copy of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy in the past few weeks; I probably haven't opened it in a decade, and found an old post it note on which I had cryptically written:


I feel deliciously light and cool.
I'm diggin' that phrase the most, and had no idea upon reading it that it was taken from Little Women; which raises the perfectly acceptable curiosity as to why I was taking notes about Little Women in Meditations on First Philosophy; perhaps there had been some type of industrial spillage and I was tasked with salvaging authors A-D from the local library.


I realized pretty quickly, however, why it was I like the phrase:



I feel deliciously light and cool.


It's the letter L – I don't know if I've mentioned this to you, but I realized about a decade ago that I am categorically heels over head in love with the letter L. Whenever someone asks what my favorite color is, my response is always, "who has time to worry about favorite colors when there are all these L's lyin' around waiting for a boy to take them home and drown them in compliments and kiss the napes of their necks."

I Feel deliciously light and cool.

L – it's euphonic. Euphony is flowing and aesthetically pleasing sounds; languages seek it out; there is a sentence in French, for example:

Je l'avais dit aux enfants

Now, the 'x' of "aux" is usually silent; but in this example it's enunciated (as a 'z' sound) owing to the presence of a vowel at the beginning of the following word "enfant".

Why? It's prettier. That's it. Euphony. France is good that way. I mean, they're also good in the way that we wouldn't have won the Revolutionary War without them, which you'd think would give them lifetime amnesty from our making jokes at their expense, but that's not how Americans roll. Next time there's an international conflict and some dumbass starts talking about freedom fries, suggest he reads a history book.

Oh, that sentence means "I had told the children." I took 2 ½ years of French in high school and a full year in undergrad, getting some forgotten mixture of A's and B's, and other than, "Ousmanne, où est la bibliotèque?" that's the only thing I can say in the entire language.
I have a deep seated, almost primordial, attraction to the letter L (is it a Penny Marshall thing? Discuss) somewhere, in my medulla oblongata, the part of the brain I share with lizards, leopards, lemmings, and Tommy Lasorda, I have a primal, pre-conscious attraction to the letter L. It's like a lucky number.


I feel deliciously light and cool. All those L's sitting right there in my Descartes.

In my position at my school (for the uninitiated, I'm a professor) I was corresponding with a woman from an organization, back in December, for her to come and train my students in a particular seminar.

We settled upon a date and time, but when, over the holidays, I wrote to confirm, I didn't receive a response.


Those of you who know me recognize that I like to be blown off about as much as I like to be blown up, so I was less than pleased, and wrote a series of increasingly concerned emails questioning why I was not getting my requisite confirmation.

The day for the seminar arrived. Still no response.


I called customer service and was told in an exceedingly apologetic fashion that they were really sorry, but I had gotten lost in the shuffle, as the woman with whom I was corresponding suddenly dropped dead over the holidays from a brain aneurysm.


I have to admit; I've heard some excuses from women who blew me off before, but that one won the prize.


So, yeah, I was emailing a person who didn't exist. She was my imaginary friend. Like Snuffleupagus or Roger Peckinpaugh.


That's when I opened up the Descartes.


In 1641, Descartes wrote the book in which I found the post it note, Meditations on First Philosophy, a book which marked the beginning of the epistemological turn in Western philosophy; a shift from a focus on the universal to the individual. Central to the Cartesian philosophy was the method of doubt, that one should "accept nothing as true which I do not clearly recognize to be so." Descartes' conclusion was cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore, I am", which is that the only principal of which one can be absolutely certain is that one exists.


The rest of you, the rest of all of this, might just be a figment of my imagination.


Tell the debt collector that next time he calls:


You: Yeah, I'm sorry about the 11 grand, but I'm a figment of Jim Jividen's imagination, so call him, please.

What Descartes is really requiring is a rigorous proof; the law, for example, works like this; Jones sues Smith for damages, claiming that Smith borrowed a water jug and returned it broken.


Smith's defense is what we call pleading in the alternative (1) the jug doesn't exist (2) I didn't borrow it (3) it wasn't broken when I returned it (4) it was broken when I borrowed it.


Descartes really isn't saying that one literally should solipsistically believe that one is alone in the universe, just recognize that we are often lazy in establishing the nexus between our beliefs and their justifications. Are we sure the jug wasn't broken when it was borrowed and merely had the cosmetic appearance of being whole? Are we certain that Jones didn't break the jug after it was returned? Are there photographs? Witnesses? Where is the broken piece no longer in the jug? Did the jug have a pre-existing break that had previously been repaired? What's the life expectancy of a jug anyway? Maybe it was time to Terry Schiavo that jug. Has anyone thought of that?


Descartes is saying that even though Jones thinks he's caught Smith jug-handed; Smith doesn't need to roll over.


Make him prove it.


Make us all prove it.


Are you real?


How would I know?


The Choose Your Own Adventure series shut down in '98, but about three years ago, with a new publisher, it came back.


More choices to make. More consequences. More lessons learned. A whole new generation to sex up Mr. Neil Diamond. Some of us will choose poorly. We'll massively bet the under on SB43, and watch the Steelers and Cards combine for a wildly improbably 23 points in the final 8 minutes to snatch victory from us.


Always with the sports.


And some of will choose well, correctly walking along the noble eightfold path to enlightenment.


The Noble Eightfold Path. 8-1.

8. Right Bodily Action- I'm awkward and nonrythmic; I'm exhibit A in the "bodily action is overrated" discussion. Further, this refers to specifically following the Moral precepts, of which there are either five or ten, and until the Buddhists get their shit together, I can't take this path seriously.


7. Right speech - An upset, as talking is the only marketable skill I've ever been able to cultivate; but the devil's in the details, and Buddhism requires both that one speak truthfully and speak kindly. And those two tasks are often diametrically opposed. If all I ever did was tell the truth, I'd have no friends at all.

Huh.

6. Right view - On most things, I tend toward Roshomon, that there's less a right view than multiple reasonable perspectives. If you ask me "will stimulating demand lift us out of the economic downturn (Depression 2K: Great Depression or the Greatest Depression?) or should we continue to pump supply via tax cuts" my answer would be "23 points in 8 minutes! Jesus H Christ - how did they score 23 points in 8 minutes!" Generally, reasonable people of good will can differ on most matters. The right view requires an understanding of the 4 noble truths; the first of which:


Life involves suffering and is inevitably sorrowful


...is undeniably true, clearly this would be part of the right view - but the second:


Suffering has its roots in desire and craving, which arise from ignorance.

...boxes up suffering more than I think is reasonable. Life has good days, days with cream cheese frosting and Neil Diamond reverse cowgirl and the Bengals and Jets taking wide receivers in the first round ahead of Jerry Rice allowing his fall to my Niners - but eventually, eventually it's sickness and pain and agony and Eternal Darkness of the Slumbering Mind. Any view that isn't that isn't the right view.

5. Right concentration - This path sounds awfully mixological to me. Take two parts grenadine and one part triple sec and an olive and ooooh, you gurgle that on down. You know who has excellent concentration? My friend Beevo.

And Beevo has many admirable qualities, when the interspecies war finally commences, I'd like to be on his side - but I'm uncertain that my following his path would lead to enlightenment. Ear licking - absolutely. But maybe not enlightenment.


4. Right endeavor - the upper half really gets tight; this path involves meditation in order to stop bad thoughts; I occasionally will tell students something like "you are what's in your brain" and they will occasionally tell me something like "I know I haven't been to class in a month, can I still get an A?" The more you are able to hold tight reign on what's in your brain (best Cypress Hill lyric ever) the better you can survive your day. Life's less about what happens than about what's in your head. I've lived virtually every moment of my life entirely inside my head. Weather sucks but the company is boss.

3. Right livelihood - this is giving best effort to one's career. Competence is underrated; know who I really liked?

That's Stefan's panna cotta from the most recent season of Top Chef (returning soon - Bravo is wearing a hole in my DVR, I assume you all know the etymology of the phrase "prostitution whore! Engaged 19 times!" but still on the underground is Andy Cohen's gayer than gay midnight Thursday show. It's live and they get their drink on. Best. Show. Ever.) Anyway, that Stefan dude could cook. I don't know anything about him beyond what's on the tv box, but dude clearly has spent his professional life honing his craft. All the American chefs complain and complain "that Stefan is so arrogant" meanwhile he just beats their doors off in every competition. I like competence at one's gig. Makes me feel like there are still people who know what they're doing. I also enjoy Friday Night Lights. That's a good show. Did you see the episode where Smash got into Texas A&M? I got all choked up like the first time I heard Heart Shaped Box.


Big Love and United States of Tara are also good to watch. I mean, while we're talking Buddhism and all. Just because the Shield is gone doesn't mean TV has ended. Just feels that way sometimes.

2. Right mindfulness - better than right livelihood because while livelihood implies only sustainable work, mindfulness is giving best effort in all of one's undertakings. I'm clearly never going to be able to write for a living; the thousands of hours that I've spent blogging has to be a good for it's own sake - but I'll go back right now to craft another nifty Neil Diamond sexual reference, not because I think anyone but me will appreciate it - but because it's the right thing to do. How many L's in fellating Mr. Neil Diamond? The aspects of myself of which I'm most proud aren't that I'm good at my job (I am) but that my wrestling Counterfactual is really underrated. http://www.whatifwrestling.blogspot.com/. Go read Counterfactual SummerSlam 2008 if you, you know, share my mania.

1. Right aspiration - caring intent for all living things. This is good, I think. Good to want good things for everything. Maybe you don't want to build a school for monsters, but you recognize that someone good does and so you root for them. Maybe you don't care that the San Francisco Giants have never won a World Series, but I do, and all good hearted people do, so it's time that you get on board and start thinking the good thoughts. We're 10 up! 10 up! Just half a game out of the WC with 50 to go - and if we can get into the postseason who has a better 1-2 hammer of Thor than Lincecum/Cain - just coming at you - Boom! Boom! Boom! Yeah! This is our year! When the Giants come to Town! It's Bye - Bye - can you believe that Bengie Freaking Molina and his .268 OBP is still hitting cleanup for this team! I have to listen to Mike Krukow (love you Kruk, but Jesus) talk about playing the right way and heart and team and the Giants way and it's all bullshit because our cleanup hitter has a .268 OBP and the trade deadline's come and gone and we dealth our best chip for a scrappy 31 year old low OBP second baseman. And the worst part is the level of self satisfaction that the Giants and Giants media clearly feel - in a universe that worked correctly - in a universe where we devoted the type of attention to our craft that the Noble Eightfold Path would require, there wouldn't be a .268 OBP in the middle of a major league lineup - certainly not the middle of my major league lineup - as I love my Giants with all the purity of Linus in that pumpkin patch the night before Halloween. Bengie Molina. Good grief.

And that's Right aspriation, the best of the noble eightfold paths to Nirvana. You're welcome.

All Time Saturday Night Live Cast

Occasional Jim Jividen writing partner Kirk Hiner as is his wont, put forth the following challenge:


"All time Saturday Night Live cast, 6 men, 5 women, host, musical guest. Go"

My obvious response was "career value or peak"?


I await a response. While I wait, let's start to work through the list.



I've asked another question "am I picking a news anchor and does that news anchor have to be part of the 11 person cast."


I've gotten the answer to the first question - peak value.


Let's start to -- and now I have the second answer - there is a news anchor, but it does have to come from the 11.


Okay. Let's start to narrow things down.



6 men, 5 women.


Aykroyd
Belushi
Chevy
Murray
Eddie
Piscopo
Billy
Chris Guest
Martin Short
Lovitz
Dennis Miller
Carvey
Hartman
Myers
Rock
Farley
Sandler
Spade
Norm
Ferrell
Hammond
Tracy Morgan
Forte
Hader

That's 24. Much as I love Mark McKinney and Chris Elliott, they're not really contenders for their SNL work. If I had to come up with a Top 20 male SNL cast members ever, the list would come out of here. Maybe Tim Meadows would be 25, just to firm that up.


And now I have to cut to 6...let's cut to 12, easier to do.


Drop the current guys, who are talented - the show has no buzz anymore, outside of Sarah Palin no one notices at all, but it's really pretty well crafted. But this is the deep end of the pool. And I really liked Tracy, but it's really 30 Rock where his crazy has been best unsheathed.


Norm and Dennis Miller can't act. If I could have a separate news anchor, they'd make this cut, but I don't so they don't.


Sandler and Spade are famous, but that's my least favorite successful cast.


Rock's a genius, and was better on the show than he gives himself credit for, but his work wasn't at this level.

Piscopo was underrated. He became a joke so that's all he is now, but he's out of time here.


Who's left:

Aykroyd
Belushi
Chevy
Murray
Eddie
Billy
Chris Guest
Martin Short
Lovitz
Carvey
Hartman
Myers
Farley
Ferrell
Hammond

15 left. Chevy and Murray go. Chevy was the first breakout, just a superduperstar and Murray's the most critically acclaimed cast member ever for his film work - but their work on the show lands them just outside the top 10. (edit - Robert Downey's the most critically acclaimed ever for his film work; Christine Ebsersole the most critically acclaimed for her stage work)

13 left.

I'm taking out Billy/Marty/Chris Guest.

Part of this might be a career/peak thing since they weren't on very long; maybe there's a level of depth, of utility, they weren't able to show in just a year; maybe there was an element of polish on the performances that slides them - choices have to be made, I'm leaving them outside the top 10.

4 cuts left.

Hammond. Terrific impressionist, that's all he can do. It's a tremendous skill for a sketch show, particularly one with only 6 men, and I could see an argument that you need him in this cast, but I'm gonna drop him here.

3 cuts left.

Aykroyd
Belushi
Eddie
Lovitz
Carvey
Hartman
Myers
Farley
Ferrell

Lovitz and Farley.
I think, in the aftermath of his death, Farley's become a little overrated. Not a lot overrated in the context of his SNL work - but playing the "everything in the world is either overrated or underrated, which one is Farley" he's overrated.

Lovitz is a tough cut. Maybe his range is a little limited. Maybe.  I'm unhappy with this result.
One more.

Nope. Can't do it. I'm taking 7. I'll take 7 men and 5 women and deal with the fallout.  I have to have all 7.  Have to.  Have to.  Have to.  Dammit!  Why you gotta push me so hard!

Aykroyd
Belushi
Eddie
Carvey
Hartman
Myers
Ferrell

That's the male cast. 7. 7 goddammit. 7 (this is just my inner monologue now, to whatever extent there's anyone reading, just skip to the women - I'm leaving it at 7, 'cause that's just how it has to be, but if I had to, with maybe something I hold dear, like pie, held hostage, I'd have to cut...NO!  I will leave it at 7!  Hah!)



And yeah, I've decided who would go if I had to go to six. I'm keeping it on the DL.


Women:

Jane
Gilda
Julia
Nora
Jan
Molly Shannon
Tina
Amy
Kristen Wiig

Chris Elliott's smoking hot daughter.  Mmmmmm.  I need a moment. 

Admittedly, the last one's just because I enjoy thinking about her. And how painfully old I am. So. Old.  Seriously, that the Guy Under the Stairs has a blistering hot daughter (seriously, where's the secret hotel cam video of Chris Elliott's superhot daughter?) is the oldest I've ever felt.


Julia's an easy cut, I liked her at the time and it seemed to me that within whatever circle of SNL watchers I was part of when I was 13, we all liked her and thought she'd be a star; so that she became Julia isn't really a surprise (like Rock, in a different context) but she doesn't go past here.


Nora was talented and did a nice job. She gets cut here.


2 cuts left.


You have to cut Tina Fey.

All she did was news; now, in light of the Emmy Awards, presumably she could have been used more broadly, but the writing and then the news stretched her thin as it was. Like Al Franken, I'd like to take Tina and put them on the writing staff. If I had the space (and I almost did it, I was like this close to doing it - I was going to just give her the news and get out of the way) I'd let her do the news, but I'm only picking five women. Hard cut. Molly goes next - Molly was all around talented, like the next level up from Nora Dunn - but she goes here.

So, the women:
Jane
Gilda
Jan
Amy
Kristen Wiig



That's 12 and that's where it's gonna stop. I'm inclined to make Jane and Danny the news anchors - ack - I'm changing my mind.

I'm taking Jane down (what? seriously?) and putting Tina Fey back on and giving her the news. Done.

Hard to do. Done!

Tina gets the news. Amy can do it with her when she's not in all of the sketches.

So, the cast:


Dan Aykroyd



John Belushi



Eddie Murphy



Dana Carvey



Phil Hartman



Mike Myers



Will Ferrell



Gilda Radner



Jan Hooks



Tina Fey (news)



Amy Poehler



Kristen Wiig

Host/Musical Guest.

Only a couple I'm considering for host - Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks, maybe John Goodman and Chris Walken.


I'll take Steve Martin. And Paul Simon as the musical guest. Done. Task completed!

Now, what Japanese professional wrestlers should be added to the cast? For example, CIMA could do the news....

The 50 Best TV Shows of the Past 25 Years

A year ago, Entertainment Weekly put out an issue with lists of the best films and television series in the past quarter century:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207076_20207387_20207339,00.html

Here are the caveats:

1. It's actually 26 years. EW's list was '83-'08, given that their list appeared over the summer, they were essentially stopping at the end of '07, but I won't pretend that time hasn't passed.

2. It's actually 51 shows. Actually, with ties and two other, special cases, it's...57 shows. I have no good excuse for this.

3. As did EW, the only eligible shows are ones which did not debut before '83; so programs that started earlier and continued into the relevant period (Cheers, Hill St. Blues, St. Elsewhere, for example) are ineligible.
4. EW, although they didn't specify this, clearly was not just making qualitative judgments; Saved by the Bell was on its list of the 100 Best TV Shows and the Wonder Years wasn't. Be it considering social or cultural significance; EW was doing something other than saying "what was best, X or Y."


I'm not. This is my list of the 50 best shows of the past quarter century, regardless of other factors. Oprah, while as globally significant a show as the US has produced in the relevant period (oh yeah, except for one, all the shows are from American television; it's part of my cultural imperialism) does not make this list.


5. I tried to use the philosophy guiding the baseball (and coming soon, football!) list to inform this one; my bias, as reflected in the sports list, is for career value over peak - meaning that there's worth in playing 20 years even if the back ten are only average.


The philosophy here is a little different - there is value in longevity; a show great for five years has more value than a show great for one. I had a terrible time (actually, am still having a terrible time; I'm pretending I'm ready to put up the list, but actually, I could put any one of 8 shows at number one; I think I've finally settled on everything, but I could be making that up) in determing what to do with a couple of shows that I'm ranking very high given how few episodes were produced.

I think what I settled on was this:

Like sports - better to do something well for a long period than something well for a short period.

Unlike sports - better to do something well for a short period and stop than do something well for a short period and then only adequately for a long period.

And that, I think, is where I sit. I don't want my superstar to retire after a decade when his skills start to fade, because there's good value in years of competence. But I would prefer my art to shut down as opposed to becoming a paler copy of itself.

Example - not on this list is Chicago Hope; I really, really liked the first season of Chicago Hope and thought Mandy Patinkin's character was as entertaining as have appeared on television. Most of the remaining years of the series were just okay. Had it stopped after one year, it would be on the list. Not high on the list - because one great year isn't as good as five great years - but it would have made the list. Somewhere approximating Mad Men, I'd suggest. LA Law might be on the list had it stopped after 2 years. Twin Peaks wasn't my thing really; but had they done 19 episodes, told us who killed Laura Palmer, and went away, it would make the list too.

But the whole body of work counts. I'm not the Emmy committee, just taking your submitted show and giving you a trophy, I'm evaluating your full body of work.


5. I like the TV; I think at its top end its absolutely as good as any other medium of artistic expression; and even well below that top end it can help make people feel better. I'm a solitary cat; most of my life has been spent inside; I've watched my share of shows. I've watched your share too. I know of what I speak. This is the Blog of Revelation after all, it can't be just losing college football picks.

Here are the top 50 TV shows of the past quarter century:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

1997-2003

Episodes: 144

EW rank: 10


She Saved The World A Lot.


After much debate within the offices of the Blog of Revelation, Buffy wins one more time. I don't have any interest in sci fi, in horror, in goth, in vampire lore - as genres they don't engage me on any level. I still think this is the best tv show of the past quarter century. The combination of intellectual richness and emotional satisfaction just edges out the next half dozen shows on the list, and the essential feminist message of the show almost always struck the right tenor for me, carefully balancing the perfectly valid ability art has to convey thoughts with the perfectly valid need of the audience not to feel like they're watching an afterschool special. Smart. Funny. Hot. Incessantly powerful. It couldn't have been by a closer margin, but in the end, I asked myself, were I reading this list - which is the show I'd most want to see at number one - and it was Buffy.

2. Seinfeld

1989-98

EW: 3

180 episodes

Not only did I like the ending; I thought it was instructive. Seinfeld was a sitcom where (1) the characters were all essentially shallow, destructive people who (2) had no ability to be impacted emotionally, almost at a pathological level and (3) never learned anything. In the way that the old Letterman show deconstructed late night, making the old conventions seem silly - it was impossible to watch a traditional sitcom after Seinfeld and not mock it as treacle. You won't see the Cosby Show on this list; the heavy handedness of traditional sitcoms, pounding out banal lessons always put me off, after Seinfeld I was better able to articulate why.


3. The Sopranos

1999-2007

EW: 2

86 episodes


If the Godfather is the best film ever made, that a television series could...be better seems strong - but that it could add another dimension to cinematic depiction of the mafia is remarkable. I didn't watch when it debuted, and thought silly the level of hyperbole that accompanied it. There was a memorable SNL parody of a Sopranos commercial in which critics blurbs escalated in wildly outsized praise until finally was the orgasmic quote, "Oh, Oh, Oh.....Sopranos!" Then, skeptically I decided to watch, and it was as good as everyone said. I'd never argue with anyone who said it was the best show of all time, but decisions have to be made, the combination of Buffys extra hundred episodes, my belief in its inherent political message, the somewhat underwhelming Sopranos finale, and maybe a desire to run slightly against the grain all may have been factors in the final decision. It was close.


4. The Simpsons

1987 -

EW: 1

428 episodes


It's an almost overwhelming artistic accomplishment; there are going to be 500 episodes of this television show, almost all of them better than almost any sitcom you'll ever see. The density of the universe created is Shakespearean in scope. I don't use that adjective haphazardly; I'm unsure there's a better analogy for what the Simpsons has done. It's only this low for a several year run, maybe for the entirety of this century, that is less brilliant and more familiar. They can make this show forever, for my money, but I'm unsure there are any more worlds to conquer.

5. The Shield

2002-08

EW: 29

88 episodes


Either you know the phrase Armenian money train, or you do not. When thinking about television (when thinking about everything) I undertake some calculation of the intellectual value of the show and its emotional impact. The Shield wins on gut wrenching wallop. Like an 88 hour long Sophie's Choice. I wrote about the final episode, in which Shane, who was effectively the second male lead during the entirety of the run, kills his wife, his infant son, and then himself, in as much of an appropriation of the Chris Benoit case as dramatic license would allow. And while, out of context, that sounds like exploitation or overly tawdry (in the way that I think a show like Law and Order, which you won't find on this list, can be) within the full sweep of the show it made complete sense, as did Vic Mackey's seeming punishment of winding up behind a desk. I like to play a game called Moratorium, wherein certain elements of popular culture just need to be shut down for a few years; just go away to freshen up, to leave the territory, to use some rasslin' vernacular. With the Wire and the Shield both exiting the air, cop shows need to go away for awhile. It's silly to think they can compete. Moratorium.


6. The Wire

2002-08

EW: 11

Eps: 60


I like documentaries, which you're aware if you've seen my list of the 100 best movies from this same period of time; The Wire's documentary dense; full, rich, and deep; if you were seriously trying to understand the 21st century American urban environment, I mean, with a scientific level of understanding - right along with the best works of sociologists and political scientists, you would want to watch the Wire. It's a really amazing document. For me, the breadth of its scope; switching its emphasis each year to new characters, slightly minimized the degree of the show's emotional power. It's only slightly, but we're talking about razor thin degrees of difference here in the top 6.


7. Arrested Development

2003-06

EW: 16

Eps: 53


In my first version of the list, Arrested Development was number one.


I should stop the comment there. The number of episodes was the determining factor in sliding it here, demonstrating how closely approximate I see 1-6. This is the best thing Ron Howard's ever done; like Seinfeld busted the form of the sitcom the decade before; AD took the next step, creating a program where, literally each week, new avenues of funny were being created. I like TV; even as a child, I took offense at criticism of it as requiring one's brain to be turned off to appreciate - I never wanted to just zone out and watch the boob tube - I like to be engaged. But I understood eventually, how a television show can get into a rut, how it often times aspires to get into a rut - how catchphrases and comfortable, uplifting themes are used to sell soap. At its worst, television is Home Improvement - feckless and smug and safe in all ways; like a golfer who earns his living placing 19th at every tournament and feels great about it. Let the other guys go for the pin; he'll pull up short, two putt for a 5, and cash that check. That wasn't Arrested Development. It was audacious and vibrant and I loved it hard. I want to put it second; if I ever see a list where it's higher than this, where someone claims to heart AD more than do I, I'll have to revise.


8. The West Wing

1999-2006

EW: 23

Eps: 156


There's a step down here when we get to the West Wing, as its quality begin to waver near the end of Sorkin's time as showrunner. In all of the permutations of this list, this is the highest ranking of the West Wing, as I tried to balance the strength of the thrust of the series with some of its shakier moments. I value smart in all things; as a virtue, I'll take smart over any other quality - and Sorkin was relentlessly smart. Sports Night was a particular favorite of mine, and it just missed a place on the list - I even liked Studio 60. But it was American government that allowed Sorkin to indulge his wonkishness alongside heart thumping rhetoric. It was boilerplate establishment liberalism as opposed to a more radical sentiment that I might have felt more political kinship with, but even a Chomskyite like me occasionally felt something almost like patriotic stirrings when Jed Bartlett spoke of the promise of America.


9. The Larry Sanders Show

1992-98

EW: 28

Eps: 89


On the subject of form breaking sitcoms, I bring you Garry Shandling. Sanders combined the behind the curtain plotlines of the West Wing with multiple layers of hyperreality; Shandling's neurotic persona was honed over years as a working comic; he took that "how's my hair" guy, the guts of the character which had defined his career - and then imagined him as a few notches more successful. "How would I be if I were not here, but there?" The result was the 9th best show of the past quarter century.


10. Kids in the Hall

1988-95

EW: 85

Eps: 111


I love sketch; from the original SNL to the Whitest Kids U Know I have always appreciated the form; after doing a little of it myself, I admire the ability to create some funny in such a tight package (there's a joke there, perhaps about Chris Elliott's daughter - have you seen her - I'm unsure anything's made me feel older than that Chris Elliott has a hot daughter. Get A Life, incidentally, on the theme of form busting sitcoms, did not make this list.) For my dollar, this is the best sketch group which ever was.




The comments will become more abbreviated now. A dude has other obligations.


11. thirtysomething

1987-91

EW: 36

Eps: 85


The critical knock on thirtysomething was that it was whiny; my two decades later thought is that analysis was a product of the muscularity of the time. No one ever called the Sopranos whiny because Tony spent every episode in Melfi's office. Angst wasn't in fashion in the 80s. Further, the male characters didn't exude Don Johnson-ness; the "sensitive" male of the 70s, the Alan Alda/Phil Donahue male had been plowed over in a red, white, and blue celebration of all matters power. That wasn't thirtysomething; it was a domestic drama in all the best senses of those words.


12. The Daily Show

1996-

EW: 14

Eps: 1600+


First, don't sleep on Kilborn. That was a funny show. Not a show that makes the top fifty of the past quarter century; not a show that helped run Crossfire off the air; not a show that has played no small part in the ideological roll to the left of the United States in the 21st century; not a show that displaced Letterman as the most comedically relevant show in late night and Nightline as the most politically relevant. That would be Jon Stewart's show. The 12th best of the past quarter century. But Kilborn was funny and that does count too. Is Stewart moving to CBS when Dave's deal is up?


13. Frontline

1983 -

EW: unranked!

Eps: 500+


The very first thing that struck me when I was evaluating EW's list was the absence of Frontline. I assume it was an oversight. Frontline is overly establishmentarian; I'd rather PBS had done 500 documentaries by Greg Palast, for example. But there's no analogue for what this show sometimes is - in depth nationally televised searches for truth and justice. It's not often sexy; it's almost always smart. 25 years of documentaries are absolutely worth of this spot on the list. Most of the rest of PBS isn't going to make the list; actually, even as I type these words, the only question I have left is if I'm going to include Moyers or not.


14. My So Called Life

1994-95

EW: 33

Eps: 19


Herskovitz and Zwick then took thirstysomething and made all the characters 15 years old. Those folks just know how to make TV; they never missed; I only saw the one episode of Quarterlife that made TV, and I even liked that. If there were acting awards for the past quarter century, best male actor would probably be Gandolfini, just over Martin Sheen and Michael Chiklis - and female actor would be Claire Daines.


15. The Office (UK)

2001-03

EW: 17

Eps: 14


A perfect thing. I'm in the tiny run of episodes block; yes, I did consider the length of the run, which is why they are here and not at the bottom of the top ten; but they're premium, top of the line shows, and I couldn't kick them down any further than this. For a show with only 14 episodes to be this highly ranked, they'd have to be flawless, and it was.


16. Freaks and Geeks

1999-00

EW: 13

Eps: 18


I like the Apatow comedy brand; I've seen and enjoyed every film, and now he and progeny are masters of the universe. But I bet, deep inside, they all know this is the best thing they made. I'm an unfortunate connoiseur of teen dramas; this hour long teen comedy felt more sharply real than virtually all of them. Undeclared isn't on the list, but it was also the good.


17. Curb Your Enthusiasm

2000-

EW: 45

Eps: 60


Some episodes fall flat, probably due to the improvisational style and the arc of the show is inherently loose, as David clearly doesn't follow much of a production schedule, having put out 60 shows in 8 years. and that's the only reason it's this low - at it's top end, Curb brings the crazy - and like Sanders before it, the metareality of David playing not only a hyperrealized version of himself - but of George Costanza - one of the most identifiable characters in this time period, makes Curb the ultimate postmodern sequel.


18. The Office (US)

2005 -

EW: 61

Eps: 80+


It's funny. And Jenna gives me the feelings. 


19. Gilmore Girls

2000-07

EW: 32

Eps: 153


Incorporate my thoughts about the West Wing post-Sorkin atrophy and amplify them here. Oh - and none of Rory's boyfriends were good enough for her. There, I said it and I feel better for having said it.


20. South Park

1997 -

EW: 12

Eps: 181


Occasionally more dumbly crude than funny (like Howard Stern, whose E show will appear on this list) and occasionally just reaactionary politically (why don't you activists just shut up; also a Stern message, actually) it would be a mistake to just think of South Park as subversive genius. But it is sometimes subversive genius, and that slots it here.


21. 30 Rock

2006 -

EW: 47

Eps: 42


There's an uneasy comparison between 30 Rock and West Wing/Gilmore Girls given that the showrunner does the heavy bulk of the writing; eventually there was clear burnout and those shows wavered in their later years. On the other hand there's Seinfeld - David got burned out and left, and for my money, that last season may have been its best. Even there though - I've heard Jerry talk about working without David, and wearing the hats of lead actor and head writer drove him into the ground. I wonder how many years Fey can stay at this high level of production.


22. Chappelle's Show

2003-06

EW: 26

Eps: 33


He might have run out of funny. The speculation about why Chappelle walked out on his show focused around drugs or insanity or race - but the funny is finite, you don't know when it is going to run out, but it does. I never understood the confusion about, say, JD Salinger's artistic disappearance. He had the one book - he had one thing to say - and that's all there was. Chappelle had about a dozen genius sketches, just as good as any sketch ever put on film, and then nothing else. As a guy, I really like Chappelle and it's entirely possible he has more to say - but if he never does anything this good again, that wouldn't surprise.


23. Space Ghost Coast to Coast

1994-2004

EW: unranked

Eps: 89


Larry King didn't make this list. Space Ghost did. There you go. Your Adult Swim of choice might be Aqua Teen or Robot Chicken; there were moments of Sealab that were hysterically funny - but its the thousand minutes of Space Ghost which make the list.


24. Howard Stern on E!

1994-2005

EW: unranked


I don't like scatological humor; the wack pack makes me queasy, the girls are hit and miss, and the prepared bits, historically, have been embarrassingly bad - Howard talks rhapsodically about his awful sketches, saying, and I believe that he means it, the he, Fred, and Jackie are the greatest sketch writers ever. The bubble in which he lives is almost entirely unaffected by the cutting edge, he is often times as out of touch as the radio hosts he used to bury. But I listen everyday, because when it's just the Stern crew talking - or even better, fighting - it's one of the rare remaining examples of jagged entertainment in an increasingly corporatized landscape. Howard's a broadcaster, turn on the mic and he can go - I talk for a living, have since I was a teenager, and have always been astonished at Stern's craftsmanship.


25. Pardon the Interruption

2001 -

EW: unranked

Eps: 1500+


Not only the template for 21st century sports commentary (for better or worse) but for the MSNBC evolution; I couldn't find a spot here for Olbermann's show, but it owes more than a small formalistic debt to PTI.


26. The Late Show with David Letterman

27. Late Night with Conan O' Brien

28. Friends

29. Angel

30. Da Ali G Show

31. Mr. Show

32. Sex and the City

33. The Colbert Report

34. Once and Again

35. Tie: Project Runway/Top Chef

36. The Awful Truth (TV Nation)

37. Felicity

38. Smackdown

39. The State

40. NYPD Blue

41. Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel

42. Tie: Survivor/The Amazing Race/Big Brother

43. Bill Moyers Journal

44. Will & Grace

45. America's Game

46. Mad Men

47. News Radio

48. Talk Soup (The Soup)

49. Roseanne

50. Tie: Miami Vice/Moonlighting

51. 2 Minute Drill

Best Athletes Ever by Jersey Number

Like many of you, I have a list like this kicking around that I update every handful of years. I'm at the end of midterm week (giving my Business Law final today) and so, it's time once again. No, there's really no basis for comparison across sports. But choices have to be made and I'm going to make them.
I'll give you a winner and one runner-up for each number.


(edit, one month later ESPN the Magazine has done the same exercise, I'm going into this post to insert their picks if they differ from mine - the ESPN picks are in bold. Mine are better.)


00- Robert Parrish (Jim Otto) (Otto)



0 - Al Oliver (Orlando Woolridge)



1 - Oscar Robertson (Ozzie Smith) (Smith)



2 - Secretariat (Moses Malone) (Malone)



3 - Babe Ruth (Dale Earnhardt)



4 - Brett Favre (Lou Gehrig)



5 - George Brett (Joe DiMaggio) (Johnny Bench)



6 - Stan Musial (Bill Russell) (Russell)



7. John Elway (Mickey Mantle)



8. Joe Morgan (Cal Ripken) (Ripken)



9. Gordie Howe (Ted Williams)



10. Pele (Diego Maradona)



11. Carl Hubbell (Isiah Thomas) (Mark Messier)



12. John Stockton (Roger Staubach) (Tom Brady)



13. Wilt Chamberlain (Dan Marino)



14. Don Hutson (Otto Graham) (Pete Rose)



15. Karch Kiraly (Bart Starr) (Starr)



16. Joe Montana (Whitey Ford)



17. John Havlicek (Chris Mullin)



18. Peyton Manning (Dave Cowens)



19. Johnny Unitas (Tony Gwynn)



20. Barry Sanders (Mike Schmidt)



21. Roger Clemens (Tim Duncan) (Roberto Clemente)



22. Emmit Smith (Elgin Baylor)



23. Michael Jordan (LeBron James)



24. Willie Mays (Rickey Henderson) (Kobe Bryant)



25. Barry Bonds (Rafael Palmeiro)



26. Rod Woodson (Wade Boggs)



27. Carlton Fisk (Vlad Guerrero) (Juan Marichal)



28. Marshall Faulk (Bert Blyleven)



29. Eric Dickerson (Ken Dryden) (Satchel Paige)



30. Martin Brodeur (Tim Raines)



31. Greg Maddux (Jim Thorpe)



32. Jim Brown (Magic Johnson) (Sandy Koufax)



33. Honus Wagner (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) (Larry Bird)



34. Walter Payton (Hakeem Olajuwon) (Olajuwon)



35. Frank Thomas (Phil Niekro) (Niekro)



36. Gaylord Perry (Meadowlark Lemon) (Jerome Bettis)



37. Doak Walker (Jimmy Johnson)



38. Curt Schilling (Rocky Colavito)



39. Dominic Hasek (Hugh McElhenny) (Roy Campanella)



40. Mike Haynes (Gale Sayers) (Sayers)



41. Eddie Mathews (Tom Seaver) (Seaver)



42. Ronnie Lott (Jackie Robinson) (Robinson)



43. Richard Petty (Dennis Eckersley)



44. Hank Aaron (Jerry West)



45. Pedro Martinez (Bob Gibson) (Gibson)



46. Andy Pettitte (Lee Smith) (Smith)



47. Mel Blount (Tom Glavine) (Glavine)



48. Jimmie Johnson (Rick Reuschel)



49. Hoyt Wilhelm (Bobby Mitchell) (Ron Guidry)



50. David Robinson (Mike Singletary)



51. Dick Butkus (Randy Johnson) (Ichiro Suzuki)



52. Ray Lewis (Mike Webster)



53. Harry Carson (Artis Gilmore) (Don Drysdale)



54. Randy White (Goose Gossage)



55. Junior Seau (Derrick Brooks) (Orel Hershiser)



56. Lawrence Taylor (Chris Doleman)



57. Clay Matthews (Johan Santana) (Santana)



58. Jack Lambert (Derrick Thomas)



59. Jack Ham (Donnie Edwards)



60. Chuck Bednarik (Tommy Nobis) (Otto Graham)



61. Curley Culp (Bill George)



62. Jim Langer (Charley Trippi)



63. Gene Upshaw (Willie Lanier) (Lee Roy Selmon)



64. Randall McDaniel (Jerry Kramer) (Kramer)



65. Gary Zimmerman (Elvin Bethea) (Bethea)



66. Mario Lemieux (Ray Nitschke)



67. Bob Kuechenberg (Reggie McKenzie) (McKenzie)



68. Will Shields (Jaromir Jagr) (Jagr)



69. Mark Schlereth (Jared Allen)



70. Jim Marshall (Sam Huff) (Huff)



71. Alex Karras (Fred Dean)



72. Bronko Nagurski (Too Tall Jones) (Carlton Fisk)



73. John Hannah (Leo Nomellini)



74. Merlin Olsen (Bob Lily)



75. Deacon Jones (Mean Joe Greene) (Greene)



76. Orlando Pace (Lou Groza)



77. Red Grange (Jim Parker)



78. Anthony Munoz (Bruce Smith)



79. Bob St Clair (Roosevelt Brown) (Harvey Martin)



80. Jerry Rice (Steve Largent)



81. Night Train Lane (Terrell Owens) (Tim Brown)



82. Ray Berry (John Stallworth)



83. Ted Hendricks (Andre Reed)



84. Randy Moss (Shannon Sharpe)



85. Jack Youngblood (Nick Buoniconti)



86. Buck Buchanan (Hines Ward) (Ward)



87. Willie Davis (Dave Casper) (Sidney Crosby)



88. Marvin Harrison (Michael Irvin) (Alan Page)



89. Gino Marchetti (Mike Ditka) (Otis Taylor)



90. Neil Smith (Julius Peppers) (Jevon Kearse)



91. Segei Federov (Dennis Rodman)



92. Reggie White (Michael Strahan)



93. John Randle (Doug Gilmour) (gilmour)



94. Charles Haley (Chad Brown)



95. Richard Dent (Greg Lloyd)



96. Cortez Kennedy (Clyde Simmons) (Pavel Bure)



97. Bryant Young (Jeremy Roenick) (Simeon Rice)



98. Julian Peterson (Sam Adams) (Tony Siragusa)



99. Wayne Gretzky (George Mikan)



-I'm slaying some sacred cows up top. There are some first/second place differences between this list and my previous unpublished versions.

-Deion is a hard out at #21. As is Bird at #33. 

-I don't know what to do at #42. Rivera's higher rated on my baseball list than Robinson. Do with that what you will.  No one's more important than Robinson, I think I'm doing on the field only in that way that I do. 
-There are some soft choices near the bottom of the list; available spots for you young athletes.
-Lance Armstrong is a defensible backup choice for #1, I also considered Sadaharu Oh
-Is Bobby Orr better than Gehrig? Is Orr higher rated in his sport than is Gehrig? I may need to reconsider this one.  Gehrig's just a touch, a touch overrated by the public...nah, I'd still take Gehrig. 

-Brett's higher than DiMaggio and Bench (and Pujols, for now) on my baseball list - same question about Franz Beckenbauer I asked about Orr. What about George Best/Mickey Mantle?

-I have Musial tenth on my baseball list, I don't have a basketball list, but I assume Russell would be right about there too. It's a toss up, Russell has the college accomplishments too.  Either way would be fine.
-Steve Young ahead of Yogi for 3rd place #8.

-Zeke just beats out Elvin Hayes for #11 backup. Should Zeke beat out Hubbell too? Maybe need to rethink that one also.

-ARod can't crack 13 yet.

-Rose I think just misses, but maybe he should beat out Graham. I don't like him and it might influence me here.  I could stick Graham at 60 like everyone else. 

-Earl Monroe or Bart Starr?

-Schmidt beats out Frank Robinson on my baseball list.

-McGwire was also #25. Curious that.  Was that code?  On the 90210 when Brandon was in the club with this wild girlfriend Emily Valentine, she pointed out that the drug dealer selling euphoria (presumably as proxy for ecstasy, which I guess you didn't want to actually say on 90210) was the guy with the 4 on his jacket.  Maybe we round up all the 25s we see and check them for needle marks.

-Darrell Green gets edged out at #28.  I heard he was fast.

-Shaq is hard given all the numbers he had, if we think of him at #34 then we have to make an interesting choice. He might deserve that spot over Hakeem; he had a better career.  Yeah - I am too lazy to go make that change, but if I put in Honus Wagner for the number he wore as a coach, I can put in Shaq at 34.  Done and done. 

-Unit or Butkus for #51?  Very close.  Ichiro isn't in any way part of that conversation.   How did ESPN put Kobe over Willie Mays and Koufax over Jim Brown?

-When does Santana pass Matthews? Or should it be Dwight Stephenson?

-Jim Thorpe over Cheryl Miller at 31? Yeah, I'm gonna do that.  Done.

-Wagner wore his number as a coach, it's retired for him, that could be too cute by half.