Happy Birthday Clyde Frazier

Clyde Frazier gets a lot of love from everyone in New York City besides Mr. D and Blacky. Although he's from Atlanta originally and spends most of the off season in the islands, he's basically a New York lifer at this point. As arguably the best player on the only two Knicks championship teams, Clyde has a place in the big apple's sports hall of fame for eternity. For those of us not old enough to remember his playing career, he's been the eccentric voice of the Knicks on either the radio or TV for the past 20 years. While best known for his ridiculous vocabulary, and equally ridiculous wardrobe, Frazier is actually a very competent color commentator. With NBA League Pass I'm able to see a wide range of games from all over the country (and Canada) and let me just say that compared to 95% of the other NBA team's broadcast booths, John Sterling is the definition of impartiality. And while someone like Clyde might be forgiven for being a bit of a homer seeing as how he's spent over 40 years working in some capacity for the Knicks, you'd be hard pressed to find a clip of him openly rooting for the Knicks, saying "us" and "we" instead of "them" or imagining elaborate officiating conspiracies against the home team like Tommy Heinsohn or almost every other announcing team. The most you'll get out of him is an occasional "oh yeah" after a great Knicks play or his trademark "all the Knicks with the knack". There's also something nice about him sticking with the Knicks for all these years, almost every other high profile broadcaster moonlights on a national network, but Clyde can be heard only on MSG 3 or 4 nights a week. And yes, there's his way with words. "Swishing and dishing", "wheeling and dealing, "posting and toasting". And on and on it goes. A rookie is a "precocious neophyte", post players jockeying for position are "kung fu fighting", a player on a hot streak is "percolating". Coming from other less cool cats, it might come off as pretentious or obnoxious, but Clyde's the flyest dude in the room. He can get away with it (unless you're Mr. D). And more importantly, he knows basketball so there's substance behind the "effervescent personality" and "sartorial splendor". A Knicks game wouldn't be the same without him.

Clyde, we salute you.

"Bay Ridge Jersey Shore" Not Bay Ridge or Jersey Shore Enough

Brooklyn 11223 premiered last night and predictably it was a train wreck, but maybe not for the reasons we hoped for. Ever since it was first announced that there would be a reality show set in Bay Ridge, the outcry from long time Ridge residents and Blacky has been slightly more vociferous than that over the Trayvon Martin shooting. The chief complaints were "they're going to make us look like buffoons like Jersey Shore does" and even worse "that's not even our zip code!". After spending a few minutes attempting to find the Oxygen network though - and apparently it doesn't even have an HD feed on Fios - I can tell you it's much worse than Jersey Shore. And not in a "train wreck you can't look away from" kind of good way.

The first thing you notice about Brooklyn 11223 is that the production values are really, really bad. Like bargain basement cheap. If MTV is like McDonalds for your brain - you know it's bad for you but it's still ok when you're half drunk at 2 am - then this show was the ham and cheese sandwich in a bag they serve to homeless people, criminals waiting for their appearance before the judge in central booking and New York city public high school students. I have no experience making television shows but I'm fairly certain Bottle and I could make a superior product on my iphone video camera. Jersey Shore at least looks like it's relatively cheaply made yet has competent people working on it. And while Jersey Shore is full of semi attractive people acting foolish, this show features some of the uglier, obese residents of Bay Ridge acting childish and not in a funny way. The entire series revolves around one incident that may have happened years ago (one of the girls might have slept with one of the other girls boyfriends) that would usually be one of many annoying plot points on another more interesting reality show, but instead is the focus of the show. Besides what looks like a huge brawl at Bay Ridge bar Bullshots (and the cameos of local bars and folk hero Bay Ridge Yeti dancing were the ONLY high points of the show), there doesn't seem much worth watching here.

So relax people of Bay Ridge. Yes, Brooklyn 11223 is not an entirely accurate portrayal of your sacred neighborhood, although there are definitely a good number of people living there who resemble the cast (don't believe me, just go to Salty Dog on a Friday night). And no, that's not the correct zip code. The producers have said that the show takes place all over Brooklyn, but other than a quick fight on a Coney Island beach and some scenes in a Coney Island auto shop where some of the cast works, the show is mostly set in Bay Ridge. But you shouldn't have to deal with this show for long, and I wouldn't worry about your hometown becoming synonymous with drunken, Italian stereotypes (well, anymore than it already is). This show is terrible in a way that I believe won't lead to a nationwide craze, like the millions who love the pathetic yet lovable Guido antics of Snookie and the Situation. It's just a shitty show that will lead to a quick cancellation. America might love shit, but at least we have the good taste to recognize when it's packaged nicely.

Top 5 Spike Lee Joints

Happy belated to the Knicks' number one fan and maybe Brooklyn's most famous resident, Spike Lee. While perhaps most well known for his die hard through-thick and-thin love of the Knicks, few people ever bring up the fact that he's a huge frontrunner when it comes to every other sport. He roots for both the Jets and the Giants equally depending on who's winning, he grew up rooting for and rooted for the Mets in the 80s when they were good, but now is seen at Yankee games and wears that stupid cap with all the pennants on it all the time. He probably would be a huge Rangers fan now if they had any brothers on the team. But, despite that douchey quality, Spike has still made a few really good films (along with some not so good). I have some issues with his film making style, mostly with his heavy handed at times preachy style and his over use of musical score, but there's a lot to like about his movies too and you can't deny his impact. What were his top 5 best?

5) Inside Man


Spike's biggest box office hit by far thanks to the presence of white people and the fact that it's one of his only forays into the heist movie genre. While I think this one was a bit over rated, and they really lost me when they got into the weird neo Nazi subplot or whatever, Inside Man was probably Spike's most entertaining flick. Plus, he wasn't in it.

4) Jungle Fever

John Turturro is great in almost everything (Transformers sucked but a guy gotta pay the bills). This one also stars a young Michael Imperioli (Chris Moltisanti from the Sopranos) and Nick Turturro as Bensonhurst guidos hating on their little sister's choice of a boyfriend. And this wasn't just any old Moolinyan, but Wesley Snipes. The blackest brother in the world. Halle Berry also pops up as a crackhead and Sam Jackson is killed by his father. It's pretty great (although the last scene is kind of lame).

3) 25th Hour


I'm a little partial to this one since the main characters are a couple guys from Bay Ridge (there's even a scene at their father's bar where the patrons are drinking beer and chanting "Let's go Yankees") but it's also Spike's most consistent work to date, in my opinion, if not the best. It doesn't veer off into any weird subplots and features one of the best monologues in film history.

2) Malcolm X

A great flick, even if you're not black (like we aren't) or aren't big fans of brother Malcolm. Spike's one truly epic bio pic is without a doubt among the best of his movies. Many feel that Denzel was robbed by the Academy (and some think it was a racist conspiracy resulting in Denzel having to be crooked before he took it) and his performance is pretty good.

1) Do The Right Thing


This is a no brainer as the number one Spike Lee joint, and he never really reached these heights again. Deals with racial issues without being overly preachy, features great performances from Turturro, Danny Aiello and even Spike himself is pretty good. Also had a great soundtrack and Rosie Perez's tits (or a close facsimile). Tons of quotable lines in this one. Sums up the racial divide in the late 80s in the scene below. Great stuff, Spike.


Honorable Mentions: He Got Game, Clockers, Mo Better Blues, Crooklyn

Timsanity: Tebow Comes To New York

Even if it's only the Jets, Tim Tebow will still be awkwardly annoying and inspiring people in New York next season (or at least New Jersey). If you thought he got a lot of hype when he played in Denver, you ain't seen nothing yet. I suppose it's a good move, at least for PR purposes, but it's not like the Jets suffer in the ticket sales department. As far as football wise, it seems a little odd seeing as how the Jets recently proclaimed Mark Sanchez as their guy for the future, and as recently as this morning certain Jets players with lots of illegitimate kids expressed their displeasure with a possible Tebow trade. With Sparano running things though, we can expect to see that Dolphin style Wildcat offense, something the Jets ran a lot when Brad Smith was in green.

However it turns out for NY's other football team on the field, it's a big splashy story that will draw a ton of attention beginning today until the Jets inevitably are knocked out of the playoff race. Will Tebow take offense to Rex Ryan's salty language? Will he tell Santonio Holmes to leave the clubs and liquor alone? Will Hater J give up watching football? Linsanity will look like the local buzz over a cable access show compared to the type of rapturous hype that we'll see if Tebow does anything positive for the Jets. If anything, this now makes the Jets must see tv for a little while, a season after watching the Giants once again prove their domination of the NY football landscape, as well as ensures many pissed off and annoyed e-mails from Hater J. And to think, all these years I thought God hated the Jets.

If You Hate Isolations, You Hate NBA Basketball

There's been a lot of controversy circling the Knicks recently as you no doubt know if you read this blog or don't live under a rock, most of it centering on Carmelo Anthony. With Mike D'Antoni out of the picture, all of the scrutiny will be focused on the guy who many people think was the reason for his departure. Everything from his sluggish body language and thuggish attitude to his shot selection has already been picked apart by everyone, and I'll admit there's merit to most of the criticism. One favorite gripe of Melo haters that I don't necessarily agree with, however, is this one: Melo's isolation plays are what's wrong with the Knicks offense. Yes, it's true that he tends to hold on to the ball for too long when the call is for an iso, and he needs to make quicker moves and be a more willing passer. But there seems to be a large population of Knicks fans and Carmelo haters (two groups of which there is much overlap) who think of isolation as a dirty word. Like Carmelo Anthony invented this ugly ruffian, selfish style of basketball in order to get his points like the me-first thug he is. Truth is, the NBA has been dominated by isolation plays for years, like it or not (and many people choose to not like the NBA because of this). While Carmelo may tend to isolate more than other players, what he does is not out of line with much of what the rest of the league runs on a nightly basis. To further complicate matters, Jeremy Lin came out of nowhere and initiated a free flowing offense for 2 weeks, that was pretty God damn fun to watch. It's only natural that this will be viewed as the antithesis to the ugly Melo ball, the "right way to play" as opposed to that other way. It was nice to see everyone sharing the ball and multiple passes every trip down the floor, but the way many Knicks fans have lionized those two weeks of Linsanity is bordering on insanity. The average caller into NY sports talk radio (not that these are the examples of intelligent sports fans but I would say they are a good representation of the average ideas of most NY sports fans) has reimagined those two weeks in February vs the Raptors and Kings as the rebirth of Clyde Frazier to Monroe to Debuscchere. The holy grail of beautiful basketball in all it's glory. Sorry Vinnie in Manhasset, that's not NBA basketball. Melo standing on the wing trying to break down a defender is.

Take a look at the last 20 years of NBA championships, when I think isolation play took over the league just as the superstar did. Not one of the champion teams played a Phoenix Sun, D'Antoni style, every one of the team had a superstar who spent at least half of it's team's possessions isolated on offense (a post up also counts as an iso), and the one team that didn't have any superstars ( the 2004 Pistons) played a drag out half court offense that played to it's bruising strengths. That lovely style of basketball that's so adored by both media members as well as the bandwagon Knicks fans who hadn't watched a game since Ewing, the sweet passes that seemed to sail through the air pushed by the spirit of Bob Cousy, James Naismith and Ghandi. That hasn't won a title since before Magic had HIV. The NBA game is predicated on superstar play, and has been since Michael, Magic and Bird became big money makers. Some times it can bog down the offense and make NBA games boring, other times it can result in amazing singular performances. The best teams mix in a little of both, running at opportune times, moving the ball and also incorporating isolation plays for their stars at the right time. There's been an outpouring of love for teams like Philadelphia and Denver who have like 9 guys each that average 11 points and no one can name 4 players in their starting lineup (in particular Denver who has apparently reinvented basketball since ridding themselves of that black hole, Melo). But you know where those teams will be in June? Watching the games just like me and you. The Knicks have a lot of issues that need solving including how to consistently make shots and defend and rebound, etc. But isolation offenses aren't going anywhere. It's a fact of NBA life. Get over your dreams of a socialist basketball offense where everyone is treated equally, and the wealth is shared. Professional basketball is not like that. There's probably a reason you stopped watching a while ago.

The End Of Kony-Sanity

As PTU predicted earlier this week, Kony-Sanity has come crashing down. NBC San Diego is reporting that the co-founder of Invisible Children, the group who created the Kony 2012 video, was arrested in San Diego. He was found running through the streets drunk and naked while masturbating and vandalizing cars. You can't make this stuff up kids.

In other signs Kony-Sanity is collapsing, a screening of a movie in Uganda received awful reviews. According to one angry viewer "We wanted to see how our local people were killed, but this is all white men!"

Too many white people, a crazy guy masturbating in public while breaking car windows, and nothing accomplished except a viral video....

PTU March Madness Preview

Hey, March Madness started already without us! Unfortunately, resident College sports expert Hater J (pictured above the last time we saw him) has been unable to do his usual break down of the NCAA tournament due to his obligations to his other job. What is that job you ask? No one knows for sure, but we know he disappears for weeks at a time, only to resurface at the occasional pub for burgers and pints of Guiness, wearing stubble like Hanks in Castaway and muttering about his hatred for "the man". If he can free himself of his shackles long enough to jot down a few ideas about this years bracket we'll pass it on to you.

In the meantime, let me just say I have the rudimentary knowledge of college basketball that most of the people in your office or the President of the United States has. I know Kentucky is really awesome, North Carolina is always good, some annoying team will come out of nowhere and be America's Jeremy Lin for a week and the team we least expect to win it probably will. Without a Kemba Walker involved this year, we won't have as much to say but believe me, we love March Madness as much as everyone else.

Stay tuned for hard hitting analysis from Hater J coming soon if we can ever break him out of his chains for an hour or so.

Top 5 Gangster Movies That Aren't The Godfather

The 40th anniversary of the Godfather's release is today, marking the day that cinema was changed forever. Seriously now, I'm not just bullshitting like James Lipton or something, the Godfather changed everything. Similar to how Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy's DNA is found all over the comedy of every black comedian that's followed them or every songwriter owes something to Bob Dylan, Coppola's masterpiece birthed the style of a million good, not so good, and flat out awful gangster flicks. Even if you've never seen it,you know at least a line or two from the movie, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it changed how we view the mafia or even how the mafia itself acts. Most of what we know and how we think about La Cosa Nostra and even some of how they operate comes from the Godfather. They're big fans just like us. So it goes without saying that Godfather 1 and 2 are the 2 best gangster movies of all time (we'll pretend GF3 didn't "exist", much like the Mafia no longer "exists"). But there's still been a few truly great gangster movies since then, as well as the hundreds of straight to dvd wannabe's. What were the 5 best? I also included the most gangster scenes from each.

5) King of New York

Not a Mafia movie really (although there are one or two unlucky Italian gangsters in it), but the sheer gangsterness of this movie puts it in the top 5. Some of the scenes are a little hokey, and it's a real downer (even more so than director Abel Ferrara's other big movie The Funeral despite that film's title) but it features Christopher Walken at his weird, creepy best. It also inspired an entire generation of rappers and was the inspiration for Biggie's Frank White alias. White murdering David Caruso at his partner's funeral might be the most gangster scene in the history of movies.("Hey you"). Also, this was the original KONY.

4) Casino



This one is severely slept on, partly because people think it's exactly the same as Scorsese's other great gangster movie. While there are certainly similarities (DeNiro in a lead role, Pesci fuckin people up, Rolling Stones music), Casino on it's own is a great movie despite shrill overacting from Sharon Stone. Plus, Don Rickles!

3) Donnie Brasco

Remember when Johnny Depp played normal people? Not foppish takes on Keith Richards or Michael Jackson voiced children's story characters? Donnie Brasco was one of those ordinary guys (relatively at least) that we don't see Depp do as much since he's dissapeared into Tim Burton's brain. While not as flashy as some of Scorsese's best, this is still one of the best gangster flicks ever, and even introduced a couple of entries into the gangster lingo: Fugazi and taught us what "Fugheddaboutit" really means.

2) Reservoir Dogs

Ok, so technically Resevoir Dogs and King of NY aren't Mafia movies and I guess would be considered more like crime movies, but Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut holds up to this day. Watching it now, it almost seems cliche until you remember that all those thousands of other sraight to the 5 dollar bin at Best Buy movies were just rip offs of this. In 1992, it was actually new and fresh to hear people having conversations about pop culture and to see horrific violence incongruously matched up with breezy 70s pop songs. Now, every dweeb with a Netflix account and Mac thinks they're the next Tarantino but when this movie came out there was only one.

1) Goodfellas


Was there any doubt? I go back and forth all the time about which is my favorite movie of all time, Goodfellas or the Godfather movies. While both dealing with similar subject matter, they share little else in common. Godfather is a nearly humorless, epic drenched in period seriousness while Goodfellas is just a nonstop, fastpaced tour of a gangster's life from the beginning to the end. Both are pretty much impossible to stop watching, but for different reasons, and depending on my mood I could list either as the greatest gangster movie ever. Take Godfather out of the picture though, and it's a no brainer that Goodfellas is the GOAT.

Honorable mentions: Scarface (blasphemous to some I'm sure that I left this off but these are my 5 favorites), City of God, Once Upon a Time in America.

Dear Johnny Bagels

I would like to introduce a new segment at PTU, we recently got a letter from a reader and they wrote.

"Dear Johnny Bagels, I am casual but busy fan of the Knickerbockers of New York, and I heard that our coach recently resigned, and I have no idea who our interim coach is. I know I can just Google the answer but, I would like some more analysis ,for example will this interim be a long term solution? Can any coach make this team respond besides Phil Jackson?

Thank you for your time in this response.

Signed (I left the person's e-mail address out for confidentiality )"

Well if you other readers would like to ask me, Johnny Bagels, or another PTU writer a question feel free to e-mail us at.

blogptu@gmail.com

Thanks

Good Riddance, Mike D'Antoni

And so the national nightmare is over. Mike D. has stepped down as head coach of the Knicks and we here at PTU are pretty happy about it. Our conversations via e-mail and in person and text have been dominated by the West Virginian with the goofy moustache for the last few weeks. He's of course not totally to blame for this fiasco of a season (everyone has underachieved aside from Lin, Chandler, Novak and yes, Jared Jeffries) but it is extremely unlikely that we would have been able to ship any of our other big name problems out of town. Who gets the axe then? Of course the head coach, and I am glad to see him go. We will no longer have to watch another post game press conference that goes like this: "Aw shucks, that other team was purty good, huh? We'll be fiiine, just need to keep the energy up, hyuk!". So ends a disastrous 3 and a half season era of Knicks basketball, marked by a few weeks of excitement, some high scores, putrid defense, lots of unhappy players and lots of losing. There's been talk of the team not respecting the coach for a couple days now, and D'Antoni butted heads with both his star players and his boss. It was only a matter of time before he had to go.

Whoever takes over now will have a tall order but hopefully it will be someone that can adapt their coaching philosophies to their expensive talent, motivate their players to work on the defensive end AS WELL as the offensive, hold players accountable and be respected in the locker room, and not have a moustache. Basically, everything that D'Antoni was not. Well, unless that one guy wants to grow a moustache again.....

Stay tuned, Knicks fans.

The Kony Top 5: Best "Movement" Fads

Recently, Johnny Bagels asked me "Snoot, can you explain for me really quickly, who the hell is Kony, why white people care about him and which side is on his side, the republicans or democrats?" After giving Bagels the 5 minute run-down, PTU as a group came to the realization that the Kony video is just the perfect example of a disturbing new trend; social media driven humanitarian causes that many people get really excited about and then completely forget about.

Don't get me wrong, there ARE people out there (admittedly more ethical and generous then myself) who really do care about these causes or who are involved in making things better. If you are in the Peace Core digging ditches for irrigation or part of the U.S. Armed Services covertly tracking down some bastards somewhere, I commend you. However, people need to realize that reposting a video on Facebook with comments like "OMG, this is so wrong" accomplishes nothing except making you feel better about your lack of real action. With that in mind, here are what we at PTU like to call "The Kony Top 5". These causes represent the quintessential "flavor of the minute" movements relegated to the social networking dustbin once people forget about them.

5. Haiti Earthquake:
Remember when Wyclef was on TV and twitter and there were TV specials about how everyone had to help Haiti? Two years later, the country remains in ruins and there is no time in-between Santorum praying and Obama pretending he gets along with the Prime Minister of Isreal to bring up the devastation that remains. According to the U.N., the U.S. has only dispersed about 1/3 of the promised relief funds. Oh well, the other side of the island is still nice for a vacation.

4.Making Homeless People into Wi-Fi HotSpots
Okay, I'm reaching here since the outrage isn't that great and there really isn't a movement against this in any major way. I needed to fill this spot in since you can't have a top 4 list...

3. Ethical iPhone

For a short time the techno-hipsters decided that they wanted to protest the unethical conditions in the Apple supply chain (as long as they didn't have to give up their iPhones). Then they announced the iPad 3 and everyone got so caught up blogging about that they temporarily got side-tracked. Don't worry, they will be back soon making 1080p videos of the guys jumping off the Foxconn dormitory balconies with their new iPads and posting it on Facebook.

2. Anti-Kony
See above.

1. Anti Anti-Kony
For our number one, things get really interesting. The only way to top your intellectual yuppie friends passing around an anti-Kony video is to PROTEST the anti-Kony movement. Wesleyan, one of many universities where people with money come to pretend they care about the world (and birthplace of the band MGMT), posted this article on Wesleying, the independent student blog. Essentially they say while the situation is complicated and they don't want to bash positive efforts, the group who produced the anti-Kony video is not using all the money the right way. They exploit the locals down there and there are much more efficient charities that you can donate to.

This is the pinnacle of supporting the cause of the moment, and runs away with our top spot.

Redskins and Cowboys punished by the NFL

As a Giants fan, as most of us writers here on PTU are, there is nothing we love to do more (save for winning the Superbowl) than watching the rest of the NFL East wallow in their own misery. Whether its Vick getting his ribs broken or Romo coming up short in fourth quarters or the Redskins just existing, we hate our rivals.

The NFL has determined that the Redskins and the Cowboys gamed the unwritten rules regarding uncapped 2010 year too much according to their standards. In effect, they front loaded a lot of money in the uncapped year to gain a competitive advantage over other teams. So the league punished them by allocating them a smaller cap number for the next two years. The Cowboys will lose 10 million in cap space and the Redskins will lose 36 million in cap space. They can spread out the cap hit over two years however they like. Each team in the NFL, with exception to the Saints and Raiders, will gain an additional 1.6 million in cap space.

This really hurts the Redskins more than the Cowboys even if you adjust for the cap amount they were docked. The Redskins just gave up a kings ransom to have the number 2 pick in the draft instead of their current number 6. They were banking on their 40 million under the cap space for this year to fill out their roster around RG3. Now, not so much.

I won't go into whether this is or isn't fair. All I know is that it puts a smile on my face. As Nelson would say, "Ha Ha".