Round Two To Anjani

Wednesday April 25 8:30 PM

Round two playoff predictions:

Buffalo over NY Rangers in 7

Ottawa over NJ Devils in 6

Anaheim over Vancouver in 4

San Jose over Detroit in 7

Record in Round One : 8-0 (Thank goodness there's no spread)

So Rejean Tremblay and Bert Raymond are on the warpath again. They'd like to see a new general manager for the Canadiens. Must be difficult for them to realize they have zero influence these days, compared to the way it was when Ron Corey worried about what they thought. Gainey's record as Habs GM? I'd say mixed, with this off season looming as his most important. I also see a track record, something neither Rejean or Bert own. While Gainey built a Stanley Cup winner in Dallas, Tremblay and Raymond, as a two headed de facto GM here, helped ruin the franchise. When they sneezed Corey replied "Bless You".

Canadiens fans got Denis Savard for Chris Chelios, Rejean Houle as GM & Mario Tremblay as coach(some piles of crap leftover from that era are still visible), Pierre Turgeon as captain, Stephane Richer for Lyle Odelein and an oh so tiring demand every season for Lafleur II.

I hope Bob Gainey finishes his job here. I think it's safe to say that whenever that time comes he'll leave the organization in a lot better shape than how he found it. In the meantime, think again of the grace and dignity in which he has handled himself this year. Contrast that with the behavior of his harshest critics. Touche.

www.gaineyfoundation.com

Speaking of zero influence. Can Jack Todd sink any lower on the sports relevancy scale? Why doesn't The Gazette do the right thing and put Jack out of his misery and the sports section and move Mike Boone in? There are still an awful lot of readers who can't connect to Boone online.

http://www.habsinsideout.com/boone/

Predictably sad news about Mark Prior missing the rest of the 2007 season with a shoulder problem. Prior and Kerry Wood, as any scout would have told you, were two of the most electric arms to come along in years, but because of poor mechanics were arm/elbow/shoulder injuries waiting to happen. Brings to mind three hot prospects the Mets once had who were being compared to Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Jon Matlack.

Jason Isringhausen, Bill Pulsipher and Paul Wilson were going to, at the every least, dominate National League hitters for a decade and surely one of them would end the long Mets no-hitter drought. (Hard to believe, with all the great arms they've had, no Met has pitched a no-hitter since the franchise began play in 1962.). All three were slowed by serious arm problems.

Isringhausen has had success but only after he was reborn as a closer. Pulsipher was hanging around as a lefty specialist. And Wilson, supposedly the best of the trio, could no longer throw the ball by hitters and was regularly mashed around while pitching for Tampa Bay and Cincinnati.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2007/news/story?id=2806884

http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/pulsibi01.shtml

Kerry Wood is trying to come back out of the bullpen, but only if his right arm lets him. Right now it doesn't look good. When he was healthy the Texas native was the closest we've seen to Nolan Ryan at his peak.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2007/news/story?id=2813179

Must see tv tonight-in addition to the playoffs-is the return of original PBS star Bill Moyers. The former press secretary for LBJ apparently delivers a scathing attack on the U.S. media for its lapdog approach to coverage of the Iraq war.
Here's a brief exchange from a lengthy interview in The Christian Century:

If the Bush administration were to ask you for your advice, what would you say to them?

Well, I did give President Bush advice once: on a broadcast I urged him to make Al Gore head of homeland security—in other words, turn our response to the terrorist attacks into a bipartisan effort, make the fight against terroism an American cause, not a partisan battle cry.
What would I say now? Fire the ideologues and assign them to scrub the floors at Guantánamo for penitence. Stop confusing neocon pundits with Old Testament prophets. Read the Bible for humility's sake, but for policy's sake commit to memory the report of the Iraq Study Group. Don't sacrifice any more soldiers to prove you're in charge; get the soldiers out of the line of fire between Sunnis and Shi'ites. And remind your hirelings of Winston Churchill's definition of democracy as the occasional necessity of deferring to the opinions of other people.

http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=3196

I spoke to Leonard Cohen's lady today. Anjani (Thomas) will sing from her cd "Blue Alert" Friday night at Cabaret Juste Pour Rire. Turns out the couple live in LA and Montreal. No big scoop? Los Angeles in the summer, Montreal in the winter.

"Montreal is too crazy in the summer with festivals all over the place", Anjani told me in her smoky, seductive voice over the phone from Toronto. "It's much more laid back in the winter. We chill in the winter, live just off the Main".

Asked to describe what it's like to hang out with the legendary poet-songwriter, Anjani couldn't hide her affection. "Oh, he's just so cool...he's a keeper".

She looks as great as she sounds. Don't miss the show. At a cheap ticket price.

www.anjani-music.com


"Leonard Cohen's backup singer (as well as his lover) ransacked the great bard's notebooks to unearth stray, leftover lyrics, which, it turns out, tower over most other writers' finest lines. Thomas then matched Cohen's words to her own melodies of woe. The combination of her blue-hued voice and jazzy tunes with Cohen's impeccable verse created literature you can hum...” Jim Farber NEW YORK DAILY NEWS