Worth Noting Pages 71-75

WORTH NOTING PAGE 71

·         On fight for Ted William’s DNA (from ESPN Magazine Big Ten 7/22/02)

Ted William’s son is accused of wanting his dad’s DNA.  Apparently, he didn’t get any the first time around.

·         On The Constant Need To Defend Pro-Choice Rights

[In 2002] Representative Julie Carson (D - Indiana) speaks on floor of House and tells of having to vote 108 times since 1997 to oppose anti-abortion legislation. (also speaking eloquently in defense of abortion rights is Representative Nancy Johnson R – CT)

·         On the Computer from Joseph Campbell

I could mythologize that thing.  It has a personality.  It talks back.  And it behaves in a whimsical manner.

·         On Living Each Day from Father O’Malley in The Bell’s Of St. Mary’s

If there’s any good I can do for someone else, let me do it now and not put it off – for I will not pass this way again.

·         On Being Happy For What You Have from my friend Washington Borges

I don’t have everything I love … but I love everything I have.

·         On Work from Primo Levi’s The Monkey’s Wrench (in Were You Always An Italian?)

I tell you, doing things you can touch with your hands has an advantage: you can make comparisons and understand how much you’re worth.  You make a mistake, you correct it, and next time you don’t make it.

How many office jobs, filled with endless meetings and memos, deliver something permanent at the end of the day? [We’re You Always An Italian?]

·         On Telcoms and their Bankers (“Solly’s Pig Out” from NY Post 10/1/02)

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s suit to recover $1.5 billion in IPO profits from former CEOs revealed damning e-mails from Citi’s Salomon Smith Barney unit that labeled some investment banking clients “pigs” and questioned the quality of research the firm’s analysts produced.  In one e-mail to U.S. research chief Kevin McCaffrey, star telcom analyst Jack Grubman admitted:  “Most of our banking clients are going to zero and you know I wanted to downgrade them months ago but got a huge pushback from banking.  I wonder what use bankers are if all they can depend on to get business is analysts who recommend their banking clients.” 

WORTH NOTING PAGE 72

Telcoms and Bankers cont’d

The complaint details Grubman’s pitiful record at the firm.  Of the 20 to 36 stocks Grubman recommended from 1998 almost through June 2002, 16 or almost 50 percent went bankrupt.  Yet Grubman never issued a “sell” rating on any of them, the complaint noted.  In fact, an e-mail shows that Grubman admitted he wasn’t giving his true rating to some firms.  “If I so much as hear one more ****ing peep out of them [Focal Communications – a telcom that Solomon took public] we will put the proper rating  (i.e., 4) [underperform] not even 3 [neutral] on this stock, which every single smart buy-sider feels is going to zero.  We lost credibility on MCLD [McLeod USA] and XO [Communications] because we support pigs like Focal, the complaint said Grubman wrote on Feb. 21, 2001.

·         On Sportsmen as a Market (2/202 NY Post)

·         Spending over $70 billion dollars a year in pursuit of their pastime, America’s hunters and anglers would rank no. 11 on the Fortune 500 if they formed a corporation, according to Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation and the National Shooting Sports Foundation

·         Over 38 million Americans enjoy the outdoors – twice the number of labor union members – and sportsman support 1.6 million jobs, well more than Wal-Mart, the country’s largest employer.  American sportsmen as a demographic are worth a closer look.

·         Because sportsmen enjoy hunting and fishing alone or in small groups, they are often overlooked as a constituency and as a substantial economic force.

·         Figures underestimate the impact of sportsmen since they don’t count millions of hunters and anglers under 16 and people who were not able to get out and hunt or fish in 2001

·         When sportsmen’s spending is compared to other sectors of the economy, it’s remarkable how much state and federal tax revenues are generated, how many people are employed and how many sectors of the economy are impacted by hunting and fishing.

·         In Florida, recreational anglers spend three times more each year than the cash receipts for the state’s orange crop.

·         In Oregon, sportsmen support more jobs than are provided by Intel, Nike, Oregon State University and University of Oregon combined

·         Hunters and anglers mean jobs in states and local communities that have made the effort to maintain their hunting and fishing opportunities.

·         Bruce Lee’s Motto: philosophy of martial arts and life

      Using no way as way.  Having no limitation as limitation.

·         Three Criteria for a Criminal Suspect: Means, Opportunity and Motive

·         Secret to On-Air Success in Newscasting (from The Beach House):

 The whole thing in this business is sincerity.  Once you learn to fake that, the rest is easy.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 73

·         On Johnny Unitas:  U is for Unique (from ESPN article Do the Math, Steve Hirdt)

Unitas exemplified the can-do attitude of his era: Give me a task, I’ll get it done.  That was exactly how it happened on what was (and may still be) the most famous drive in football history, in the 1958 NFL championship game at Yankee Stadium.  With the country ripe for the kind of action that pro-football delivers, Unitas coined the “two-minute drill” (if not the name, then certainly the practice), completing four of seven passes for 73 yards as he drove the Colts from their own 14 with 1:56 left in fourth quarter to the Giants’ 13.  That set up a game-tying field goal with seven seconds left that forced the NFL’s first (and still only) sudden-death title game.  The next time he got his hands on the ball, he took the Colts 80 yards in 13 plays, completing four of five passes for 47 yards and finally handing off to Alan Ameche for the title-winning touchdown in overtime.

If statistics don’t always help in explaining the mystique that certain players develop, then Unitas is the captain of that club.  Stated simply, today’s NFL pass rating system is not at its best when interpreting the performances of the quarterbacks of earlier generations.  Some of the elements that the system rewards – notably, a high completion percentage and a low rate of interceptions – were just not essential parts of the game plans of Unitas, Otto Graham, Norm Van Brocklin and Bobby Layne, great quarterbacks who came into the NFL in the 1940’s and 50’s.  The “aerial attacks” that they directed – as opposed to today’s “passing games” – weren’t designed for short, safe completions for modest gains; their intention was to throw long, daring passes, moving the ball downfield quickly.  In those days, the quarterback’s response to getting a long pass intercepted was, “Hey, it’s as good as a punt.”

Last season, the league-wide average pass completion rate was 59%; Unitas never had a completion rate that high in any of his 18 seasons in the NFL.  Last season, one of every 29.7 passes was intercepted.  Unitas had a lower interception rate only three times in 18 years.  But measure him by the standards not of our day, but or his own: During Unitas’ career, the average NFL completion rate was 50.4% and the average interception rate was one of every 17.5 passes.  Johnny U’s career figures were 54.6% and 1 INT for every 20.5 passes – far better than average.  But those were not his signature categories; touchdowns and yardage were. 

His most enduring record is his streak of 47 consecutive games throwing at least one touchdown pass, set between 1956 and 1960.  Some like to oversimplify and assert that Unitas’ record is the “equivalent” of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.  I think such a comparison might be unfair – to Unitas, that is.  Think about it: Bill Dahlen, Willie Keeler, Ty Cobb, George Sisler and Pete Rose have all had hitting streaks of 40 or more games.  But the second-longest streak of TD passes in NFL history is 30 games, by Dan Marino.  So while five hitters had streaks that came within 16 games of DiMaggio’s 56, not a single quarterback has come within 16 games of no. 19’s 47, despite the fact that QB’s throw nearly 20% more passes per game today than they did in Unitas’ era. 

Unitas threw 290 touchdown passes in the NFL, a record when he retired, now the sixth-highest total in league history.  The typical Unitas scoring pass had some distance to it: an average of 26 yards, the highest average TD toss of any of the all-time top-10 touchdown passers.  Remarkably, while Dan Marino threw 130 more touchdown passes than Unitas did, it is Unitas who still holds the NFL career records for most touchdown passes of 30 or more yards, 40 or more yards and 50 or more yards.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 74

·         On the Importance of Solidarity by Ben Franklin

We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we will hang separately.

·         From Empire Falls by Richard Russo

·         He knew, as soon as he spoke the words, that they were a mistake.  For Miles, one of the great mysteries of marriage was that you had to actually say things before you realized they were wrong.  Because he’d been saying the wrong thing to Janine for so many years, he’d grown wary, testing most of his observations in the arena of his imagination before saying them out loud, but even then he was often wrong.  Of course, the other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn’t between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get.  Wrong, all of it, to one degree or another, by definition, or by virtue of the fact that Miles himself was the one saying it.

·         Whatever the virus, it became several degrees more deadly in his pulmonary system until he finally reintroduced it into the atmosphere by means of his explosive sneezes.  Max regarded covering his mouth as irrational behavior.  The way he looked at it, you might as well cover your ass with your hand when you farted.  See how much good that did.

·         They didn’t know it, but they even liked the little black-and-white TV, though they were right, it did have a shitty picture.  But there wasn’t anything wrong with imbalance.  What was life but good barstools and bad ones, good fortune and bad, shifting from Sunday to Sunday, year to year, like the fortunes of the New England Patriots.  There was no such thing as continual good fortune – or misfortune, except for the Red Sox, whose curse seemed eternal.

·         Besides, a new wide-screen TV wouldn’t get rid of the imbalance.  There’d still be a good television and one shitty one.  The only difference was that what people had thought of as the good big one now would become the shitty little one.  Worse, the quickest way to beget a new desire, Bea knew, was to satisfy an old one, and each new desire had a way of becoming more expensive than the last.  If she was foolish enough to gratify her customers’ current demands, who knew what they’d dream up next?

·         The Five P’s for Success [in football and other things]

Proper preparation prevents poor performance.

·         From A Beautiful Mind, Russell Crowe as John Nash

I assure you I’m quite well balanced.  I have chips on both shoulders.

·         On Samuel Clemens’ failure as a speculator and businessman:

Writers have an excess of imagination.  They can foresee the thing being a tremendous success, whereas a serious businessman would see it had fatal flaws.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 75

·         Italian Apperativo: Ingredients: White peaches (fresh or frozen), Per Secco Sparkling Wine   Recipe:  Blanch, peel, pit and puree peaches; mix 2 parts peaches to 3 parts Per Secco; shake over ice and strain

·         Album to buy: The Coral, by band The Coral, The Waifs

·         What I’ve Learned by Robert Evans for Esquire Magazine Feb ‘03

·         Someone once told me that the three most dangerous things in life are your mouth, someone else’s mouth, and a car.  Adding a cell phone to the mix can only lead to disaster.

·         Fuck ‘em.  Fuck ‘em all.

·         The only way you can make a deal is if you’re ready to blow it.

·         Rejection breeds obsession.

·         Never say yes when you mean no.

·         Instant gratification takes too long.

·         If you go by the rules, you end up being an accountant

·         I don’t kiss and tell.  I learned early in life that continued silence is the greatest insurance policy to continued breathing.

·         On the U.S. threat to Totalitarian Regimes, quote from Winston Churchill.  Applies to Middle Eastern dictatorships after removal of Saddam Hussein.

The Kremlin doesn’t fear the U.S. as an enemy.  They fear the U.S. as a friend.

·         Quote On Death: Favorite of writer Ayn Rand from a Greek philosopher 

I will not die.  It’s the world that will end.

·         On life from Sonny in A Bronx Tale

The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.  And the choices we make shape our lives forever.

·         On Light and Sound

Music is the arithmetic of sound.  Optics is the geometry of light.

·         On national loyalty and journalists from William Randolph Hearst

The foreign correspondent must be a loyal and honorable citizen of his own land appreciating

fully the influence of his labors and his views upon the opinions of his readers and the possible effect upon the attitude and acts of his fellow citizens in times of crisis.

·         On Drinking

Drinking is bad for you; but not drinking is even worse.