Reflections of Hunter Revisited: Last Thoughts on Hunter S Thompson

After a couple of weeks to reflect [and a wickedly funny tribute in this week's Doonesbury] to review and reflect on HST. In reviewing that last book, Kingdom of Fear, I still think that the The Doctor's writing had been sliding, but it is only in comparison to the strikingly radical work he did in the 70s. No respectable journalist had ever inserted themselves as part of the story. A GOOD journalist was supposed to present the facts as a disinterested observer and let the reader draw his own conclusions. Hunter not only injected himself, often violently, into his stories, he often let his biases and opinions be slathered all over a story like barbecue sauce on a brisket. It's a style few have been able to copy, though PJ O'Rourke seems to be able to pull it off on a less grand scale.

Of course Hunter had free reign at Rolling Stone, a freedom that allowed him to ramble at great length between making his points. So of course the 80s and 90s attempts to package Hunter into bite sized easily digestible [and mainstream] columns were a failure. It's akin to having Michelangelo painting postage stamps or engraving coins. Some people need large canvases for their work and Hunter was one of those.

Remember that Hunter was a little older than the people he wrote for. When he was 30 in 67 or 68, he was all ready a seasoned world traveler writing for the National Observer, The Nation and Scanlan's and he'd all ready written Hells Angels. He's go through Chicago, Nixon's election and go hide out in Vegas where that book was born of a depraved and drug addled mind. But Thompson was able to turn all that warped perspective into a tool. He was able to come back from mind bending binges and focus the razor sharp insight and describe it to us. Something as simple as describing tail lights flashing by at 100 mph at the end of Angels, just a simple zaaappppp... Brilliant.

Think also of all the changes in media during his career; from twice daily newspapers and large glossy magazines to the instant news of the internet and satellite and cable TV; from manual typewriters to the IBM Selectric to the PC and laptop; the 18 minutes per page Mojo wire to the fax to instant email... I don't think Hunter wanted to see the first cyborgs, humans with instant communication ports built into them; sit down at your laptop and think it and it appears on the screen and is published on your web page.

And make no mistake, Hunter's impact is HUGE on the Blogger nation. There's thousands of us HST wanna bes out here and now we have our forum. The BLOG has opened up media the way the four track recorder opened up the music business... who knew there were so many after work Jimmy Page/Eric Clapton/ Johnny Rotten's out there? But we are all pale imitations of the master. Surely his writing was an exaggeration, a larger than life tall tale from a vivid imagination. He knew Americans like their heroes BIG, like everything big, loud and bold, so he was. But one could only maintain that peak, ride that wave for so long, and it became obvious that the burnout was beginning by the time he covered Ali/Spinks for Rolling Stone in 1978 [reprinted in The Great Shark Hunt collection].

I guess my point is this: Hunter S Thompson will be remembered as a radical voice for a radical time; in other words the right voice at the right time. But like many of his readers he burned through the nova of the late 60s and early 70s very brightly then imploded into... the stardustof Joni Mitchell's Woodstock? The anger and repulsion of the twin national nightmares of Vietnam and Watergate took a heavy toll; what was left to do after the war was over and Nixon dropped out of sight? Thompson seemed to wander aimlessly after the fall of Saigon piece for Rolling Stone [also in TGSH collection], occasionally surfacing with something to remind us of how great he could be [the Roxanne Pulitzer trial coverage, A Dog Took My Place or his last words on Richard Nixon, both in RS], refusing to do another Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, perhaps knowing you can only get away with that once. Mostly he retired to his compound in Colorado where he could only do harm to himself. Mostly.

Like many of out heroes, it's hard, sad, almost painful to watch them in decline. Think of Ali, still dignified but silent and shaking in the throes of Parkinson's. We Want to remember Ali as The Champ, the Ali of the Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla In Manila. We want to remember Elvis as a young vital newly minted rock and roll star, not Fat Vegas Elvis. We like our heroes young and energetic. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, James Dean, Jim Morrison, Marilyn Monroe: all forever frozen at their peaks. We never suffered through bad albums, horrible movies, fat, balding, rehab, etc. Jack Kennedy forever enshrined with his youth, enthusiasm and energy still very much alive. And we wanted Thompson to be the Thompson/Raul Duke of Fear and Loathing forever. Now he will be.

Thompson wrote his own eulogy at the end of Hells Angels:

But with the throttle screwed on there is only the bareset margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right... and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes and exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. ...The Edge... There's no honest way to explain it because the only ones who know where it is have gone over. The others-the living- are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.*

So long Hunter.

*from Hells Angels: A Starnge and Terrible Saga - 1966

Comments, Apologies and Loose Ends...

1. Well the Westerberg show did not suck. In fact it was brilliant. 95% electric [only Skyway and Here Comes A Regular solo acoustic, and they were GREAT] with a good tight band. Not that there are any 'hits' to play, but a good chunk of Tim and Pleased to Meet Me [including my favorite, Can't Hardly Waitt] along with a few numbers from the new record, Folk Star especially good... he played for almost two hours and I am glad I went.

Apologies to Kat, Amy and Kitari... how could I have doubted?

That makes five of my top six bands of all time I have seen [Stones, Wilco, Superchunk, pre-1990 Aerosmith and now Westerberg/Replacements] I would not count seeing Paul McC as seeing the Beatles, so I don't think that one is ever going to happen... throw in seeing Springsteen & the E Street Band on the indoor leg of Born in the USA, Queen, X, Red Hot Chilli Peppers at Bronco Bowl and at Clearview, Fishbone/Primus double bill, BAD/PiL, Lou Reed at Bronco Bowl, Black Crowes hot Amorica shows at the Bomb Factory... I'd say I've seen lots of good shows in my history...

2. On the strength on Instiutionalized on the Left of the Dial box, I have to admit that Suicidal Tendancies maybe has a little bit of punk credibility... I apologize Mike [Holy Mikey] Haywood.

3. In light of recent acquisition of the remastered Let There Be Rock, [AC/DC] I must apologize to one Ed Voyles and update my rating of this album to a 3.75 [of 5]. It is still not my favorite of the Bon albums [Powerage and/or Highway], but it is chock full of fine AC/DC...

4. 03/07/05- "BW&BK reports: To tide fans over before a new studio release, Velvet Revolver is planning on unveiling a live album and DVD at some point.

"We record everything," Slash says. "We've done a bunch of shows where we've full-on multi-tracked and we're actually mixing the stuff."

What is going on here? A band has one album and they're ALREADY talking live album? That's insane!

There used to be a real spot in rock and roll for live albums. And live albums used to mean something. But now it seems they're just part of the souvenir packaging available at shows. [Grabbing back, leaning on my cane...] Back in my day all we got was a lousy T-shirt or tour book.. and we liked it!

There was a period when the live album was used to break an artist, to use the energy that a band would feed off of during the live show to drive them to new heights. Of course, a lot of them seem rooted in that mythical time when rock and roll was going through it's adolescence and not afraid to experiment a little, roughly 1969 - 1976... starting with, oh 1969's Live Dead by the Grateful Dead and ending with Frampton Comes Alive or [maybe] the Stones' Love You Live. Think about some of the great live albums in those years:

Allman Brothers - Live at the Fillmore East
CSNY - Four Way Street
Rory Gallagher - Irish Tour 74
J Geils Band - Full House
Humble Pie - Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore
Kiss - Alive!
Lou Reed - Rock N Roll Animal
Rolling Stones - Get Your Ya Yas Out
Johnny Winter And... Live
Wishbone Ash - Live Dates

[*And I am sure Mike Leone and Rich will add Vanilla Fudge's live album and Rare Earth Live.]

After this golden period, the live album became a 'rite of passage' or a 'contract filler'...think about mediocre live albums like the Stones Still Life, Aerosmith Live Bootleg, J Geils Blow Your Face Out, David Bowie's David Live, Fleetwood Mac Live, The Alice Cooper Show, any number of Grateful Dead double discs that could have been cut back to single albums... sure there were a couple great ones like Cheap Trick at Budokahn and Foghat Live, but they became exceptions.

Now it appears that bands are using the live album as another concert souvenir. I blame the Grateful Dead for this mess, but Pearl Jam releasing all those live shows and the Stones, Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney following each tour with a live album set an ugly and dangerous precedent.

A live album does not give the experience of seeing the band from your chair, trying to see around people or trying not to choke on all the smoke in a bar show and the guitar player taking an extra solo because the singer is yelling at the monitor engineer... but it DOES put a part of that experience onto plastic and freezes it like a photograph as compared to a video. Frampton found this out on his next tour following the live album. I remember reading an article in the 90s where he described the next tour as hell because 'they didn't want new music, they wanted the live album.'

My point is this: in a mass consumer, instant gratification age, where there is a lot of competition for the dollar, this is just bands taking advantage of people wanting to consume product and being obsessed with bands. Instead of saying 'Use your dollars to check out some of the people who influenced us,' I think this is saying [in the words of the Thamesmen a/k/a/ Spinal Tap] 'Gimme Some Money.' The Stones, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Pearl Jam, etc need more of your dollars for their old age retirement funds.

In recent years there has also been a huge glut of previously unissued live works by 'Classic Rock' acts, such as the Live at the BBC series, Live at the Fillmore [Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Janis Joplin... you know Bill Graham also recorded AND FILMED a lot, if not all the acts that played there...] and the King Biscuit Flour Hour series. We've also seen additional or expanded live releases by the Who [Isle of Wight, and TWO expanded Live at Leeds packages], Jimi Hendrix [always a target for the questionably legal release, hopefully the family is getting some $ for these releases], the Led Zeppelin live album that for years the band refused to do [saying The Song Remains the Same would be the only live release... how many Benjamins did it take to change Jimmy Page's mind?] and the Doors Hollywood bowl appearance [with a rehearsal added too! Which do you think Jim was more sober for?] and The Band's Last Waltz. Again, all these recoding paid for and/or written off years ago. How many of these are truly quality performances? Is there historical significance to any of these performances? Okay, I'll grant the BBC tend to be very good and the Zep is very good, but I do not have much interest in a lot of this any more; I am looking for something NEW, not rehashing past glories.Is this just the record company's last grab at the Baby Boomer's yearn for nostalgia?

This is the same argument I have against endless repackaging of bands. How many Best of the Doors are there? Aerosmith? The Stones? The Beatles? The Who? Record companies issue these because the material is all ready paid for several times over, it's proven to sell and they usually pay a lower royalty rate on repackaged material. It's a money grab by the record company!

I have nothing against getting a best of to check out a band you know little about, just don't get fooled into buying the same song ten different times. And beware of the live album... once you have it you will forget your real concert experience and only remember what you hear on that piece of plastic.

Distracted by the Left of the Dial box set and the No, Thanks box set coming, plus an influx of Roxy Music, out hero gallantly returns to his challenge:

The $ 44.00 Experiment- Part Duex

Live, Love, Larf & Loaf - French, Frith, Kaiser, Thompson

Being familiar only with the name of Richard Thompson and thinking Fred Frith was somehow associated with the Cocteau Twins [he is apparently associated with some band called Henry Cow, some Robert Wyatt recordings and Brian Eno's Before and After Science; John French is known for his work with Captain Beefheart; Henry Kaiser has a solo career, though he appears to have recorded with Crazy Backwards Alphabet also] I picked this up...

Sometimes from mistakes we find interesting things... Deb once told me she bought the Swimming Pool Qs because of a cool album cover... well this record is a TREAT. Not because it's overpowering or a life changing album, but it's got a JOY and sense of fun SADLY lacking in music in recent years. The closest thing I can think of to comparing this to is Adrian Belew's solo work.

The album kicks off with the very fun Wings A La Mode, then runs into Killerman Gold Posse, a slab of Belew era Frank Zappa [Sheik Yerbouti] fun.. I say FZ because of the ensemble vocals on the break. Where's the Money sounds like Todd Rundgren's Utopia meets King Crimson meets the Rutles ... Hai Sai Oji San is a Russian sounding oriental folk song.. the jacket advises the language is Okinawan, but it really sound like something the Swedish Chef would sing on the Muppet Show. Drowning Black Night sounds like a typical Richard Thompson piece, Thompson's heavy burr and Mark Knopfler guitar meets the Terry Bozzio-Tony Levin rhythm section of Black Light Project... or perhaps Adrian Belew joining Television? A cover of the Beach Boys Surfin USA sounds like a Russian bar band doing the song... whoever sings the second verse sounds like the late Paul Lynde. The Second Time is a nice Duane Eddy meets Dire Straits riff with a vocal in the Jimmy Buffet range [except more meaningful and no mention of boats... just the TONE of Buffet]. Tir Nan Dyrag sounds like a Russian military march as performed by King Crimson. Disposable Thoughts rides a very Discipline era King Crimson riff. Bird In God's Garden/Lost and Found sounds like a middle eastern chant; roughly Soundgarden's Like Suicide meets Frank Zappa and Jon Luc Ponty... great violin work by Frith.

Again, this is not a life changing album, but it will be one I come back to from time to time to be reminded that the music business doesn't always have to be so serious.

3.5 stars

Afoot [EP] - Let's Active

Before or while he was allowing R.E.M. to use his studio, Mitch Easter had a little outfit called Let's Active, also signed to Miles Copeland's IRS Records. This EP was put out in 1983 or early 1984... and I have to say IRS did things right, using the EP as a way to generate interest. Personally, I think R.E.M.'s EP Chronic Town kicks the holy shit out of the much praised Murmur. What was actually recommended to me was Big Plans for Everybody [now on it's way courtesy of ebay].

Every Word Means No featuring Easter's extremely nasal voice is three piece heaven with chiming guitars. Good pop! Make Up with Me is more original catchy 80s pop that will have you singing along by the second chorus. Edge of the World is straight ahead pop with lush echoed vocals. Room with A View is synth driven pop, one of the girls singing, a surprisingly full sound with a very full funky Duran Duran style bass. In Between, more female vocals, sounds like October/Gloria era U2 with a nice intricate guitar solo [no Edge type echo]. Leader of Men is a Go-Gos [Talk Show era] challenging rougher pop song. Vocal rhythm taken from the Clash's Stay Free. Great bass on the last three... the jacket advises there were three sessions, I'm betting the last three songs were from the last session... the band just sounds so much tighter and fuller and more confident.

4.0 Stars

Nothing makes me feel like an old fart than the recent announcement that they're going to quit making recording tape for recording studios. Crimeny, we've only been using analog for 70 years! Tape is dead, long live the king!
I don't know if this is a good thing or not. People with better ears than mine say there is a warmth to the analog recording media [tape/vinyl] that digital cannot reproduce. Who am I to argue with Jeff Tweedy? But hey, I am a dinosaur. I had a cassette player put in my 2000 pick up and traded the GM CD player for a video card! Of course, I have a stock pile of tapes including my cool road tapes from the last 20 years or so, and I KNOW what those car players do to CDs, though now I can burn copies for the car [ahem, for my own private use RIAA spies].

So I told you all that to tell you why I HAD to have [not needed, mind you, but I HAD TO HAVE] Rhino's Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the '80s Underground box set.

This is the perfect box set for people my age [In the immortal words of Dennis from Monty Python and the Holy Grail : "I'm 37... I'm not old." ] who turned away from all the big haired, spandex clad 'metal' [and I use the term very loosely] or ... geez, I can't even remember top 40 in the late 80s for something new. My senior year we found Frank Zappa, Beggars Banquet and got turned onto new things by a sophomore: X's More Fun in the New World, Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper [who's non-inclusion on this set sticks out like a sore thumb], the Cramps Bad Music for Bad People, the Dead Kennedys Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables and the very harsh first EP by the Butthole Surfers LIVE PCPPEP [which I still have my vinyl import of]. I wish I had paid more attention to that guys collection because I might have found the Replacements and Husker Du before I did and I know Sanford had the Minutemen, Black Flag and the Germs.... things I have to go back and check out again now.

If you're in my age bracket, roughly graduating high school 1981- 1988, and you had an ear for anything not on the top 40 'Classic Rock/Album Oriented Radio', be it the pop stylings of XTC, Kate Bush, the Smithereens [a later day Cheap Trick] and the Pretenders; the left of center social-political commentaries of X, R.E.M., Gang of Four, Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys [and the also missing Alarm]; the fist in your face of Black Flag, Bad Brains, Ministry, Minor Threat; the slash and burn of Husker Du, Suicidal Tendencies; the acid drenched echoes of Love and Rockets, the Cure, Jesus and Mary Chain and the shimmering, Byrds inspired Paisley Underground of the Raincoats, Dream Syndicate, Lyres, and the general weirdness of the Pixies, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Julian Cope, The Pogues, Cocteau Twins and the Butthole Surfers... you start to see it was a diverse time, though you couldn't tell from the EMF that was dominating the charts.

If you're in my age bracket, this set is going to send you searching for your old vinyl copies of Tim and Skylarking and Stone Roses and Sonic Youth CDs and wondering if you really DID leave your Nothing's Shocking tape at the party where you didn't know anyone but your roommate and which of your exes snuck off with your Cure tapes. This should be the sampler that sends you off to used vinyl shops looking for the interesting bands that you always heard about but never checked out. Who knew Siouxsie and the Banshees were so... you thought goth was all gloom and doom, like Depeche Mode's Black Celebration. HA!

If you're not in my age bracket, this should be a sampler that sends you to the used vinyl and CD stores looking for the bands that influenced the bands you're hearing now. This is the Original Alternative, when Alternative meant WEIRD, the Alternative for the group going to their 20th class reunions right now. Before Alternative was cool or a lifestyle... but I ask again, if Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden and Red Hot Chilli Peppers sell millions of albums, what are you alternative to?

Granted, I didn't find everything I remember on this set: no Lime Spiders, no Jason and the Scorchers, no Long Ryders, no Flipper or Fear [they may be on the No Thanks punk set, which will be my IRS return gift to myself now]... AND HOW IS THERE NO FISHBONE ON THIS SET??? But from the booklet detailing some arguments, nobody got what 100% of what they wanted. Still, based on this collection, I think I begin re-exploring my [Sonic] Youth, refinding my 80s roots.

4 stars

Fear and Loathing: Life After Hunter

It's with a sadness in my heart I type on the death of the famed journalist Hunter S Thompson.

True I am one of the legions who felt Thompson's writing had been 'going downhill' in recent years. So disappointed in 2003's Kingdom of Fear [I felt it covered a lot of the same ground as Songs of the Doomed; Hunter seemed to be stuck in the Gail Slater-Palmer trial], that I skipped Hey Rube, as just a collection of columns for ESPN Page 2, some of which were entertaining and caused a smile, but nothing that lit the world on fire. Thompson's last great work, for my money, was 1994's Better Than Sex, a good mix of Thompson's political view and humor. Thompson's scattered work since his firing from Rolling Stone in the mid-Seventies never equaled that time again. As America sank into the mellow sounds of the Eagles and Fleetwod Mac and Steely Dan, Thompson faded into a self induced sunset, popping up only occasionally for his short run at the San Francisco Examiner and the ESPN column and an rare special in Rolling Stone. His piece on the death of Richard Nixon may have been his finest work of his last years.

Thompson will always be best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and well he should. It is truly a first person masterpiece of exaggeration and braggadocio. It will be the On the Road for a generation. Hells Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga brought Thompson to the attention of mainstream America, not quite realizing that the journalist was about to spike its collective sugar cube the way the San Francisco bands were spiking the cube for rock and roll. Thompson said himself in Fear:

"San Francisco in the middle Sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch the sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant..."

But in finding his own voice, a voice of the 'Counter-culture' that read Rolling Stone magazine, Thompson became a legend for all the wrong reasons. He became a cartoon, almost literally, inspiring Gary Trudeau's Uncle Duke in the Doonesbury [another voice of the 'Counter-culture'], for which he was never given a cent. [And, in my humble belief, inspiring the bald, chain smoking, drug and booze ingesting, city hating, firearm loving, gonzo political journalist in Garth Ellis' excellent Transmetropolitan comic book.] Thompson became famous for his massive intake of drugs and booze, which no doubt fueled his own madness. I fear that in finding his own voice, Thompson locked himself in his own box. Like Jim Morrison, he had a reputation that had to be lived up to that may have ultimately lead to his demise.

Thompson quipped "I do not advocate the use of dangerous drugs, wild amounts of alcohol and violence and weirdness - but they've always worked for me." Did they finally all take a massive turn on the depleted body and mind of Thompson? In coming days we may know if his mind or body [or both] were found in recent months to be deteriorating from disease or abuse... my guess if this is so, Thompson would not want to be seen as an aging deteriorated shell of himself as Ronald Reagan was for his last decade. Thompson had all ready lived fast, but somehow managed to avoid dying young; perhaps he was leaving a good looking corpse and the memory of him still in his prime.

We may really never know. Like Lester Bangs, HST is now immortal in the literary world. His genius can no longer be called into question. He did inspire a generation to just write what they had to say and not worry about the rules of the English language we were taught in high schools and colleges across America. You can even make up your own word to describe your style, like Gonzo, which is now a term for any writer who seems to break 'established rules,' whatever that means.

We suspected Thompson couldn't live forever, all evidence to the contrary. I loved his writing, I loved his style [or non-style], though I have learned in recent years not to put too much trust into heroes, as they are only mortal men like the rest of us. His sad and shocking decision to pull the plug himself will only be equaled by Papa Hemingway's suicide and the brutal murders of John Lennon and Darrell Abbott just for making music. We really don't know what demons HST was fighting up there in his compound, nor for how long. I suspect though that once the decision was made, it put the man at peace.

So long baby, EXCELSIOR, SALEH and Amen.

The Day After: The Fallout

From today's Fort Worth Star Telegram lead:

Darryl Sydor, then a defenseman for the Stars, sat at his locker after practice, contemplating the specter of an unprecedented labor dispute on the horizon. "They're going to cancel the season," he concluded.

That was more than three years ago.

But for those three years, "Cancel the Season" was regarded as mostly battle cry rhetoric between the NHL and the NHL Players' Association.

"I don't think we ever thought it would really happen," Stars center Mike Modano said.

As a fan I am pissed off about this [you may have guessed], but I said all along that ownership was right on this. View my October archive, specifically My $ 1.25 Rant/Opinion on the NHL Lockout. I still can't believe the players didn't think it would happen. How long did they think the owners would wait?

I heard Barry Melrose on ESPN Radio this morning saying he had players calling him all night begging him to contact [NHLPA President] Trevor Linden and see if a deal can be struck for a 45 million dollar cap. And he said he was told over and over: "We NEVER THOUGHT they would cancel the season."

Well boo-hoo players. I guess we know which side is serious now. You stupid fucks. You think this is game? What you do on the ice is a game. This is about the long term survival of the NHL. What part of "Now is not the time to begging negotiating" did Bob Goodenow tell you wasn't serious? Did you think the deadline was a fucking bluff? Guess your pair of deuces weren't a winning hand...

I ask again where were Mario and Wayne in all this? I see this on The Hockey News page:

It's not just the fans who think it was crazy the way the 2004-05 NHL season was canceled. According to two separate sources, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux have re-entered the picture in an attempt to get the season back on track.

"I was told Gretzky and Lemieux got involved, to try to talk some sense into the (union) executive committee," the source said. "A lot of people who care about the game say they're too close not to at least talk some more."

However, Gretzky downplayed his involvement during a radio interview with the Fan 590 in Toronto. "To say Mario and I had a conversation to stir up the conversations and talks again, that's just not true," Gretzky said.

Veteran players are believed to be involved in a movement to resurrect the season. One source said many veteran players called NHL commissioner Gary Bettman directly since the cancellation announcement Wednesday afternoon.

IF this is all true, then you've just seen NHLPA Union exec Bob Goodenow's arms chopped off. The Hockey News describes the negotiations as the famous Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: 'You've got no arms left." "It's just a flesh wound."

In the Fort Worth Star Telegram, hockey writer Mac Engle noted:

But some players now say that a salary cap is inevitable.

"I think so, now," Modano said. "I'm not sure why [it was offered]. I was upset that for three years [the union] has been explaining to us with diagram after diagram why a cap isn't good, and then they propose it. "I think all along [the league] was trying to get some adversity between us [the players] with name calling, and they have succeeded a little bit. There were a lot of internal things going on; players were rumored to be calling the league pushing for a cap. I believe that happened."

Some players say that the union will rally, however, because the players do not believe the owners report revenues honestly and because of their almost unanimous contempt for Bettman.

No fragmentation has surfaced publicly among the owners.

"We're trapped," Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos said. "That's why we have 30 owners that are lined up and saying we're going to lose a whole season and maybe another one and maybe another one after that. Maybe only 5,000 people will show up at our games. But we won't be losing a billion dollars a season. "The problem is that, in every pro sport, the owners are going to have to dig their heels in the sand and say enough is enough," Karmanos added. "I have a feeling that fans of every sport are fed up with the salaries and the attitudes and the steroids and the brawls and the criminal records and the total detachment from reality. Our hockey players are head and shoulders better people, but I believe the problem in the end is the same. They've lost touch with reality."

That's it folks! The owners win. They split the players and now they divide and conquer. But I think ownership knows now that they have to work WITH the players to keep the league viable. As Engle pointed out in another spot, owners looking for NFL riches and NFL salary caps had better start sharing revenue like NFL owners. Look for a cap eventually tied to income, but it;s going to require gives elsewhere, like earlier free agency.

Elsewhere in today's Startlegram, columnist Jim Reeves has this to say; I think he summed it all up very nicely:

I was listening to a sports talk show discussion this week about who's to blame for this situation, the players or the owners, and my first thought was, "Who cares?"

Who to blame isn't really the point, is it? Yes, the owners did this to themselves by overpaying the players. They can't help themselves. They need a system that keeps them from hurting themselves.

When you've just been told you have cancer, it doesn't really matter so much any more how it happened; it only matters that you get treatment.

In some ways, a conclusion to the stalemate is a relief.

"Thank goodness we're no longer lobbing grenades from Toronto and New York," Stars president Jim Lites said. "If it's about the money, we'll get it done. We're a million miles closer than we were.

"Hopefully, with the hyperbole and the demagoguery aside, at least this process will gain some momentum. If we'd been this close last May, this would have gotten done."

The bottom line is that the NHL was on its way to economic ruin. The game was becoming too rich for the country where it was born. It needs big-time restructuring, not just economically, but on the ice, too.

It doesn't matter who's responsible for this problem; it only matters that it's fixed.

That's why a salary cap is the only answer for the NHL, and even the players' association finally understood that and shocked many of its members by finally agreeing in the wee hours Tuesday morning to accept something it said it would never accept.

Not 48 hours earlier, Stars forward Bill Guerin, a players' association vice president, was stupidly saying, "We would rather fold the league than accept a salary cap."

Union leader Bob Goodenow then made Guerin look like a fool by agreeing to accept a cap.

"To turn around and actually propose it ourselves bothered a lot of guys," Stars center Mike Modano admitted during a radio interview Wednesday. "We could have done that in August. There's certainly going to be some upset guys. After all that time of saying, 'No, no, no,' then saying yes, it defeated the whole purpose of what we were trying to accomplish."

Like almost every sports-labor negotiation, this one didn't really get serious until it was too late.

"We got more done on the 15th of February than we did in talking about it for a year," Lites pointed out. "We can't have that kind of gonzo negotiating and get this done in five minutes. We can't pull a Hail Mary."

The hope now is that the disillusioned players will use their last-minute concession as a basis to forge a new agreement. The union stunningly agreed to accept a $49 million cap, something that should have happened weeks, if not months, ago. The owners removed any linkage to revenues and offered a $42 million cap.

"If we'd started this kind of negotiating months ago, we wouldn't be talking about it now," Modano said. "Now, you're talking about a $ 61/2 million difference between us and them. If we gave three and they gave back three, now we're at $46 million and we could possibly open up training camp next week. Instead, we have a lost season over 6 million bucks."

Modano himself is losing $9 million this season.

"Changing the concept was the hard part," he said. "Now it's just going back and forth over numbers, that's the easy part."

Maybe not. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman insists the league offer is now off the table, and the work starts all over again.

It's up to owners like the Stars' Tom Hicks to force Bettman back to the negotiating table immediately.

"Now that we've broken the psychological barrier of the union's opposition to a cap, like it was some sort of bad disease, we have to take advantage and find something that's fair for both sides." Hicks said. "I'd love to have a deal done before the first of June so we can spend the rest of the summer re-launching the sport. I think the near-miss has people on both sides saying if we'd had more time we might could have made this work. There's absolutely no reason to wait and start all over again next fall."

It's not all about economics, either. It's about changing the game on the ice to make it more appealing to fans, too.

"The NHL and players, on different occasions, have both talked a lot about things that would enhance the game both on and off ice, like shootouts [instead of tie games], which I think ultimately will happen," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "Does our game have to step out of the box and start looking at some of these things? Certainly it does."

Fans would have seen some of those changes immediately in a condensed season, Bettman said as he announced that the 2004-05 season had been taken off life support and officially declared dead.

"We had planned two scenarios for this press conference," Bettman said. "The other would have included a laundry list of rules changes that we could have used in a short season. We would have had a couple of months to test some things and evaluate them over the summer. We have collectively -- the league and the players' association -- squandered an opportunity to move forward."

The players blame the owners. The owners blame the players. The players are mad at each other. The one thing everyone agrees on is that they all blame Bettman, who seems intent on crushing the union, even if means resorting to replacement players next season.

Somehow, within all these raging emotions, someone must inject some common sense and start negotiating right now to save the 2005-06 season before it's lost, too.

"We need to get this done right now," Lites said. "We need to find middle ground. I'm less concerned about the numbers in a cap than in how it works."

Said Bettman: "The shame of this is, our fans deserve better, the people who earn their livelihood in this game deserve better. We're going to have to earn back the trust and the love and affection of everybody associated with the game."

That won't be easy. This isn't Major League Baseball, or the NFL, or even the NBA, mainstream professional sports that are entrenched as part of the American psyche. But it's also not impossible, because hockey really is a great game.

I do miss it, but it can be made better.

"It's like a stock-market correction," Tippett said. "We're undergoing a big one. We'll fix it. We'll come back, stronger and better than we were before."

That's a promise that both sides must vow to keep.

Fuck ! Fuck! Fucking Fuck! Fuck!..... Fuck!

Get the idea I am disappointed by events over the last 72 hours? Stupid of me to think that this deal would really get done, but I did when I heard that the players put a cap on the table... more on that in a minute. I really did think it would get done. Now I wanna scream 'Fuck' a lot, slam doors, kick dogs.. drown my sorrows in pizza and beer.

Of course a 28 game 'season' is a joke and breaking to a 16 team playoff after a 28 game season would be an even worse joke. But it would have been something to throw the fans a bone. And of course, course Bob Goodenowand the NHLPA did not understand 'this is not an invitation to negotiate' and threw a higher cap back. Fuck.

The major question is: did the player's union just blink. Not really. They were adamant about no cap TIED TO REVENUE. I don't think they had a problem with a cap as long as they could still get their $$.

What does this do to the league? I dunno. Any momentum/interest gained in 'Sun Belt' markets [Anaheim, Nashville, Tampa Bay, Carolina] over the last few years may be erased. Out of sight, out of mind. Will the south of the Mason-Dixon line fans return? Your guess is as good as mine. I think in places like Dallas where youth leagues sprung up in the wake of success there will be some support. I believe you have to reach the young fans to grow interest in 'Non-Traditional' markets. I will watch on TV, but probably will not atend any games.

No that the seaon is dead, what happens to free agents? Do they get time towards pensions? Toward unrestricted free agency? Do the players have to play under this year's contract the next season the NHL resumes? Does this mean the end for Stevie Y, Mario, Brian Leetch, 'Lucky' Luc Robaitaille, Eddie the Flaky Eagle, Gordie Howe, Dominic Hasek and Chopper Al McInnes? Or does the year off recharge their batteries and allow old wounds to heal?

What needs to happen now is a DEAL. Then the two sides need to sit down and figure out how to tie the salary cap to revenue. Owners MUST be allowed to make money in order to continue to have 30 viable franchises. Realize that ownership now has to come to the table and accept revenue sharing AMONGST THEMSELVES as awell as the players.

I see a $45 million soft NBA style cap, with a .50 per $ 1.00 penalty for being over the cap that goes into a revenue sharing pool for all the teams UNDER [not equal to] the cap. And allow .10 of that into a player escrow pool or to the Pension Fund or Charitable causes pool] Allow one franchise player tag, ala fotball or a Larry Bird exemption for one superstar.

For the next five years, get INDEPENDANT AGREED UPON auditors to review the team books. Include ALL monies paid to the hockey teams including luxury boxes for non sporting/hockey events IF the team owner, as a piece of his ownership, gets proceeds from those events. Include parking, concessions,, EVERYTHING. Account every nickel. Aftyer that five years, everyone looks at the figures and agrees to an independantly arbitrated number for player percentage, between 55 and 65 % of revenue. Institute a FLOOR or minumun payroll to keep people from stuffing their pockets.

Mario said today that he thought owner were stuffing money away before he got on the other side of the board room. He and Wayne Gretzky have been oddly silent during all of this. Who better to suggest a way to balance players and owners interests?

Just my thoughts. Send me yours: chazg66@yahoo.com


Oh, yeah: Why is Michael Jackson having the flu and being in the hopsital getting so much pay on the news? Please stop it.

Oh yeah 2: Camilla Parker-Bowles... doesn't that sound like the name some snooty Englishman would give his pug dog? All I can say is that woman must be able to suck the chrome off a trailer hitch because that woman is U-G-L-Y UGLY. If love is blind, Prince Charles is now Ray Charles...