Links

Saturday, March 21, 2009

And They Pay Him to Write This Drivel?

Dan regresses to his usual trite approach to writing in his recap of BC's loss to USC in the first round of the NCAA tournament in his March 21st column.

Chronologically, let's see how Shank meanders down memory lane and, once again, name drops, shall we?

Silvio Conte, Bill Walton, Ed McMahon, Doug Flutie, Will Ferrell, O.J. Simpson, Fleetwood Mac and (tah dah!) Larry Bird.

All of the above -- and more -- are sandwiched among quotes from both coaches, BC's captain, Tyrese Rice and Trojan forward Taj Gibson.

Shank trots out arcane references that are meaningless to many (Mary Ann's ... wasn't she on the SS Minnow with Gilligan?) and brings up one of the very worst of Fleetwood Mac ("Tusk," 1980), and calls the USC squad "dysfunctional," then proceeds to illustrate how dysfunctional and uneven BC's regular season's performance was.

He slams the Trojans for their lack of camaraderie on the floor, likening their "California-cool" attitude to the Red Sox of 1978 with this gem: "These guys looked about as connected as the 1978 (25 players, 25 cabs) Red Sox." Seems to me the "25 players, 25 cabs" reference was much more applicable to the Red Sox of the mid-Sixties, pre-1967.

But virtually no Shaughnessy column is complete without references to the Sox or the Pats or both.

And I was astounded to learn that President Obama's brother-in-law apparently beat the entire USC basketball squad singlehandedly at Oregon State.

Can we get a video of that, Dan?

10 comments:

dbvader said...

Ob, want to respond to this:

"For years, Time, Inc. was controlled by CEDE, Inc., a subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange.

Care to explain? How does a subsidiary of the NYSE come to control a public corporation traded on the exchange?"

Anonymous said...

DB...

Save your breath, brother. He's ignored you for a week now.

Anonymous said...

You're both wrong. Actually I answered 36 hours before popped off without checking your facts. I shall now depart from my custom of not bothering to reiterate sound facts and present the previous posting again:

ObjectiveBruce said...

A look at the "liberals" who controlled Time, Inc. Check the penultimate graf.

Congressional Record, October 21, 1971, Senator Lee Metcalf of Montana:

SENATOR METCALF:
Mr. President, last week, while paging through my copy of TIME,
I noticed some familiar names in an odd place. The name was
the "nominees," "street names," or "straws" used to hide the
identity of various financial interests. I found these street
names in TIME's ownership statement, which appears on page 92 of
the magazine of October 11.

Periodical ownership statements are supposed to be published at
least once a year .....

According to the weekly news magazine, it is owned by TIME, Inc.,
of which ten stockholders each own or hold one percent or more
of the total amount of stock. .....

First on the list is Carson & Company. It's address is box 491,
Church Street Station, N.Y. 10018. ..... Carson & Company really
means Morgan Guaranty Trust.

Further down on TIME's report on its principal stockholders
appears the name Powers & Company. It has a different post office
box at the Church Street Station -- box 1479 ..... you can see
by the nominee list that it is also Morgan Guaranty Trust.

Powers & Company shares box 1479 with another of TIME's
stockholders -- Tegge & Company ..... Tegge & Company shows up in
this year's edition of the nominee list as yet another pseudonym
used by Morgan Guaranty Trust.

TIME includes among its reported stockholders Chetco, at 35
Congress St., Boston, and Ferro & Company, at the same address.
Both, according to the nominee list, are really the National
Shawmut Bank of Boston.

TIME likewise lists without further identification Pace & Company,
box 926, Pittsburgh. And who is Pace? It is really Mellon Bank
& Trust, according to the nominee list.

Another of TIME's stockholders is reported as Cede & Company,
box 20, Bowling Green Station, N.Y. Persons who follow regulatory
matters will recall that Cede & Company shows up repeatedly on
ownership reports of power companies, airlines, and railroads,
and that not long ago the Interstate Commerce Commission expressed
mild interest in finding out who controlled all those Cede & Company
shares ..... The nominee list shows that Cede & Company is the
Stock Clearing Corporation, at 44 Broad Street. I would add that
the Stock Clearing Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of
the New York Stock Exchange. .....

I leave it to the would-be
Lieblings to ferret out press ownership and its implications.

11:37 AM, March 20, 2009

Metcalf was a well-respected senator, and I have seen copies of the proxy statements that confirm his assertions.

Next.

Anonymous said...

OB...

And Dan's "relationship" with Boston's pro athletes is just hunky dory ... right?

Anonymous said...

OB, what the hell are you babbling about?....no one cares....we all know your a Shank rumpswab...END OF STORY

JERRY G said...

Bravo!

Anonymous said...

Forgive me for suggesting that historic perspective is required, but it is, given that my original comment, supported by Sen. Metcalf's remarks, was that Time Inc. was once controlled by the NYSE.

So .. who voted the shares before the federal government mandated a process to provide proxy materials to the shareholder with title, rather than only to the registered shareholder (which held voting authority), DB?

You might want to check out the procedures in place prior to the 1978 revisions to Article 8 of the Uniform Commercial Code, or certain mid-70s rulemakings by the SEC.

Anonymous said...

For the record, Tusk is one of the best double albums of the 1970s (released in October '79, not '80). FM refused to make "Rumours II," jettisoning the sunny California pop formula sound for darker themes and a more experimental sound. By exposing themselves to punk and new wave and refusing to give the public the pablum they wanted, Fleetwood Mac created a classic that sounds as vital today as it did thirty years ago.

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Back to the Shank-hate.

JERRY G said...

You're right. It was released in the Fall of 1979. But, as music director for an AM radio station at the time, I found it so lame that I didn't program it until early 1980.

I disagree with its musical worth. I think it was a throwaway. I don't recall whether or not "Tusk" even made the charts. But if it did, it was the only cut from the album that did.

Patrick said...

The song "Tusk" went top ten on the Billboard charts, as did "Sara": "Think About Me" scraped into the top 20. The album went to #4 and reached double platinum - no Rumours, but not bad for an uncommercial double album released during a recession.

As to its musical worth, I'm okay with agreeing to disagree.