Friend of the blog Lisa proved she was a superior google searcher than I by finding a phenomenal picture of the Commerce Bank pen. We won't miss you.

TNT has been promo-ing the hell out of Leverage, starrting Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton (I'm pretty sure it was for his role as the motivational guru villain in the Queen Latifah has-terminal-disease-but-really-doesn't inspirational vehicle Last Holiday(actually quote from Hutton's character: "Rule One: Life is not a popularity contest, but it is a contest. Boo-hoo, they don't like me. Rule Two: You grab that scared little loser inside you and you beat the living crap out of him. Rule Three: When is enough enough? Enough is *never* enough.")).

"Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys" claims Hutton in the commercial. And why not? This is one the perfect television or film concepts - antiheroes, who were criminals, are turned to the force of good, letting us root for them, without being boring like goody two-shoe law enforcement, and breaking all the rules regular cops and agents couldn't. In addition, each member of the team has their own speciality - say, a muscle man, a disguise artists, a computer specialist. Generally, they're all loners, used to working by themselves, but they're forced to work as a team, often by the government or some shady non-governmental or shadowy agency, and slowly over time learn to trust each other.There's honestly no reason it shouldn't make for a smash hit.

Leverage lives along these precepts. According to the information I can gather without having seen an episode, Timothy Hutton is an expert insurance investigator who goes renegade when his employer denies his son's insurance claims. He somehow assembles his rag tag team - himself, the leader, Alec, the computer man/hacker, Eliot, an expert martial artist, Parker, a thief, and Sophie a master con-artist.

Sadly, though, it's been done before, and somehow not become the success it was supposed to.


For six or so weeks in the mid-season replacement time of early 1998, WB tried out the concept with a show called Three. The three in question were Johnathan Vance (Edward Atterton), an expert jewel thief, Marcus Miller (Bumper Robinson), the expert hacker, and Amanda Webb (Julie Bowen of Ed, Boston Legal, and Jack's ex-wife on Lost fame), who according to all I can find is an expert...oh...specialist, whatever the hell that means. The Three were all criminals on their own before they were recruited by "The Man" who gave them the classic story - work for us (in this case "The Organization") or go to jail. Of course, they take the deal, and for six weeks, they righted wrongs and fixed problems.

In the same TV season, NBC tried their hand at the format with Players. Players started Ice-T, before his Law & Order days, Costas Mandylor, of Detective Mark Hoffman in later Saw movies and deputy Kenny in Picket Fences days, and Frank John Hughes, who appeared in Band of Brothers, and killed Phil Leotardo in Sopranos (sorry if you haven't seen the last season - get on it). Charlie O'Bannon (Hughes) is the hacker, Alphonse Royo (Mandylor) is the con-man, and Ice Gregory (shockingly Ice-T) is the street-smart black guy. The three are paroled early from jail in exchange for their continued cooperation with the FBI. Players lasted a whole of 18 episodes before getting the axe.


Since we're hitting the time period, we'll go with the movie version of The Mod Squad, from 1999, which has possibly the worst and least informative wikipedia page for a major studio movie from the last 20 years. The movie starred Claire Daines as Julie (Peggy Lipton in the TV show), Omar Epps as Linc (Clarence Williams III) and Giovani Ribisi as Peter (Michael Cole). They were three young people busted by the cops, though their specialties are a lot less inspiring - Peter is the rich kid, Linc, an arsonist, and Julie a former drug addict. The cops convince them to work for them in exchange for getting them off for their crimes. The TV show had of course the same premise but was a lot more successful, and thus has no place there.

We can only feel for Leverage then and hope (maybe?) that the same fate does not befall Hutton and crew.

Part 2 of the Year-of-the-Coaching Change in the Eastern Conference

Central Division, Continued:

Detroit Pistons: In the same article I linked to on the Cavs hiring Paul Silas, Detroit's more successful hire was also announced. The legendary Larry Brown who has coached a record by far 9 NBA teams (along with four college teams) was probably the most successful of the hires (it would be hard not to be, winning an NBA championship) but more than that was one of the only coaches with any success at all in the Eastern conference in the year - perhaps the height of the Western Conference's superiority which has pretty much lasted the entire decade. Brown actually replaced another fairly successful coach in Rick Carlisle who had been there two years, winning a coach of the year award in his first year, but was fired even after making the Conference finals in his last year. Brown, naturally left as quickly as he came, after two years on the job, only to be replaced by Flip Saunders, who got three years, and three straight years of conference final losses before getting sacked himself. Few teams have been as successful as the Pistons in recent years with so much coaching volatility.

Indiana Pacers: Naturally following the Pistons, the Pacers in a class below the Pistons, started up their season hiring the man the Pistons threw out, Rick Carlisle. Carlisle replaced Isiah Thomas, who as we all know too well, was hired by the Knicks later in 2003 as President, and who remarkably actually did an okay coaching job, making the playoffs every year, but losing in the first round. Carlisle did a pretty decent job as well in his four years, but advanced less far into the playoffs every year - losing in the Conference finals in '04, losing in the conference semis in '05, the first round in '06 and didn't make the playoffs in '07.

Milwaukee Bucks: George Karl, a five team veteran himself, had just finished up his fourth team, a not entirely unsuccessful four year stint as Bucks head coach, and the Bucks hired head coaching newbie Terry Porter, who himself had played under five of the top 36 head coaches of all times in terms of total wins (Pat Riley, Jack Ramsay, Rick Adelman, Gregg Popovich and Flip Saunders). Porter lost in the first round his first year, missed the playoffs in the second, and was out, only to wind up as Suns' head coach a couple of years later.

Southeast Division:

Atlanta Hawks: Finally! The coaching veteran who makes this list thirteen months rather than a clear year, Terry Stotts replaced former Illinois coach Lon Kruger (part of a later series on college coaches who filled in the pros in the late '90s and early '00s) on December 26, 2002. Stotts than lasted all the way to the end of the 2003-2004 season when he was let go and replaced by current Hawks coach Mike Woodson. Stotts got another short chance as head coach of the Bucks, before the Bucks pulled the plug after two years.

Miami Heat: This was the first year of the great Stan Van Gundy experiment - after Pat Riley, who essentially ran the Heat since 1995, decided he wanted to take a break from the strains of coaching, and led Jeff Van Gundy's older brother take the reins. Van Gundy presided over two fairly successful years, and started a third before Riley decided he wanted back in the game, and however it happened, Riley replaced Van Gundy, went on to win the NBA championship that year with the Heat, while Van Gundy ended up coaching the Magic a couple of years later. Interesting fact: You can tell what a lame basketball town Miami is by the fact that the Heat's two retired numbers are Michael Jordan, because he did so well against the Heat (who retires an opposing player's number?) which still is arguably better than their other retired number, Dan Marino, apparently such a good quarterback that his achievements transced and particular sport.

Orlando Magic: Before Van Gundy, there were several Magic head coaches, and through November 17, Doc Rivers was it, when on that day, he was fired, and the Magic hired assistant Johnny Davis took over. Davis lasted a little bit more than a full season, before himself being fired midseason and being replaced by assitant Chris Jent. After Jent, the Magic hired a retread of their first Shaq and Penny glory days in Brian Hill, who couldn't recapture his prior Magic (pun intended).

Washington Wizards: Last, and possibly least, this year saw the Wizards at the beginning of the Eddie Jordan era. Jordan endured a number of highs and lows and a ton of injuries through a relatively long for NBA standards six year tenure. Before Jordan, excellent television commentator and Michael Jordan friend, Doug Collins ran the show for a couple of years, himself replacing one year man and college transplant disaster Leonard Hamilton.

This ends our view. What a time to be a coach!

All professional, and major college sports, for that matter are coaching carousels. Owners, management and fans have no patience to wait for winning to development, and every year there are 5, 6, 7 openings in any of the leagues. Rarely are there Bobby Coxs and Jerry Sloans and Jeff Mike Shanahans that are with their team for over a decade.

It's hard however to find a time that compares with the end of January in 2004, in which no coach in the entire Eastern Conference of the NBA had been on the job for more than thirteen months (most obviously for a lot less than that). I thought I'd take a quick look through the coaching situation for all those Eastern Conference teams and what happened to cause that insane period.

(Even though the current divisional format was not in place at the time, we're going to go through it that way for purposes of avoiding unnecessary complication.)

Atlantic Division:

Boston Celtics: Along with Byron Scott of the Nets, who we'll get to shortly, Jim O'Brien's dismissal on January 27 of 2004 was the last which led to the perfect time of full thirteen month coach turnover of the entire conference. O'Brien actually resigned, when he and Danny Ainge did not see eye-to-eye on the team's philosophy. The team was struggling at 22-24, below .500, but still good enough for second place in the horrible division. John Caroll thus became the interim coach and lasted just until the end of the season, when he was replaced by Doc Rivers.

New Jersey Nets: We get to Bryon Scott so soon. Just one year ago, Scott had led the Nets, who had been hapless for many years, to the second of consecutive NBA finals apperances. But that was not enough for team president Rod Thorn who gave Scott the hook just a day before O'Brien resigned from the Celtics. The Nets led the Atlantic Division, albeit with a record just two games above .500, but the real problem may have been complaints from the team's leader, Jason Kidd; while he claimed he said nothing to management, reports said either. Replacing him was interim coach Lawrence Frank, who has been there ever since, getting a far longer leash than Scott was ever granted. No need to cry for him though - he's got his cushy gig coaching Chris Paul in New Orleans.

New York Knicks: Isiah Thomas pulled out one of the first of what would be many surprises (second, essentially, after acquiring Stephon Marbury, which really set the done for bad decisions), most of them terrible, in his tenure as General Manager and President of the Knicks. On January 14 of 2004, Thomas fired Don Chaney and hired Hall-of-Fame and all-time victories leading coach Lenny Wilkens (after Larry Brown was hired, the Knicks incredibly employed four of the top five winningest coaches in about a decade long period - Wilkens, Brown, Don Nelson and Pat Riley). Already, so early into Isiah's mercilessly far too long tenure, people didn't understand his moves. Lenny Wilkens lasted just about a season's worth of games before being fired himself, when Herb Williams finished off the year before two giant coaching debacles, Larry Brown and Isiah himself. Interesting fact: If you follow the link to the ESPN article, there are two charts - coaches who coached for the most teams, and coaches with the lowest winning percentages, who coached at least 500 games. Seventies-through-early-nineties coach Kevin Loughery is the only man on both lists.


Philadelphi Seventy-Sixers: The Sixers provide us a little bit of flexibility with this list. Depending on whether we want to move it from the end of January to the beginning of February, we can get two different acceptable head coaches. They hired assistant coach Randy Ayers to replace Larry Brown over the summer of 2003, and then when they were unsatisfied with their midseason progress, promptly fired him and hired his assistent Chris Ford as interim head coach for the rest of the season. From there, they would hire recently resigned Celtics coach (and current Pacers coach) Jim O'Brien for a season before bringing in Mo Cheeks.

Toronto Raptors: More coaching carousel fun! The same Lenny Wilkens who the Knicks hired midseason was neither fired nor resigned but somehow left the Raptors to leave with a year left on his contact after the end of the 2002-03 season. The Raptors hired Kevin O'Neill, only to fire him after less than one full season, in April, and replace him with Sam Mitchell, who would stay on as coach until earlier than season.

Central Division:

Chicago Bulls: Noted disciplinarian and hard-line coach Scott Skiles was hired by the Bulls on November 28, 2003 to replace noted useless former Bulls center Bill Cartwright after a slow start. Skiles lasted all the way until 2007 when he was deemed too strict and didn't work well the Bulls young crop of players who had first surprised, then, when expecatations rose, disappointed big time. Minorly interesting, an assistant coach by the name of Pete Myers coached two games in the interim between Cartwright and Skiles, and then one game after Skiles before Jim Boylan. Skiles, of course, landed on his feet, ending up as current coach of the Bucks.

Cleveland Cavaliers: The Cavaliers hired notable NBA player, two-time All Star Paul Silas to coach them in the summer before the 2003-04 season began. The most notable thing about Silas' coaching career was calling Carlos Boozer a cunt after he fucked the Cavs over, by reaching allegedly an implicit understanding with them that he would resign if they let him out of his contract, and then signing with the Jazz. Silas was fired after the 2004-05 season, after which, after an interim stint by original Raptors coach Brandon Malone, current coach Mike Brown took the reins. Alas, perhaps better things away Silas - he has as good as even a chance to snag another head coaching job someday.

Stay tuned, we finish off the Year-of-the-Coaching-Change tomorrow.

Goodbye Commerce Bank Pens

Have you ever had the feeling that you feel so strongly and have complained so much about an incredibly minor and meaningless thing that it seems like it's possible that you may have been, or at least contended for the person who complained the most about it anywhere? Well, that's how I feel about a constant source of my ire, the Commerce Bank pen. While friend of the blog Utz has already scribed about it, and random dude Brent Goffin has apparently commented on how strange it is that is impossible to find a picture of it online (which is both true and ridiculous...how can there not be one image of it? I turned up nothing, with a solid three minutes of creative google searching), I would feel remiss not at least briefly discussing a topic about which I complained so much.

As anyone in New York City, and probably the general tri-state area knows, there was at least a six-month or so period, in which you couldn't sign a credit card reciept without having to use a Commerce Bank pen. You know the type - blue, incredibly cheap plastic, which you could kind of see through (actually, that was the second variety - the first was thinner and had opaque rather than translucent plastic (dammit, why are there no pictures)) and a clicker that if you was so poorly constructed that it seemed to have a set number of clicks ahead of time before it fell apart. Trying to go a day using a credit card and not using a Commerce Bank pen was like trying to write a novel without using the letter 'E' - sure, it's possible, but it means you'd have to go far out of your way, and it probably wouldn't be a very good novel.

My problem was said pens was not of course that they were free - I am generally a big fan of free things, and I have stolen many a mediocre pen from hotel desks or job fairs. Commerce Bank simply had the cheapest possible pen that one could make with it still working. Taking a cue from The Joker, I think New York City deserves a better class of pens. I'm not walking around using a Mount Blanc or anything, but seriously, we can have some standards. We can aspire to use a pen that is not a total piece of crap. Alas, the day has come when there is no more, and perhaps I could shed a tear if it were not to be replaced by an equally poorly constructed TD Bank green pen (which of course it's impossible to find a picture of). We have yet to see if it will catch on like the original, the Regis and Kelly seem to want to assure me that TD is exactly the same as Commerce, but better. At least they still have the Penny Arcade (machine that counts change for free, people who don't use Commerce (now TD)).

Playmakers: ESPN takes on the NFL (or as it's known, "the league")

Ah, to be an original series on ESPN. It pretty much dooms you to a short life, especially as there are only two of them, ever, and subjects you to pressure from sports organizations, such as the NFL who essentially forced ESPN to stop Playmakers. Of course, that just tells you how “real” it is – something venerated cornerback Deion Sanders confirmed. Back in college I used to be part of a club which talked about sports. Despite the fact that none of us actually watched Playmakers, we still devoted fifteen minutes to talking about it and making fun of it every meeting.
Those fifteen minutes were pretty much right, though not in a bad way. Playmakers is pretty much the Boston Public of football shows; anything that could go wrong with a football team ever, goes wrong with one football team in one season. We’ve got nearly every controversy in the books – a closeted gay wide receiver, aging running back tries steroids, a young stud back hangs out with the wrong crowd and gets in trouble with the law, a defensive player faces psychological problems after crippling an opposing player, and the list goes on.
The main characters feature an aging running back trying to fight for playing time and a contract, a young hotshot running back, struggling with drugs and crime issues, a quarterback who is probably the most useless main character, a middle linebacker who is the soul of the defense, and a coach who has to deal with concerns about his offensive coordinator jumping at his heels for his job while fighting cancer. Side characters include the aforementioned gay wide receiver along with the conniving, old-fashioned, and pretty much evil owner, who seems curiously modeled after Jerry Jones.
Some plotlines, like a spousal abuse one, and some scenes, such as one in which the owner tells his star running back “Didn’t hear it from me, but the piss man’s coming” (by the way, if anyone could get a hold of that clip, I would be indebted forever) get played over and over again, to the point of being ridiculous. But then again, to some extent, if it wasn’t so ridiculous, it wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable to watch. If it’s possible to enjoy something both in an ironic sense, and in a non-ironic sense, and I think it is, this is one such thing – it’s not great by any means, but it’s definitely enjoyable viewing for a sports fan.

One great thing about sports is that certain plays and games grow to have nicknames which would mean nothing if you didn't know to what they referred, but to sports fans instantly evoke specific plays. For example, "The Catch" could mean anything, but what it means instantly to sports fans if, you're talking football is the throw from Joe Montana to Dwight Clark in the 1982 NFL Championship game against the Dallas Cowboys. In baseball, "The Catch" means Willie Mays catching Vic Wertz's fly ball in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series. "The Play" indicates a kickoff return in the 1982 Cal-Stanford game (The Big Game) in which California runs backs a kick for a TD and the win as Stanford's band comes out onto the field thinking the game is over.

What I always worried is who names these plays - sure some name simply develops grass roots style, but when does it become official - when does it become big enough that I can type the play's nickname into wikipedia and have it come up. It must take a while for one name developed in one part of the country to cross over, and people may have two dualing names. For this, as discussed with friend of the blog Utz , I propose a tribunal be formed whose sole purpose is naming of important plays, games, events, and event teams or parts of teams (a la Steel Curtain, Purple People Eaters).



The particular urgency for this move is as follows - in last January's Super Bowl, a spectacular play happened. It is universally acknowledge as a spectacular play, one deserving of memorlialization with a nickname, and the play most remembered from the game. This play is the Eli Manning pass after almost being sacked and then helmet catch by David Tyree. In fact the play is so notable, it even has its own wikipedia entry under "Eli Manning pass to David Tyree." However, fans, press, whoever it takes to makes these kind of decisions have not coalesced around one nickname for the play, even 11 months later. This is simply unacceptable. How will I refer to the play when regaling future generations? In fact, wikipedia, lists 15 different nicknames, ranging from Escape and Capture to The Gasp and the Grasp. This is ridiculous. We can't have so many regionalized and individualized versions. We need one name that everyone in this country can unite upon. Eli and Tyree each apparently have their own favorites, Tyree's "Catch 42" focusing on the catch part, of course, and Eli's "The Great Escape" on the throw.

The first duty of this tribunal would be to unite a nation divided upon one nickname for this great play, and as soon as possible, so we still have time to cement the nickname in our heads before the next Super Bowl. There will be many such future occasions as well I have no doubt - we're not the same small media country we were in the '70s and early '80s before cable took off where one broadcast network could take a nickname national. I'm calling on you, NFL, press, or whoever chooses this sort of thing. Don't make me do it.

Okay, it's time to start blogging again - hopefully I will have a new computer soon. I am just about watching the one season of ESPN's original series "Playmakers" so I'll write something on that. In the meantime, a saulte to what has been one of my favorite commercials of the year.





This commercial is simply amazing. Basically the fun part all starts when the doorbell rings, and the housewife (could be unmarried or divorced I suppose (though I guess divorced people are also unmarried) opens the door, at which a man with a bouquet of flowers appears. The woman smiles, appearing surprised and happy that someone thought of her enough to bring her flowers. The delivery man than reads the card with the best line of the commercial, "Delivery from a Mr" - he hesitates - hard pressed to believe that it could be what it says "Mop." (Sidenote: why would a mop be named mop? Are all mops named mop? Or is mop just the common last name and they all have different first names?) We then see the mop poke out from behind a tree, clearly hidden, and waiting for the woman's response. I did not think it would have been possible to make a mop cute, but this commercial proved it. The mop is adorable as it vibrates left and right, eager and anxious for the woman to react. The woman rolls her eyes, sighs and turns back into her house. Another unwanted advance from her ex. Then a bunch of stuff actually talking about the product (what a waste) before one last treat in the last three seconds when a man shows up at the door again with a Candygram, and we again see the adorable mop hanging out behind a bush this time. Phenomenal.