Mr. Bitter

My buddy Jimmy came out from the Creek to hang out tonight. There was a Divisadero art walk going on, so the hood was crowded. We had a couple at 821, then went down to the Page. Jim was talking up a married woman (hey, that’s my department!), and there was a lot of talent at the bar. On the way home, a blonde asked me to have my cowboy hat. Sorry, sweetie, only one way to take a man’s hat!

What did we learn? We learned about the second line in rugby (Irish Ben showed up), we discussed the Giants and the future NFL lockout, we decided to go see the Hold Steady and the Drive-By Truckers at the Fillmore in a couple of months (separate shows this time), and maybe even catch U2 at the Oakland Coliseum. Oh, and we learned way too much about the inner workings of the Los Angeles Clippers.

We discussed Scott Armstrong’s future gig with the Asheville Tourists, and we thought about heading down to South Carolina to work on the book some more. Now, we’re home, working on new songs about old things. Have a good one I wrote this week called, “I’m So Happy.” It’s the last song I will ever write about you know who.

I’m umpiring a game tomorrow in Westborough - Sacred Heart Cathedral. Hope to see the nun! The weekend looks promising. Met an Indian girl named Zapara the other night and would love to run into her again. It’s 3:25 in the morning, and I’m in a tremendous mood.

The Bitter Brother sent this link of a clip on the Today show. Words fail me.

We are settling into the hovel for the gold medal game from Vancouver.

Gee, NBC, you’re finally showing us some hockey. Can’t see what the problem is. Presented with limited commercial interruption. Quick thought on the NHL pulling out of the Olympics (rumor has it the league is trying to decide if it’s worth it to stop play for three weeks) - I understand why the NHL is considering this. The league thought it was going to get a lot more exposure by doing this, much like the NBA. What they didn’t count on is NBC ignoring hockey. The benefit has been questionable so far. But this game will get the attention of the American sports fan. A good game today will probably lead to the league staying in.

Don Cherry! Don Cherry! Red  velvet jacket with a silk maple leaf tie! And somehow, he forgot to rag on all the other countries that didn’t make the finals.

Al Michaels circa 1980 - nice jewfro!

The game starts pretty even. Clearly, the U.S. is trying to keep the game even, unlike the first meeting. Very few shots getting through on either side. Players on both teams are doing a great job of blocking shots. Think this game isn’t important?

Team USA gets the first good chance, with the puck ending up on the goal line behind Roberto Luongo. It takes NBC several minutes to show the puck on the line - probably a problem with the international feed, but still.

Jonathan Toews scores at 12:50. 1-0 Canada.

Since the goal, Canada has done a better job of taking control of the game. We’re late in the first period, and Canada has an 8-5 lead in shots.

Mike Emrick is doing his best to promote the NHL - noting which teams each player plays for.

I’m loving how quick this game is going. This is what NBC hates - no commercial breaks. The television paradox - fewer, shorter breaks in any sport are better for fans. But the more fans who watch, the more commercial breaks are sold, and they are all longer. Been to a baseball game lately? The break between innings is interminable. Been to an NFL game lately? Four minutes between the kickoff and the first play from scrimmage.

Last minute of the period. The U.S. is pressuring Canada but not getting scoring chances.

Thinking back on the quick recap of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. game they showed before the game - why not just show the entire final minute? It was fantastic hockey, the Russians trying desperately to tie the score, absolute chaos on the ice, leading up to the final horn. Michaels didn’t just throw the “Do you believe in miracles,” line out. He was tremendous the entire night. “Eleven seconds. You’ve got 10 seconds. The countdown going on right now!” The crowd going nuts and he was perfect, staying in control of the situation. And when it ended, he shut up. For a full minute. No trying to put himself in the moment, just let the pandemonium tell the story. When he finally came back, all he said was, “No words necessary, just pictures.” Outside of Vin Scully, nobody does it better.

Oh, and just to point it out, Michaels has been saying in interviews lately that he called the Sweden-Finland game after the U.S.-U.S.S.R. game. Whoops - actually, Finland beat Sweden in the first game on that Friday night. But we’ll let him slide on that one.

Period over, Canada leads 1-0 at the break

We’re back live. U.S. turns the puck over early but Miller makes the stop.

Delayed penalty on the Americans. Only the second power play of the game. Ryan Malone called for the high stick.

Team USA kills the penalty. Interference immediately called on Jordan Staal. The U.S. has just one shot on the power play - reminds me of watching the Los Angeles Kings on the power play in the late 1970s. Weak.

Canada scores - huge goal. Corey Perry takes a rebound right in the slot all alone and buries it. Check the rebound - Team USA’s Ryan Whitney deflected the puck right into the slot. He practically teed it up for Perry. Much like goalies being taught not to leave a rebound in the middle of the ice, defensemen can’t let a puck go there either.

Scrum in front of the Canadian net. Again, the U.S. can’t convert.

Halfway through the second period, still 2-0 Canada. The syrup suckers in great shape. The U.S. is peppering the net right now, it’s best offensive sequence since the beginning of the game.

Officially, you aren’t allowed to intentionally dislodge the net. The U.S. just did it to kill a Canadian attack. Emrick noted that it’s a wink and a nod non-call in the NHL and we have NHL referees today.

The Americans score! Patrick Kane fires from the right side on the rush, Ryan Kessler coming up the middle screens Luongo and the puck dribbles in. Game on! Right before the goal, I was thinking the U.S. has to get a goal soon or the game is over. Canada was slowly strangling the life out of the Americans. One of the keys to the U.S. win over the Russians was getting key goals to stay alive right before the U.S.S.R. put them away.

For the record, Kessler got the goal on the deflection.

Did Eddie Olczyk really just make a reference to the heated rivalry of the L.A. Kings and Anaheim Ducks? Yeah, that’s right up there with Blackhawks-Red Wings and Canadians-Bruins.

The U.S. just had a three-on-two, but the Canadians did a fantastic job of getting back, turning it into a three-on-four.

Wow - Miller with a great save on Eric Staal when the puck kicks into the air and comes down right in front with Jarome Iginla on the doorstep. Another one! Mike Richards gets stoned!

Final minute of the second period. Eric Staal takes a long lead pass in the zone all alone and misses wide right. Period over, Canada still up 2-1. Shots are almost even, 25-23, Canada.

Third period underway. Early icing on the U.S., faceoff in the American zone.

Canada hits two posts in the early moments.

In honor of Bud Geracie: Pronger? I didn’t even know her!

Perry in front, stuffed by Miller.

Five minutes into the third period, Canada controlling the zone.

It’s really interesting to me that they have quickie timeouts here and there and NBC, which won’t show hockey live because it can’t show commercials, stays live. I prefer it this way, but if commercials are so important, why not throw a quick 30-second one in there?

Canada’s defense has been outstanding so far. The U.S. has had to earn every shot on net.

We have 11:23 to go. This has been an excellent game so far. Both teams are playing well, the action has been up and down, a one-goal game late. The tension is ratcheting up.

Great rush by Canada, I think Miller made three saves on the sequence. The best one when stuck his leg out to his right to close off the corner. Team USA right back up the ice. No good shots, though. We’re under 10 minutes. They used to switch ends on the first stoppage after 10 minutes in the third period - one of the differences in international hockey - to ensure fairness in case one end of the ice is better than the other. No longer. Luongo falls on the puck with 9:03 remaining.

More on the Canadian defense. The hoseheads are using a lot of neutral zone trap to make sure a defenseman is back on every U.S. rush. Team USA has gotten a couple of open shots, but not too many. And the Americans haven’t controlled the puck in the Canadian zone for any long stretches. There’s no room to operate.

We’re under six minutes. The U.S. is playing well, but the better team is winning. So far.

Brian Rafalski gets a great chance, Luongo makes the save. Coming up on five minutes.

More on the pace of the game - there’s been very few stoppages - penalties or icings or offsides. If every NHL game went like this one, hockey would be a lot more popular in the U.S. When I was a kid, the Kings would advertise “no timeouts!” This is the game I fell in love with.

Icing on Canada. Four minutes, 19 seconds to go.

Sidney Crosby on a breakaway with 3:15 left but can’t get a shot off. The U.S. is still alive! Patrick Kane got back and was able to disrupt Crosby.

U.S. offsides with 2:19 remaining.

Down to 1:40. Miller pulled at 1:30. Luongo makes a save with 1:17 left. Timeout, USA.

Ryan Getzlaf picking his nose.

Under a minute. Faceoff in the Canadian zone.

Timeout Canada. There’s 54.8 seconds left.

Zach Parise scores! The game is tied! The goal came on a scramble in front of the net. Luongo had a chance to stop the play earlier on the sequence but missed the puck with his glove.

Unbelievable! Twenty-four-point-four seconds left. The U.S. ties it 2-2. Regulation ends, we’re going to overtime.

Great tying goal. Kane fired it from the right off of Jamie Langenbrunner’s skate right to Parise. Langenbrunner and Parise were right in front of the net, a major mistake by the Canadian defense after playing 59:30 of outstanding hockey.

There’s nothing like overtime in a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Well, maybe overtime for the gold medal.

It’s a 20-minute overtime period, then a shootout.

Where’s Al Michaels? Bill Patrick is hosting the between-period break.

Jeremy Roenick is going to cry. C’mon, J.R.!

The Canadian fans are understandably stunned. They’re going to be walking on eggshells in the overtime. First mistake loses. I can’t wait to see what the ratings are for this game. Hopefully, it’ll make NBC rethink it’s coverage of hockey.

It looks like Luongo tried to snap at the puck early. The Canadians let Langenbrunner and Parise stay in front of the net for the entire sequence.

I’m guessing NBC may have sent Michaels back to the studio, which is just incredibly stupid. Or he had a heart attack. Closing ceremonies duties should be Bob Costas and Matt Lauer. And if Michaels is involved, can’t he join them a little late?

“The Final Countdown,” being played before the overtime. Why not play Rush’s “Countdown?”

NHL rules for overtime - four-on-four. My guess is that plays in favor of the Americans. They should be able to get some more shots off.

Wow, Emrick, a Paul Henderson reference? Nice!

Patrick Marleau can’t get a shot off. Look familiar, Sharks fans?

More on Michaels - I hope nothing’s wrong. I would think NBC would have explained his absence if he was going to the closing ceremonies or the studio.

Joe Pavelski with a shot off a turnover. Save by Luongo. At the other end, Crosby with the game-winner! Canada wins the gold!

Cheers of relief from the crowd. Crosby, the chosen one, with the golden goal. Miller distraught in front of the USA bench. The gold medal is home, where it belongs.

Great goal. Crosby gets the first shot off, Miller turns it away to the corner, Iginla with a great pass to Crosby cycling back off the left side boards, Crosby puts it in on Miller’s short side. There wasn’t much room there. That’s just one of the best players in the world making a fantastic shot. I want to see the goal-cam shot of the goal - did Miller slide to the open side, away from the shot? Or did Crosby thread the needle?

Will the Canadian men celebrate with cigars and champagne at center ice?

Big hand from the Canadian fans for Miller as he receives his medal.

You know what the biggest difference between the medal ceremony and the Stanley Cup ceremony is? Gary Bettman isn’t there to get booed. I miss that.

Nineteen thousand people happily singing “Oh, Canada,” glorious and free!

Crosby - “We knew we had better.” Indeed.

Still haven’t seen the goal-cam replay, but Crosby said he thought the puck went through the five-hole. Great shot of Crosby celebrating and Miller falling forward onto the ice.

That’s a wrap. Time for me to do some work with what’s left of the day. Party on, Garth!

Here’s my quickie thoughts on tomorrow’s Olympic men’s hockey final. Canada.

Wait, need more? I find it difficult to believe the Canadians will lose at home twice to the Americans. I find it difficult to believe Canada will outplay the U.S. again and not win this time. I find it difficult to believe Ryan Miller can make 42 saves again. The U.S. is good. Canada is better.

And Rush should play the closing ceremonies.

The Bitter Brother weighs in with this column by Richard Sandomir in the New York Times about the Olympic hockey not being broadcast by NBC. The gist is that hockey can’t be broken into six-minute bits for maximum commercials. And that prior Olympic rights holders didn’t show games live for the most part. This is all true. However, two obvious points come to mind: 1) if the games are taped, they can insert commercials during the normal stops in play - after an icing at the four-minute mark or something similar. The tape-delayed showing of other sports are diced up this way. It’s not that difficult to do. 2) When they want to show basketball games during the summer Olympics, the same problems are involved, yet they find a way to work around it.

Wait, no I’m not - that would have involved the students. Two teachers at a Canadian high school got in trouble for doing a lap dance during a school rally. The students thought it was great and cheered them on, but the powers that be weren’t amused. The father of the girl who filmed it and put it on Youtube didn’t have a problem with it - he’s quoted in the story linked above.

It was lovely to meet you at the Fishbowl on Monday. I always enjoy it when a woman pulls me away from the bar to dance. I’ll bet all the guys tell you how fun you are.

And I’ll bet they all think it’s cute when you tell them how you almost gave your dad a heart attack when you told him that you were dating a muslim. Ho, ho, ho, what a story! I have a crazy ex who pulled that on me once. For a long time, I thought that kind of stuff was really endearing - hey, I’m a prankster! Here’s a partner in crime! I had a lot of fun with her causing trouble for a while. When she told her mom I was muslim, I thought it was funny.

But once we started dating, I realized it was just a game, no different from the games she was playing on me and everybody else in her life. And after a while, the games wore on me to the point where I couldn’t trust her anymore about anything.

I’m sure you’re a lot of fun to hang out with, crazy drunk bar skank, but do me a favor - if you’re going to play games, at least have some new ones.

Sincerely,

Damin

I received an “important” letter from Chase Bank yesterday. Chase swallowed up Washington Mutual which swallowed up Great Western - that’s how I ended up with them. Anyway, the letter says, “We need your OK to keep a handy feature in place.” (the bold is from the letter)

The Federal Reserve recently issued new regulations that banks can’t automatically charge bounce fees like they have been. When I started out at Great Western 16 years ago, you paid $5 if you bounced a check and it wouldn’t be paid. Now, they’ll pay up to $1,000 worth of bad checks (and ATM withdrawals) and charge you $35. It’s an out-and-out profit funnel for the banks, a complete scam. The plan was to get people used to having their bad checks paid so they can “take advantage” of the most usurious loans ever offered - it works out to an interest rate over 500 percent in many cases.

The banks don’t want to lose this profit maker, so they are sending out misleading letters to customers, telling them about the convenience they are offering and trying to get consumers to opt in. Chase is calling it, “Debit Card Overdraft Coverage (sm),” like it’s a wonderful new product.

The best part is the Q&A on the back. Q: How do I prevent my child’s checking account from being charged for overdraft? A: Our Chase High School Checking (sm) accounts are not eligible for Chase Debit Card Overdraft Coverage and are not subject to overdraft fees.

We’re doing it for the kids. Congress was debating a law that would prevent banks from using misleading advertising regarding overdrafts, but so far, it hasn’t passed, thanks to heavy bank lobbying. This is the result.

It’s time for me to move my accounts to a credit union.

That was pretty impressive yesterday - the U.S. men’s hockey team beat Canada, 5-3, the first time the Americans beat the Canadians in the Olympics since 1960. (In 1980, the Canadians were in the other bracket and lost to the Russians and Finland.) Of course, I didn’t get to see the game because NBC refuses to show hockey on the network. Except for the last few minutes of the game.

Beating up NBC for its coverage is like clubbing baby seals - it’s an unfair fight. But it’s just maddening. Really, people would rather watch biathlon and cross country skiing than hockey? I get the figure skating thing - the ratings justify showing all of that. But most winter sports have almost no appeal in the United States. At least hockey is something most sports fans are familiar with. And with all the professionals spread out among the various teams, it’s almost always the best competition in the Olympics. Unlike basketball, which we know the Americans will run away with.

Anyway, I went down to Molotov’s last night and they were replaying the third period on MSNBC, so I got to watch the end of the game. The win is in no way comparable to the win over the Russians (this was just round robin play and it’s meaningless if the U.S. loses in the elimination rounds), but the game was similar in that Canada dominated, spending most of the game in the U.S. zone. Ryan Miller was terrific in goal and the Americans capitalized on their few opportunities. Meantime, all of Canada slipped into a deep depression. This is the only gold medal that matters to the nation. The Canadians can still win gold - they’ll have to win an extra game to do so - but the tournament is so loaded, it’s going to be a difficult road.

After a play-in game against Germany on Tuesday, the Canadians will have to play Russia in the quarterfinals. There’s talk that Canadian coach Mike Babcock will replace goalie Martin Brodeur with Roberto Luongo (who plays for Vancouver, by the way). Brodeur looked very beatable on Sunday and with the belief that a hot or cold goalie will decide your fate, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the switch.

Oh, and how about U.S. coach Ron Wilson? All he did with the Sharks was win, but he was fired for not advancing far enough in the playoffs. Nothing appears to have changed in San Jose - the Sharkies lost in the first round last season. If the U.S. wins the gold medal, it’ll be a vindication for Wilson.

Other Olympic thoughts: Bryan Adams and Nelly Furtado. Hmm. But we got Sarah McLachlan singing that song of hers. You know, the pretty one that she writes over and over and over again. Shane Koyczan was pretty good. I can never get enough k.d. lang. Hallelujah! … I think it’s interesting that NBC’s focus seems to be on all American medals now, not just gold. Not that there’s anything wrong with broadening the view - all medals are good. But there seems to be a slightly different angle. To wit - Apollo Ohno winning seven medals. Yes, that’s more than Bonnie Blair’s six, but Blair won five gold medals. Just sayin’. … Pretty bad that Meredith Vieira confused Michael J. Fox with Canadian hero Terry Fox. … Is it weird to anybody else that they’re using the same arena for figure skating and short track speed skating? … Two-man luge is proof that in some parts of the world, it’s so cold that people will invent a sport to keep warm. … The following picture is for my buddy Branden:

Finally, I can’t tell you how happy I am that there’s an angry black man at the Winter Olympics. Fight the man, Shani! Kill Whitey!

Hey, I was very lax last week and didn’t write up Branden’s solo set at the Rockit Room. He played as part of Acoustic Mondays and delivered a terrific set, full of great covers. A partial list: Kris Kross “Jump,” Norah Jones “Don’t Know Why,” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Journey “Don’t Stop Believing,” even a couple of bars of the Drive-By Truckers “Zip City.” Nice job, dude. He also tore through a bunch of his own stuff, including several he did with us in Pet the Bunny (”From the Heart,” “Holding Onto Maybe”) and older stuff. The guy’s a stud.