Calhoun Beefs With Political Activist In Hartford

The reporters who cover the UConn men's basketball team are like a bunch of great characters flushed into one low-budget Hollywood movie.

Bible truth.

You've got a carbon copy of characters from Road Trip (Kyle), 8 Mile (Rabbit), Revenge of The Nerds (the fraternity), and Dogma (the shit demon that comes to life).

There's been a number of wild encounters between the small-state media circus of CT and UConn men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun. Most remember his "I f****d up" rant. This profanity-laced tirade emerged after New Haven Register columnist Dave Solomon questioned him about his recruitment of Waterbury, Conn. forward Ryan Gomes. Gomes starred at Providence, after Calhoun got Emeka Okafor and Caron Butler to pen with UConn and Tim Welsh sold Gomes on Providence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX6FDEDbesE

Calhoun's penchant for four-letter words has been notable in press conferences. Most recently, we remember the Hall of Famer lashed out on the media over the way they jumped on the Doug Wiggins-Jerome Dyson arrests story.

“I'd like to have you working hard on the team and do your (blanking) job instead of trying to hurt younger people because you feel someone's pressuring you. It's really unfortunate, it really is,” said Calhoun, following the Huskies' 68-63 victory over then no.7 Indiana on Jan. 26, 2008.

"You've done your job, things were reported, and you'll know the information as soon as it comes out. I told you they would not be playing tonight or the next game and I told you this week that something would come out but that's not good enough for you, you've got to go into P.I. (private investigator) mode. If that's what you want, go ahead. Just make sure when you make that call and it doesn't get answered, that you're fooling with my kids. Fool with me now, say I'm a bad coach, I shouldn't discipline. OK? Just so we understand that, just so we all understand each other," said Calhoun.

In his 23rd year as the Huskies head coach, Calhoun demands his respect. The legendary coach who's scored 999 wins has fielded trillions of questions from a number of journalists as. Some of these guys are as vindictive as the reporter played by Al Bundy in the 1994 film, "Blue Chips."

As the aforementioned youtube material and rant at Indiana last year indicates, Calhoun has been in a barrage of heated arguments and put a number of individuals on blast.

Nothing, however, was more awry and awkward than Calhoun's sudden spat with a political activist/freelance journalist Ken Krayeske following UConn's 64-50 victory over South Florida at the XL Center.Krayeske, who is currently enrolled as a UConn law student, spoke out for himself and was owned by Calhoun, who had been very calm throughout the press conference.

"Considering you're the highest paid state employee in a $2 billion budget deficit," Krayeske asked before Calhoun abruptly interrupted him.

"Not a dime back," said Calhoun, instigating laughter throughout a press conference that's garnered national news and has made waves on YouTube and ESPN. "Not a dime back, I'd like to be able to retire someday."

When Krayeske asked Calhoun about his contract with Comcast, indicating that his salary is affecting the state’s economic quagmire, Calhoun gave a terse response.

"You're not really that stupid, are you?"But when Krayeske interjected by saying "yes, I am," Calhoun verbally walloped the magazine writer.

"My best advice to you: shut up...Quite frankly, we bring in $12 million to the university, nothing to do with state funds. We make $12 million a year for this university. Get some facts and come back and see me!''

It made for a pretty awkward moment. Krayeske, a Syracuse graduate, operates a blog, http://www.the40yearplan.com/.

Krayeske has written for High Times, the notorious marijuana monthly and admits to “dropping LSD and smoking copious amounts of marijuana” during his Syracuse days.

-SMIZZ, 2/24

The Flow Is Athletic (wait, no its not!)

Renaldo "Swiperboy" Woolridge, the Tennessee freshman and son of former NBA player Orlando Woolridge, is a burgeoning rapper.

The kid makes his own music, which can be viewed at www.myspace.com/rwtheanswer

I haven't heard any of his stuff yet, so let me know if he's nice or not. I'm guessing if he is actually good (which would be a fucking miracle!) he can be the first athlete to master both worlds (my bad Troy Hudson, or T-Hud, I know DIME hyped you up to be the truth behind the mic). If Wooldridge, AKA Swiperboy, AKA The Answer, doesn't pan out, however, he can always fall back on ball.

Shaq, I don't mean to hate on your brolick, crowd-pleasing ass either.

But seriously, there seems to be a dearth of athletes that can tear a mic into shreds these days. Actually, it's always been that way--though Cam'ron definitely should have considered playing major D-I ball and balancing both arts.

Maybe I just haven't heard enough of these guys that spit on myspace and try to push records on city corners.

Don't get it twisted, though, the Blood Brothers are legit!

Ed Nelson, the former G-Tech/UConn Husky basketball player who entertained NFL draft thoughts, is not.

Google: Ed Nelson "Pick Up" truck. I think you'll be in strong agreement with me if you have the tolerance to listen to his one major hit (amongst the Husky faithful, that is).Oh, and Ron Artest's album was straight garbage.

Please Ron, let Nas continue his reign as the voice of Queens. Stick to employing lock-down defense and sticking treys from beyond the confines of the arc.

Oh, and let's not forget about Kobe's album. To paraphrase Cashin, that shit was weak like Chinese tea. It was, in my eyes, weak like the chances of Jenna Jameson practicing sexual abstinence (being a titanic fan of her work, let's hope that never happens). I mean let's not forget, Kobe is about as Hood as Riverdale, N.Y. Don't sleep on the prep school product who scorches the mic just like he does the nets.


-SMIZZ

THERES DEMONS INSIDE!!!

Take a look outside.

Halloween is here.

The sun-splashed streets and woodworks of the New York City backdrop have suddenly taken an early vacation. They’ll be back in the spring of 2009, unless the anxiety that’s been generated through all the relentless Global Warming chitchat (Did Al Gore really invent the internet?) is actually forced into the forefront.

The jacked up jack-o-lanterns sit along the pin-drop quiet streets, carved up and creepily grilling you from every which way. Skeletons hang from the houses, their delicate, fragile bones whirling in the October wind.

Black cats prowl around suburban homes like the leaders of lonely light-lacking labyrinths. The crisp leaves crumbling under the weight of autumn and slightly brisk weather has shelved our shorts and the trees of Orange foliage are beginning to materialize.

A trip into the quaint village of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., which is sandwiched in between Yonkers Ave. and Dobbs Ferry, is indicative of this.

A slow drive along the streets of Euclid Ave. is enough to get a young kid or teenager revved up for this year’s Halloween festivities. The police unit will be hounding down the Hastings youth, hellbent on confiscating their eggs and shaving cream. These kids will have a lot more on their minds than chocolate sweets, Child’s Play marathons, and ill, lid-lifting costumes. Mischief is what they are all about, and their commitment to it is of highest order.

If there’s any bone-chilling aspect of Halloween, however, it’s the presence of an old, creaky house where bloody, unsolved mysteries cracked the surface decades ago. The house on 36 Calumet, located about two blocks from Reynolds Field is historically parallel to the Myers home in Haddonfield, Ill.

It’s one house that won’t attract any trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. And, on the evening prior to this, there’s no chance any of the city’s youth will dare go near it. For the better of a decade, it’s rumored to be the most haunted residential home in the Westchester County district.

Hype, hearsay, and horror have moved around Hastings’ empty streets at a pretty frenetic pace. They say this happened there, that happened there, the town bounced it from everyone’s memory bank and likes to forget that anything took place there. They keep the story from their children because they don’t want to pollute young minds or generate anxiety. They don’t want kids exposed to that kind of reality and they don’t want to scare away potential residents or tarnish the neat, liberal lovable, cohesive community reputation the village has garnered.

The red blood stains are still visible on the wall through the back window in the master bedroom. It’s Gushing red, crimson, sticky blood that gives hawkers nightmares. It allows the mythic mystery to grow and carry on, from class to class, generation to generation, as Hastings is continuously reminded of something it would have liked to forget about a long time ago. Some of the stories are believable, to an extent. Others are blown out of proportion.

There’s no document of it. The October 31 Rivertowns Enterprise is no where on file in the local library, the Journal News story about it has also been discarded. Nobody has proof of what actually went on that one, twisted evening. And to this day, most people tend to just deny it. Police officers have no recollection of it, there too busy storming the woods for underage drinkers and peddling out parking tickets. The townies will tell you one story after another about what happened.

It’s been so fabricated over the years you just are not sure what to believe. But you know something happened, and something continues to flush the Hastings youth into detective mode every Halloween. They want answers. The parents, most of them, don’t have them. They say nothing ever happened, and that the house was the home to the Office Ink before a business man from Pennsylvania bought it out in 1992 and that it’s a story created by “punks” to scare little kids on Halloween.

Thus, the former home of the Hastings’ Office Ink (which has since shifted its office to the center of town, adjacent to the Hastings Fire Department) and the place that claimed the troubled and still-missing Rick Garrison has since been fixed up.

Still, the basement, once plagued by asbestos and cracked paint and woodcut coat hangers (made by Garrison in middle school during his favorite class, technology) helps make this joint the most talked about real estate amongst the townsfolk. Around this time of year, it only festers. Who lives there now? How come the mailman passes by it with his nose turned, breath held, and never has any mail for the resident? Why has paranoia spread like wildfire, instilling fear in the Hastings youth—none of whom will ever dare entering the home on Halloween night?

A lot of Hastings residents aren’t at their houses during All Hallows eve. Still they leave a bucket of candy for the trick-or-treaters to treat themselves too, and perhaps some Party City decoration with a HAPPY HALLOWEEN sign on the door.

Not at 36. The lights are shut. The old, creaky, 1984 Oldsmobile that’s parked there sporadically is no where to be seen.

The mystery was born in 1980. It was the last time anyone had an account of Garrison’s whereabouts. Garrison, then 17, was a student at Hastings High School. A bit demure but certainly creative in his ways, the dedicated art student and top runner on the boys Varsity Cross-Country team (he still holds the 2nd fastest 5K time in school history) was having so much difficulty with the rigors of the high school experience and college applicant process that one day he packed his bags and trekked up to the Hastings Pool area. He later moved his few belongings into Nemsees, a well-known teen hangout where the kids poured to get pummeled and kegs were the theme.

Before moving in with an old lady (for $150 a month) at 36 Calumet, he stayed in the woods. He simply sat there, staring into oblivion and entertaining thoughts that nobody can penetrate. He would sit there, in meditative state…waiting, waiting, waiting, for someone to emerge from the dust and instantly notice him. His whole life, he felt neglected by society. He felt invisible to the Hastings High outside world, despite the efforts to blend in. He had a penchant for making people laugh with hilarious, otherworldly, crass and over-the-top jokes. But still, he was an outsider looking in…

Then, on Halloween night 1979, all hell broke loose. The community hit the panic button after learning that two teens had been slaughtered and that a killer armed with a machete and two ancient ratchets was on the loose. Garrison was a patient at the Ecko New York Mills psychiatric department and placed on potent drugs (depression, lack of sexual drive, and OCD were the main side effects of Garrisons tiny pills of blue luster) back in 1974. He had been living off of them, as they were an everyday commitment in his life. The doctor warned him that the pills were to be taken meticulously and he can not skip days.

He never heard the end of it from his peers. “What are you on birth control, you sick fuck?” Dave Thomas, who was apparently one of Garrison’s biggest nemesis’, would say to him… Thomas, he of the smart-ass attitude, well-sculpted build, football pedigree, and habit of landing the most attractive girl in class, was one of Garrison’s biggest problems. He would bait him and make fun of him and put him on blast whenever females were present. He penetrated Rick’s head and stayed there—growing, growing, growing, into this demonic creature that Rick felt he had to eventually thwart. He wrote about what a “horrible human being he is” in his diary, noting that he was “as fake as they come."

Girls liked Rick at first, they liked his skinny running legs, his calm demeanor, intensely private nature and his peaceful poetry.

One day, he walked into school wearing cut-up jeans and a Greatful Dead t-shirt. “What’s up, mushroom Rick?” Asked Mike Millsap, who, along with Marina Marquette was slain on October 31, 1980. “I didn’t know tree-hugging faggots like you were still existent in the community.” TO BE CONTINUED….

Will I find a place more frightening than Blood Manor this October (https://mail.quinnipiac.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=c8bdcb3f1bd04ec6b919176aba83c05a&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.bloodmanor.com). I mean, I was born in Manhattan. Now I find myself there every other night, wondering if I will also die there. The Manor’s founders and spearheads Jim Faro, Jimmy Lorenzo, and Mike Rodriguez have established a hell-house that will have you popping valium and smoking cigarettes before each thrill-riding tour through the cryptic crib.

Last Friday, I encountered enough to convince me that the apocalypse was on the horizon. The “piano man” who jumped out on me as soon as I led a group of scared schoolboys (You don’t get fright houses like this going to liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts and Connecticut, though there is probably a buffet-line of smoking hot broads draped in sexy attire), the hungry, sumo wrestler sized man and the Sling Blade midget who had me sweating bullets through the houses elite décor last time I had the audacity to return his coldhearted stare down.

It’s a nuthouse.

The members of the house are permanent residents who live for this night. They have October 31 penned in the household calendar all-year around. I was in City Island, NY tonight on business, but I checked out some of the spook spunk the nautical community has to offer. One house decorated to the brim with grinning goblins, well-chiseled pumpkins and wicked witches. Pretty tight. Still, Blood Manor is front-loaded with every cold-blooded killer’s wet dream ingredients, underscored by the Anaconda-like creature that treats you at the entrance. Rehydrating the mindset of those who have made it out alive, it’s a fucking blood-lettered nuthouse. Absolutely crazy. Coming from me that says a lot. Check it out.

-Zach Smart

Welcome To Blood Manor

Blood Manor: NYC's Premier Haunted House

By Zach Smart



New York City’s “Blood Manor” has been given the torch to carry for the bevy of Gotham ghost houses this October. A thorough thrill-ride, the Manor’s blood-splashed windows, well-equipped décor, and heart-racing surprises at every corner engender excitement and shivers throughout Manhattan.

Simply put, it’s off the fucking chain. Littered with eye-popping costumes, deft demons and A-Class actors, the creepy, creaky confines of the ancient deathbed will certainly stimulate New York’s Halloween spirit this October.

It provides an unusual blend of horror, humor, and well-designed, electrifying entertainment. The props, both prolific and diverse, sell the audience. Other facets of the house, well…
you can analyze the spooky-as-hell real estate at your own risk.

Jim Lorenzo (a lynchpin in the New York nightlife as the former acclaimed Studio 54 DJ), Mike Rodriguez and Jim Faro have established a haunted house that simply reels in the horror junkies, including acclaimed writer R.L. Stine.

Stine, who authored the popular Goosebumps fiction novellas, was on hand Friday night, perusing the skulls and blood-spattered corpses.

“I just thought it had a great sense of fun to it,” explained Stine.

“They all had a real good sense of humor, I loved all the surprises. The 3-D effects were amazing. I really enjoyed it, all the way through.”

On the surface, however, the manor—which holds a spiritual tradition of mythical, heavily-haunted folklore—isn’t that scary.

Yeah, right.

And the U.S. economy is on the verge of a promising, prosperous era.

Hold onto your hats for this one, folks. It’s a bloodbath with a pulsating surprise jumping at you on every corner. It’s an accurate account of a house of the dead. The residents who are alive are psychologically fucked and have weird fetishes that will give you a jump. It all provides a steady mix of October entertainment.

Spearheaded by bloodhounds, sexy vampires and vile, venomous creatures of all shapes and sizes, they will show you scary. The set-up is similar to that of a high-budget Hollywood movie. While it’s a main attraction for all ages, the city’s youth showed up in droves Friday.

“I was scared,” said Martin Keith Dowd, a 14-year-old from Manhattan.

“The scariest part was probably the slaughterhouse. Oh my God. The surprises were insane. You didn’t expect them. You didn’t know what was real and what was fake.”

This Halloween, forget that Blockbuster exists. If you want a real-live horror show, where everybody’s a target and the visitor leading the pack of Blood Manor virgins is treated to the first freight, this is right location.

Michael Myers and an extreme, in-your-face Freddy Krueger replica (this blood merchant has the gloves, the six-inch razor sharp nails, everything) are both major presences in the house.Watch out.With their in-your-face antics, they might turn your under garments into Sprite stains.

A live performance and catchy theme song from the Brooklyn-bred entertainer, “Special” adds flair to the event.

www.myspace.com/special123away

This will shock you in ways that no horror movie marathon can ever imagine. Get off your couch this Halloween and get a real-life spooking.

Get to Blood Manor and I'll see you in the afterlife.



Zach Smart is a freelance writer whose work is frequently featured in the Rivertowns Enterprise, Hoopville.net, NYismecca.com, and the New Haven Register.

Back in the Day is the Way

Is it me, or are movie producers increasingly digging the notion of comic book series-turned-movies? Iron Man, The Hulk, and now Hell Boy: The Golden Army. It seems to be a fad in the theaters these days. Lure the super-geeks into seeing their Marvel or whatever brand of hero dodge bullets, size dudes up, morph into immortals at lighting-quick pace, and create flat-out chaos while toting weapons of all sort.

That’s intriguing.

You want to know what I’m increasingly digging? Another high school perv movie. Not so much a high school perv movie like Superbad, American Pie, and others of this ilk, but a flick about kids in their ripest stage of high school youth.

We were at Starbucks in Ardsley, N.Y., last night— Myself, my brother, and two of our buddies from back in the day. These men graduated high school in 2002 but still perused the goods of the buffet-line of high school kids that hang around Starbucks at night.

Hello? What the fuck are you doing hanging out outside of a Starbucks during your rebellious, me-against-the-cops/world high school days? Find one of your buddies mansions, purchase a keg, and have a ripper. And tape it.

Seriously, we need more oldworld films like Dazed and Confused, the 1993 masterpiece that starred Jason London and included household names like Matthew McConaughey and Ben Affleck. A young and prosperous Parker Posey and Joey Lauren Adams also made their imprint known in this film, the former playing that classic bitch senior who is sexy as all get-out but nasty as all hell.

We need to resurrect those type of movies. Movies like Fast Times At Ridgemont High or even National Lampoon’s Senior Trip. This was a popular flick during my high school heyday.

I’ll never forget seeing Tommy Chong playing the bus driver, Red.

I remember the discussion we had when we perused the goods at the Starbucks parking lot last night. Why is this scene so depressing? Why are these girls so incredibly hot? Why do they all have the nicest asses? Creepy, sketchy, barely legal hawk-like gazing that we should be cited for…Call it whatever you would like.

Still, it allowed us all to hark back on when we were freshman and plunged into the high school scene. How callow did we feel? We are in classes with these lava-hot seniors on a whole different echelon as us, having intercourse with older men on a pretty frequent basis and revealing thongs of pink and blue luster as they strut along the hallways.

They were women amongst pre-pubescent boys. It was really a crazy transition and it’s intriguing to see it from both sides of the spectrum. Anyways, that classic high school film, and I’ll use Dazed and Confused as the alpha dog in movies of this genre needs to re-emerge.
We need a movie about the brotherhood of young boys, beers, and breasts. We know they killed the American Pie series (Stifler was really off-the-wall in the last one). There is still hope that another great teenage film—centered on partying, drinking, sex, sex, and sex—will crack the earth’s stratosphere.

A flick that accurately portrays the sudden leap from eighth to ninth grade. Dazed And Confused pinned it down perfectly, knocking us of our boots with the character of Mitch Kramer. That was an efficient account of a character mastering the inevitable adjustment of video game sleepovers to keg parties and easy hook-ups.

Epic.

How long will it take before this finally materializes? How many more movies about a gruesome monster with some kind of weirdo power will I have to endure before my wish is granted?

We are all waiting….

-SMIZZ

In Godson We Trust

After controversial debate about the original title of Nasir Jones’ newest album, the undisputed king of New York decided to release his eighth LP Untitled.

“The fact that the word is no longer [the title], it’s a bigger statement,” Nas proclaimed about the decision to withdraw “Nigger” as the name of the album on the Angie Martinez show; which you can watch in its entirety online at defjam.com.

Mr. Jones continues to express that his concern is focused more on the music than just the title during his exclusive interview on the notorious radio show. Although the word isn’t present on the cover, there is an extremely suggestive portrayal of slave endured lesions in the form of an “N” on the back of the artist himself. Along with the lyrics of each and every symphonic triumph on Untitled, Nas makes you think even when viewing the album cover.

Upon listening to the album, one cannot help but hark back to Illmatic, Mr. Jones’ rookie LP which received the illustrious five mic decoration from, the then perilously acclaimed, Source Magazine. The impermeable rhymes and fluid delivery of Nasty Nas’ lyrics brings a sigh of relief from all the mind-boggling garbage they allow on the radio today (i.e.: Soulja Boy, T-Pain, and Ray-J just to name a minor fraction of an exceedingly long list).

Advice from The Infamous Lawfirm is to go out either to your local compact disc distributor or iTunes and purchase this magnum opus; it might be the only real Hip-Hop you will hear until either Jay-Z, Kanye West or Lil’ Wayne release another album.

On behalf of the Hip-Hop and Rap community, I would like to thank you Nasir Jones for single-handedly saving the music from the destruction of ill-witted lyrics and untalented amateurs that pollute my airwaves with their filth.

-Drew

The Comeback Kid

He’s back like Frank White. After a two-year hiatus—one that was filled with controversy, drama, and a pair of arrests that threatened to taint his image—Busta Rhymes is back in the game.

Last month marked the unleashing of Blessed, a title that’s symbolic of his triumph for return. Busta must have fended off some waves of anxiety after his body guard was killed outside a video shoot. A recent article in Maxim Magazine documents that ultra-ugly violence that emerged between Tony Yayo (In latest news, G-Unit is still garbage. D-BLOCK…D-BLOCK…D-BLOCK you frail bitches!) and an enemy producer.

Nick Catucci, who authored the piece, claims that this incident jump-started a relentless streak of problems.

Busta, whose actions garnered a great deal of scrutiny and criticism, mainly from the white media (the NY Post wrote an article titled “Busta Crimes” in 2007 in which the author opined, “He needs to do some jail time”), is back with a vengeance in Blessed.

Busta Bust seems to have taken his title to heart. In the album, he doesn’t do much to resurrect old, Busta-like jump-offs (bitch, grab ya tits come on!).
The overall harmony of some of Busta’s new tracks seem as regal as the album title.
He has one song with a piano feature to it. In another joint, Mr. Rhymes employs Michael Jackson’s sample voice. The storied Jackson clan’s 1976 hit, “Show You The Way To Go” provides an intriguing punch to the song “Let Me Show You.”

Lyrics of the week: It should serve as no surprise that I would choose a lyric by Q-borough’s finest as the LOW. Simply put, the pure, rapid-fire he was
spittin’ back in the nineties was leaps-and-bounds better than any of the competition (my bad, hovito). And while Illmatic was the album that vaulted him to rap’s upper-echelon, Nas kept it coming with It was written. Thus, albeit a back-in-the-day joint, Nas’ eyebrow-raising verbal blood-lettering in “If I Ruled The World” have been chosen for the week of 7/14-7/18.
“Trips to Paris, I civilized every savage/
Gimme one shot I turn trife life to lavish/
Political prisonners set free, stress free /
No work release purple M3's and jet skis/
Feel the wind breeze in West Indies/
I make Coretta Scott-King mayor the cities and reverse fiends to Willies/
It sounds foul but every girl I meet would go downtown/
I'd open every cell in Attica send em to Africa

Wooooo. As Nasqaq himself likes to say it, “pure fiah.”

-Smizz