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koganphrancis · 4 years

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Ian Dips His Toe Into A Redemption Arc

(Or: My thoughts on S10 Episode 3)

First thing first-I am guessing that the scene this gif is from was cut-Wells probably said it looked too much like men having sex with each other ;P I bet this fight led to the-by the time the episode starts-established divided cell that Ian has to be a little bitch to Mickey about not seeing the clock since he can’t go to “Mickey’s side” of the cell. WTF is this, The Brady Bunch? Pretty sure the boys pulled that about their bedroom in one of the episodes, but I digress. I would have liked to see Mickey jumping Ian, sigh.

On to what they did show-I have to say, I’m okay with it in the sense that I think almost everything they had Mickey and Ian say and do was very much in character. However, since the show has had these characters for 10 seasons, I would’ve really liked to see evidence of more growth and evolution for Ian. Mickey did two major acts of wonderful, selfless love for Ian, whereas Ian blurted out one thing towards the end when everything was pretty much set in stone anyway.

But it was very in character for Mickey to be the one to give, and Ian to receive, so let me go back to the beginning under the

The episode starts and obviously they’re still bickering/not getting along. (Noel’s reading of Mickey’s annoyed “What” packed more meaning and emotion into a single syllable-this show does not deserve him.) Ian gets the news that he’s got a parole hearing date, and Mickey immediately has a dark cloud of cold, cold rain descend over him-Ian’s pretty oblivious to that, and probably thinks Mickey’s just continuing their arguing since Mickey walks out of the cell as soon as the lock’s released. Gotta give Ian a little credit-he forgets they’re arguing and is asking Mickey questions about his thoughts about what the letter means and didn’t Mickey think, like Ian, he’d be in longer...but those questions were all about “me, me, me” not “us”. Which, in character, but, grow a little, Ian, damn it!

Ian goes and talks to two inmates that we’re not quite clear if both of them are gay or just “prison gay” (one has a boyfriend on the outside, but they have an arrangement to screw other people while they’re apart as long as there’s no mouth kissing). They tell Ian he and “his boy” need a clear understanding, or feelings will be hurt. Ian looks across the room to Mickey, and maybe for the first time is thinking about Mickey hurting because of him.

Or maybe he’s not-because the next scene is obviously taking place at 8:15, and Mickey is sitting on the toilet. This scene, again, was in character for Ian, but it pissed me off because he’s bringing up something major-something that could easily blow up into a fight-when Mickey is literally at his most open and vulnerable-pants down and his body in no position to choose either fight or flight. Plus, Ian doesn’t broach the subject with, “Even if I get out, I will wait for you, I’ll be faithful.” No, he’s still 17 year old Ian saying, “Will we bang other people?” Plus he throws in “kids? Retirement?” so Mickey truly doesn’t have the first clue what Ian’s asking. (And, btw, Shameless, they HAD a kid that you’ve oh so conveniently made disappear.)

Ian states it as clearly as he can (I guess, for him): “Do you or do you not want to be in a long distance relationship when I’m out?” This is so not fair to put on Mickey. Mickey plainly told Ian what he wanted way back when he was first put into prison and, yes, Ian was on his meds and so low and whatever, but Mickey knew the answer he gave then was a lie and probably would’ve been the same even if Ian was 100% adjusted to his meds. Also, Mickey knows for a fact: Ian cheats. He’s cheated on Mickey and he’s cheated with Mickey, and Ian’s certainly not saying here he’ll even try to be true. From Mickey’s point of view he could easily take it as Ian wanting him to give him the loophole to not be faithful.

Mickey, again, is the realist-”You’re out there you’re going to be fucking other people, so will I.” (Plus, just last week, Ian was requesting a “new roommate”-pretty sure Mickey feels like Ian would be fucking other people inside, given the chance.) Ian belatedly (far too late) says, “Can’t we just like, wait for each other?” Then Mickey says something very true indeed. “Look, it would be one thing if you felt differently about leaving, but you don’t.” Ian asks what that means and Mickey reluctantly tells him that maybe if there was a part of Ian that wanted to throw his parole hearing so he could stay in there with Mickey since Mickey threw his life away to be with Ian then at least they’d be having a different conversation. Ian immediately gets defensive with “I didn’t ask you to.” No, you didn’t Ian, but you’ve never seemed to appreciate that Mickey did it either-or any of the many other sacrifices and acts of love Mickey’s done for you over the years. Ian incredulously asks if Mickey’s asking him to tank his hearing to "be stuck” in prison with him. Again it seems like Ian is 100% missing the point that Mickey chose to be with him because he wanted to be, and Ian’s acting like being with Mickey is part of-maybe the worst part of-his prison sentence. Mickey says, “I ain’t asking you for shit, Gallagher.” Ian cranks up the defensiveness, “You want me to choose to do it without you asking.” YES, that’s exactly what he wants, Ian. For you to choose him, for once in your life! Mickey says his already famous, “I want you to want to do what you want.” Ian gets extremely whiny and says, “Buuuut, if I choose it, you would be happy.” Well, not anymore-you’ve ruined it. He keeps getting in Mickey’s face, “I just want to know, yes or no, would you be fucking happy!?!?” You honestly don’t know, Ian? You’re the one that’s been having all the problems being locked up-Mickey, in the little bit we saw last week, was resigned and ready to serve out his sentence till you kept after him, putting a lot of blame on him for prison not being “fun” anymore. Mickey finally says, “Yes” and Ian’s all, “Then I’ll fucking do it-I’ll fuck up my hearing so that I stay with you.” He’s totally yelling by this point. Mickey says, “If that’s what you want, fine.” But you can tell he doesn’t think it’s what Ian wants. Ian retreats back up to the top bunk after they exchange “fines” and “goods”. Neither one of them is happy.

And Ian’s not all that committed to his supposed decision-the next scene he’s in, he’s on the prison phone trying to get a hold of Lip-he needs some advice-which is a crock of shit to begin with-when has Lip ever told him that Mickey is the right choice? Ian already knows what Lip would tell him to do.

Mickey gets back to the cell after Ian learns from Debbie that Lip and Tami had the baby, and Mickey right away knows something’s bothering Ian. Hey, Ian, when would any member of your family notice something like that?

Next Mickey scene-he goes to visit one of Terry’s old buddies for gay life advice. Um, sure, Shameless. I’m sorry that they felt the need to shortcut Mickey finding out what he already knows in his heart by stretching suspension of disbelief far beyond its breaking point. (Not to mention it completely undercuts any danger we were supposed to believe in when Mickey came out-apparently Terry and his generation of incarcerated neo-nazis are completely tolerant of alternative lifestyles-who knew?) Anyway-one great Noel moment in this scene is the beat he takes to look momentarily surprised that he’s not going to be curb stomped for asking about his partner for pleasure.

Points lost to Shameless tho, for not making it very clear if, just like the Nazi buddy says to Mickey that Ian will come to resent him for wanting him to stay in prison for him, does Mickey resent Ian for going back in to be with him? Are we supposed to think there’s a difference just because Ian didn’t ask/encourage Mickey to do it? I also don’t like the implication that Mickey’s somehow in the wrong for wanting to be with Ian-it’s not like Ian has had a great life when Mickey’s not there for him.

Mickey, as always, is keeping a close eye on Ian, and thwarts his plan to shiv an inmate (and, hey, Shameless, way to work in another fat slur in that scene-you couldn’t have Ian just say, “The big guy?”), and in a scene that I hope was very gratifying to film, Noel, uh, Mickey covers Ian’s entire mouth with his hand and keeps telling him to STFU ;) Mickey has his cohorts drag Ian back to their cell, and here he makes his first huge sacrifice/love offering: he tells Ian he’s not throwing his fucking parole for him, they need to get him out of this shithole. So it’s only then, when it’s obvious Mickey’s not going to hold him to anything he’s said and not going to try to make him say, that Ian finally says what he should’ve been saying from the start: “I wanna be with you.” Mickey says, “You don’t get to be.” And Cameron finally gives us a good line reading and says with an actual hitch in his voice and some real emotion, “I wanna be where you are, Mickey.” And Mickey has to be all Rick Blane from Casablanca and say, “You don’t belong in here” and “go get a job and be an uncle to Lip’s kid” and “I shouldn’t have asked you to stay.” Yeah, you should’ve! You have the right to ask him to, Mickey-and especially to want him to want to! You shouldn’t force him to stay, but asking him is okay!

And then we finally get what we’ve been hoping for for years-the mutual ilys, but, still, it wasn’t quite right. Ian says it, then Mickey says, “I know.” (Does he though? All I could see was, “Not really though” right after he said I know. And maybe for once Shameless is laying out some foreshadowing and Mickey truly still DOESN’T know-there’s going to be a major bump in their future if that guy on the Vespa from the 2nd Chicago week is anything to go by-but even if we are supposed to have that tickle of doubt from that “I know”, that still fucks up them finally saying I love you to each other-why can’t we ever just have them say it?) Anyway, Mickey does his, “I love you too” and they kiss and it’s a lovely kiss-but that’s all we get. They finally say ILY to each other and it doesn’t lead to more? Even Noel live tweeting it indicated it DID lead to what it should have-an actual love scene (although we could do without the “mayonaise”). But this is Shameless and they’re just never gonna have sex, I guess.

Their final scene is Ian sleeping blissfully and Mickey in his own bunk, counting money (he also had money to give the guard to be let in to see Terry’s buddy-all that cash and he can’t buy some lube?) and a guard comes to the door and gives Mickey and envelope for the cash, and a now-awake Ian is half sitting up and Mickey gives him the envelope and tells him to “facetime your brother, see the baby” and gives Ian the sweetest look along with this second-of-the-episode love offering, like Mickey’s the one making up for something. What? The whole episode he’s been putting Ian’s needs and issues first. But it is very in character for Mickey to be doing whatever it takes to make Ian happy. I just want to see it starting to get reciprocated. I don’t think Ian did a hell of a lot in this episode to show much redemption. He really only did anything (truly mean it when he said he wanted to stay) once he was getting what he wanted at the start.

And they never did hammer it out that they’d wait for each other...But with the way they’re being under-utilized this season I’m not too worried about that. They don’t seem to be in the next episode at all, and it makes me so sad to think about how much better their story would be if the show would just let them have the number of scenes they deserve and the time to let things play out, instead of everything needing to be brought up, flailed over, and resolved all in the span of a few too short scenes.

#IanandMickey #Season 10 Episode 3 #Spoiler #(minor-and not a spoiler if you saw pictures on Twitter from Chicago week 2)#I do have to give this episode credit-the writer seemed to have actually watched previous Gallavich stuff #She did a way better job than Nancy who has been there from the start #Noel is beyond the MVP of this show #Everything he does rings true #The emotions he plays seem so real

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martywurst · 7 years

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My First and Worst Year: Producing A Show

I get caught up in the gossip. Shitting on comedians that I barely know. I'm trying to stop that. Early on, I was one those guys that would say something negative because I was trying to start a dialogue and reinforce any negative feelings I had about someone. Usually based in nothing; maybe one lousy first impression or through the grapevine on Facebook. Unfortunately, talking shit is a major way to bond with other inexperienced comics. A lot of miserable, sarcastic, unmotivated, boring comics. Or 10+ year comics that bitch about how unfair everything is. They can't talk to you for 30 seconds without shitting on something.

Now I know that's not me. I never feel good about it and it never helps.

The comics I look up to are modest, rarely say anything bad about anyone because they're just focused. They don't feed the fire. I'd rant about something and they wouldn't have anything to add to it. Maybe something along the lines of,

"Yeah, that can happen," kind of response.

I'd see the look on their face. I'm the problem.

I was the same way in Junior High. Picking on the popular kids and being obnoxious because I was so desperate to be a part of their circle. Afraid to be myself. Afraid to put in that kind of work.

I'll be obsessed with some idiot for hours on a Facebook thread, so tempted to participate in the attack, but where is it going to get me? Fuck, I could've written something. I should be writing jokes now, but I think I know something about blogging and comedy! I feel like I'm just regurgitating boring opinions that have been voiced on hundreds of podcasts already, I'll try to pepper this section up! Check out this sweet ass pimp kitty vest!

I always want to prove myself to other comics. An audience of strangers is always amazing, but I do feel the pressure of an all-comic mic. It's way too important to me. I don't want to be written off, I know I can be funny. Maybe not the last 20 times you saw me, but I'll get there, don't write me off!

When I had a decent set in front of someone I respected, I felt like I could check that off. Okay, that person doesn't think I'm a piece of shit anymore. I proved myself. Getting closer to being an actual comic! Every good set is a stepping stone. My bad sets would just temporarily render me useless. Instead of doing my homework and adjusting, I would just write something new or beat a bad joke into the ground. Maybe it'll work the 27th time.

"The people that go to Burning Man only need these two words to communicate: Burning...man!"

*crickets slashing wrists*

I bombed in front of Sean Conroy and took it kind of hard. Intimidating dude, (like the Ron Perlman of improvisation) he was sitting in the front row at Echoes Under Sunset with his arms crossed, waiting for his set and just watching me hang myself. He'd probably seen a thousand variations of the heckler character I was doing. I picked on him in character, but he wouldn't roll with it. Why would he? It was more fun to watch me squirm.

Every time I asked him a question he would answer,

"Sure."

Which is sort of the "fuck you" version of "yes and," It's an improv thing.

I was berating the audience for being a bunch of hipsters. Yelling out,

"Well I got something for ALL OF YOU!"

Then I started handing out free coffee coupons from a local coffee shop. Sean politely declined.

I had my bombing routine where I would call up Claire afterwards and tell her I just ate shit. Or who I ate shit in front of. She would convince me that it was okay, everybody bombs, and remind me that I'd had good sets before. She would tell me that she loved me and make me feel better about what had happened. Oh, there is life after tomorrow, I forgot! Thanks, baby!

Claire understands the grind. She's a fan of a lot of the people I look up to and we listen to a lot of the same podcasts now. She got into Jen Kirkman and The Longshot Podcast early on and now she subscribes to more comedians than I do. We went to Power Violence and a number of shows at The Improv. Pete Holmes, Todd Glass, Ron Lynch, Eddie Pepitone, Maron, Sebastian, Ian Edwards, and Tig- we love Tig. She pushed me to go on the road. She encouraged me to stop using the train and take her car instead. She makes this all possible. It's unbelievable. She even made cookies when I produced my own show.

I'd done a couple of shows at The Lexington with Tony Bartolone where I did some character stuff. I played a wrestler, a heckler that takes on Mr. Goodnight and a squarish Steve Allen type talk show host. Anyway, the owner liked me enough and said if I ever wanted to use the space, hit him up.

Tony was nice enough to help me too, he ran sound for me. Uggh, I didn't even give him a fucking spot and he ran sound for me- that's how great a guy he is and how SELFISH I can be.

I think the best thing in comedy after doing standup is booking your own show. Reaching for the stars, pulling in friends, what a great position to be in! Compiling a fantasy list of mostly male comics and shooting them a message on Facebook.

So if you're a new comic wondering, how the hell do I get booked on a show?

Well, a moron like me could accidentally see you at an open mic and then end up liking you! And I'm the guy who did a shitty set before you, remember? You never know who could be running shows.

Most people got back to me pretty quick. Comedians love a full calendar.

I adored The Walsh Brothers. So original and twisted. They blew my mind at TigerLily and I finally met the guys through a mutual friend.

Brian Scolaro was someone I had talked to outside of The Comedy Store. He's one of the first comics to give me any kind of advice,

"Don't move To Long Beach."

I was a fanboy of Dean Delray. I heard Matty Goldberg on Danny Lobell's podcast and dug his book about his friendship with Angelo Bowers. Ron Babcock was one of the friendly guys on the scene, loved his standup. I'd worked on a webseries with Paul Danke. Just met a lot of the other comics at open mics. I worked with Jeanne Whitney at Arclight Hollywood and we started standup around the same time. I watched Timika Hall do her first set at Echoes Under Sunset and she was great! Ester Steinberg cracked me up at The Palace and then I wanted to book her after I saw this sketch. She just happened to be hanging out with Neel Nanda when I was booking him, so I got both of them right then and there.

Robert Vertrees was brand new like me, but I just dug his story.

I knew I'd never have to worry about Ken Garr.

Just read his awesome blog entry "One Year Later and Why I Should Quit"

I should've taken note and made my blog shorter! That dude is a complete professional and will never hesitate to give you his tour dates at the MGM in Las Vegas.

Jak Knight was edgy and exciting. Jon Durnell was the best thing about a bringer show I did at the Formosa. I didn't even know Lisa Landry, but Brian asked if she could be on. Same thing with Kevin James Moore, a buddy of Matty's.

Maagic Collins is one of the kindest souls I've ever met. I love his standup. He would show up to my afternoon Tribal mic on Saturdays. Very supportive guy.

I think I saw Rick Wood at Power Violence and he just blew me away.

Anyway, you get the fucking point, this was just an excuse to drop everyone's links. Jesus Christ.

One time I made the amateur mistake of messaging too many people at once and then having to tell one comic I'd put them on the next show. I got a lot of grief for that and I was pulling my hair out. I was getting a guilt trip from the disappointed comic and now I didn't want to book him at all. It was totally my fault, but I was just getting through the learning curve. Book carefully, and wait for your damn responses.

Another recurring thing that kept coming up is a comic wanting to bring a friend for a guest spot. It's a good rule of thumb to keep a spot open for a possible drop-in. Or just book less comics Marty. Aren't you glad you paid $200 for this helpful comedy workshop tip?

I was also planning on doing all these wacky sketches and transitions that had nothing to do with the stand-up comedy. I wanted to make it an event. I asked Chris Walsh if we could have an extended dialogue where the Walsh Brothers get in an argument with me and then pretend to shoot me from the audience...so now I'm suddenly on the level of The Walsh Brothers! Proposing bits. Chris was really nice about it and declined in the best way possible. He made me realize that I should only work on the hosting- not all this extra dressing. I'd be stressed out enough. Plus, The Walsh Brothers have their own thing going on and it's hilarious.

Claire helped me with some basic PR stuff; shooting out emails to various websites with LA calendars of events. Lot of people check online for free entertainment. I hit up LA Weekly early enough to get this delightful blip:

Did I pay anyone? I paid Dean Delray. I paid Brian Scolaro. It seems a little unfair now, I had The Walsh Brothers, Ron Babcock, Paul Danke, and Matty Goldberg, who all have a shitload of experience.

I got this dumb idea that I should write thank you notes to everyone else. Looking back, I gave comedians false hope of money in those envelopes, only to find a badly scrawled "thank you" with some shitty stick figure doodles. At least there were cookies at the gig.

Brian mentioned the 50 bucks onstage and I was really embarrassed. It exposed the inner-workings of my inexperience and that I was holding out on everyone else. I think I would do it differently now, but it was a free show.

Tony watched me have a mini-meltdown. I was stressing out because there was a band that was booked on a show immediately after and it was clear that I was going to run over their time. I thought if I gave up my own set and kept bringing the next comic up, we'd finish on time without cutting anyone's sets down.

Tony explained to me that I shouldn't of worried about that, that it was worse to bring the comics up cold. It's better to keep the audience warmed up, but I was hopping back on stage saying,

"Give it up for Ron Babcock, and now let's keep it moving- Matty Goldberg!"

I didn't get it. I thought running over my time would fuck things up and I'd never get to do a show again. I shouldn't of booked so many comics anyway- Paul Danke was going on dead last, and he'd been waiting around so long, I felt horrible. I should buy his album.

So don't sacrifice your time for the sake of the next show- be a good host, Wurst.

But that first show had a great turnout, especially for The Lexington. The comics were kind of impressed. That extra leg work paid off.

I remember I wanted to bring Dean Delray up to a Led Zeppelin song and I kept bothering Tony about it when the order changed. Then when the music came up, Dean was clearly stoked and that little moment meant a lot to me.

On his way out he yelled,

"Congratulations on your 1st year of stand up!"

Speaking of which, I asked Melina Paez if I could be in her "DropTheSoapTV" series, where comics do stand-up in her shower. It was a fun way to cap off my first year.

Okay, that was rather manic. Just a couple steps away from Denis Leary- uggh. Anyway, I STOPPED doing that. Here's a message to myself as I time-travel back to the shower,

Horrible jokes, asshole! Your taint is hilarious by the way.

I just want to thank the people that encouraged me or gave me useful information when I started bumbling my way through open mics that first year (July 2013-2014)

Brett Gilbert, Ric Rosario, Matty Goldberg, Tony Bartolone, Jason Van Glass, Ron Babcock, Dean Delray, Chris Walsh, Matt Walsh, Danny Lobell, Mollie Gross, Melina Paez, Brian Scolaro, Jamie Flam, Jeremiah Watkins, Mike Celestino, Justin Alexio, Neel Nanda, Mikey de Lara, Paul Danke, Ari Mannis, Lydia Robinson, Ryan Doolittle, Maagic Collins, Don Barris, Elissa Rosenthal, Rob Antus, K-von, Jarrett and Emily Galante, Christiane Georgi, Hiro Matsunaga, Greg James, Carly Craig, Matthew Hilton, Sally Mullins, Matt Sauter, Matt Gamarra, Donald McKinney, Ryan Kain, Jeremy Fultz, Del Weston, Derick Armijo, Alisha Morine, Nicole Malina, Devon Schwartz, Andy Salamone, Barbara Gray, Sean Conroy, Myles Weber, Ricky Winston, Frankie Ma, Rishi Arya, Brandon Birckz, Sean K., Mike Menendez, Jamar Neighbors, Mr. Goodnight, Erica Rhodes, Matt Champagne, David Gerhardt, The Martin Duprass, John Silver, Ryan Pfeiffer, Kevin Anderson, Whitney Melton, Kym Kral, Jared Levin, Kenneth Lion, Alex Croll, Adam Carr, Trevor James, Deon Williams, Amber Brashear, Pat Regan, Brad Silnutzer, Rob Weissman, Marty, Graham Curan, Eddie Pepitone, Quincy Johnson, Blythe Metz, Willie Dynamite, Freddy Morales, Marcela Perdomo, Nick Kaufman, Atelston Fitgerald Holder The 1st, Bruce Boiman, Tom Allen, Melissa Villasenor, Maria Bamford, Todd Glass, Lou Perez, Allison Anders, Jeremy Bassett, Tony Alfieri, Laura Niles, Tamoy Sherman, Chaliss Robinson, Eddie Whitehead Jr, Brent Weinbach, Jill Maragos, Jodi Miller, Luz Pazos, Brianna Murphy, Sasha Kapustina, Alain Villenueve, Brad James, Lauren Kiang, Yoav, Ken Garr, David Gregorian, Jordan Leer, Stefano Della Pietra, Down Under Comedy Club, Mike Garrison, Brad and Sara Harris, Thomas Hussey, Harold, Chino, Tiffany Gomes, Simon Gibson, Joe Wagner, Scott Luhrs, Jay Weingarten, Joe Kardon, Pedro Salinas, Willie Dynamite, Robert Vertrees, Amber Kenny, Karah Britton, Alison Tafel, David Hill, Andy Kosec, Micah Lile, Chris Putro, Kris Rubio, Jade Thom, Brodie Reed, Ryan Talmo, Kevin Lee, Kellie Ann, Jeanne Whitney, Jake Kroeger, Nikki Riordan, Tim Mars, Christian Chavez, Jake Adams, Louise Hung, Michael Donato, my Geffen peeps, all my Arclight friends, Stella friends, childhood friends and family that came out to support.

Or if you're just generally nice to me thanks. You gave me the strength to go out and bomb one more time.

Shout out to Mike Celestino's great documentary "That's Not Funny".

and finally To Claire:

For every time I called you up to moan out my discontent, only to be dissuaded from my stubborn misery because of your constant light, love, and gentle reasoning.

For those open mics you'll never be able to unsee.

I love you more than open mic comedians love pussy jokes.

And as you know, that's a hell of a lot.

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networkingdefinition · 4 years

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Noodles Quotes

Official Website: Noodles Quotes

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Noodle', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_noodle').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_noodle img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself. – Bohumil Hrabal

• But I couldn’t draw as fast as she requested. Thus, I tried to create the worst abomination of a comic that I could, so as to make her not want comics anymore. That abomination, my friends, was Happy Noodle Boy. – Jhonen Vasquez

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

• Can’t make chicken salad out of chicken noodle – Mike Ditka • Carbohydrates, and especially refined ones like sugar, make you produce lots of extra insulin. I’ve been keeping my intake really low ever since I discovered this. I’ve cut out all starch such as potatoes, noodles, rice, bread and pasta. – Cynthia Kenyon • Censure is a limp noodle across the wrist of the president. I think the way we vote on the articles will express the way we feel stronger than any censure vote. – Larry Craig • Even now, when I do a slide show of the Geek Squad story, the first slide is a photo of ramen noodles. Because for me, ramen noodles are the international symbol for struggle. – Robert Stephens • He’s smaller than me, did you see him? He looked like a noodle next to me. – Adrien Broner • I can make things, but I don’t cook them, exactly. Like salmon, I can stick that in a pan. Or the other day I made noodles, but they were hard. It never occurred to me to check them; I just stopped cooking them when I felt they were ready. Really, I’m too absentminded. – Paula Poundstone • I cook everything. I love Mediterranean cooking, I love Asian cooking. I do lots of Japanese noodles. – Ted Allen • I don’t put cream in any pasta noodles ever. I would use a little butter, but I don’t ever use cream. – Mario Batali • I hate to admit this but I don’t even know how to make a cup of tea or coffee. I can boil a kettle for a pot noodle and I’ve been known to warm up some food in the microwave. – Michael Owen • I have a rescue dog named Fideo, which means ‘noodle’ in Spanish, and a cat named Hutch. – Ana Ortiz • I love Chinese food, like steamed dim sum, and I can have noodles morning, noon and night, hot or cold. I like food that’s very simple on the digestive system – I tend to keep it light. I love Japanese food too – sushi, sashimi and miso soup. – Shilpa Shetty • I remember when I couldn’t afford to eat like this. It was ramen noodles and the San Francisco Treat [Rice-A-Roni]. Dessert? Get you a honey bun and put a slice of cheese on it. Put it in the microwave for 45 seconds and you had the gift of a lifetime. – Rick Ross • I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘cooking’ but I can make noodles. That means I can boil water, put the pasta in and wait until it’s done. – Devon Werkheiser • I’m not as good as a man as you are, Sundown. I find it hard to give an enemy my back under any circumstance.” – Ren “Oh, I didn’t say I was giving her my back. I’m not lacking all my noodle sense. But I’m not holding a grudge neither. Sometimes you just got to let the rattlesnake lay in the sun.” – Sundown “Men? You do know I’m standing in this little box with you and can hear every word?” – Abigail “We know. I merely don’t care.” – Ren – Sherrilyn Kenyon • If it’s possible, I will have some noodles in the morning and start talking to people, start to think about a few things in my head – the project or a few ideas which are not finished or if there are possible directions and what will lead into another game. It’s always like setting up some kind of game you can continuously play. – Ai Weiwei • If you think you can lead your flock of sheeple and peeps to some glorified noodle fest on the mall, you got another thing coming, mister. – Stephen Colbert • I’m Italian. I love to cook Italian food, so I learned from my dad how to make sauce and meatballs and all that stuff. With my wife and kids, I started making homemade pasta. The very first time, I didn’t have a pasta maker, so I had to cut it with a knife, the old-school way! The noodles were all jacked up, but it was fun. – Joey Fatone • I’m layering away: sauce, noodles, I belong to you, cheese, sauce, my heart is yours, noodles, cheese, I hear your soul in your music, cheese, cheese, CHEESE. – Jandy Nelson • I’m not the kind of guy who sits around at home and writes songs. Once in a while I’ll pick up a guitar and noodle around, but it’s rare. – Scott Ian • Instructions for Adam Look after no one except yourself. Go to university and make lots of friends and get drunk. Forget your door keyes. Laugh. Eat pot-noodles for breakfast. Miss lectures. Be irresponsible. – Jenny Downham • It turns out that Molly wasn’t her mother’s daughter in that respect. Charity was like the MacGuyver of the kitchen. She could whip up a five-course meal for twelve from an egg, two spaghetti noodles, some household chemicals, and a stick of chewing gum. Molly … Molly once burned my egg. My boiled egg. I don’t know how. – Jim Butcher • Life was so much simpler in pre-video days when everyone refused invitations because the ‘Forsyte Saga’ was on. Now we all just have a long list of unwatched shows, all of which, it seems, our friends are raving about. I feel as outdated as if I wore a Fair Isle sweater, ate Pot Noodle and had a two-bar electric fire in the sitting room. – Simon Hoggart • Memory, in my opinion, is a complete noodle. It hangs on the silliest things but forgets the stuff that really matters. – Ellen Potter • My grandmother was a kind of Scarsdale, New York, society woman, best known in her day as the author of the 1959 book ‘Growing Your Own Way: An Informal Guide for Teen-Agers’ – this despite being a person whose parenting style made Joan Crawford’s wire hangers look like pool noodles. – Sloane Crosley • My mom cooked pot roast with noodles and frozen vegetables. Or she’d make spaghetti or hot dogs, or heat up TV dinners. Before I started modeling at age 19, I was 5’8″ and weighed 165 pounds. – Carol Alt • Noodles are not only amusing but delicious. – Julia Child • OH KYO KUN! Isn’t it said that eating pink noodles turns you into a horny pervert?! – Natsuki Takaya • Once you’ve started a film you don’t become a wet noodle. You must have that conflictual interface because you don’t know, and they don’t know. It’s through conflict that you come out with something that might be different, better than either of you thought to begin with. – Jack Nicholson • Peace will come to the world when the people have enough noodles to eat. – Momofuku Ando • Ramen is a dish that’s very high in calories and sodium. One way to make it slightly healthier is to leave the soup and just eat the noodles. – Masaharu Morimoto • Sam was starting to feel anxious. Nutella and noodles were fine. Great in fact. Miraculous. But he’d been hoping for more food more water more medicine something. It was absurdly like Christmas morning when he was little: hoping for something he couldn’t even put a name to. A game changer. Something…amazing. – Michael Grant

• She led him past the engine room, which looked like a very dangerous, mechanized jungle gym, with pipes and pistons and tubes jutting from a central bronze sphere. Cables resembling giant metal noodles snaked across the floor and ran up the walls. “How does that thing even work?” Percy asked. “No idea,” Annabeth said. “And I’m the only one besides Leo who can operate it.” “That’s reassuring.” “It should be fine. It’s only threatened to blow up once.” “You’re kidding, I hope.” She smiled. “Come on. – Rick Riordan • Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve been eating a lot of popcorn, cereal, instant noodles, and snack bars. I have a hot plate in my bedroom, a microwave, and a small fridge. That’s the kind of kitchen I know how to get around in. – Karen Marie Moning • Spaghetti… I can’t eat spaghetti, there’s too many of them. No matter how hungry I am, 1,000 of something is too many. I’ll have 1,000 pieces of noodles. – Mitch Hedberg • ‘Tampopo’ is a deeply odd film about Japan, ramen noodles, love and sex. It made me very hungry and desperate to travel to Japan. It started my love affair with this amazing country, its culture, its food, its cinema and made me buy my first ticket to the land of the rising sun. – Jamie Cullum • The boys. The village boys. The beef-witted featherbrained rattleskulled clodpated dimdomed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed boys. How could anybody accuse her of stealing them? Why would anybody want them anyway? – William Goldman • There’s a Polar Bear In our Frigidaire– He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there. With his seat in the meat And his face in the fish And his big hairy paws In the buttery dish, He’s nibbling the noodles, And munching the rice, He’s slurping the soda, He’s licking the ice. And he lets out a roar If you open the door. And it gives me a scare To know he’s in there– That Polary Bear In our Fridgitydaire. – Shel Silverstein • There’s only one rule in photography – never develop colour film in chicken noodle soup. – Freeman Patterson • We can do anything. It’s not because our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making those long noodles you love so much. – Richard Siken • When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles… …they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle. – Dr. Seuss • When I would feel down…I’d have some noodles father prepared, and all the worries I had that day…Poof! They would all disappear. – Kim Young-kwang • Yes, but I’ve already made my fortune in other things. (Solin) Such as? (Geary) Viagra. My brother learned to take a personal problem and profit by it. (Arik) It’s true. It pained me to see a man as young as Arik stricken with impotency. Therefore I had to do something to help the poor soul. But alas, there’s nothing to be done for it. He’s as flaccid as a wet noodle. (Solin) How creative of you to project your problem onto me. But then, they say celibacy is enough to make a man lose all reason. Guess you’re living proof, huh? (Arik) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • You can’t be wishy-washy. That’s the most boring thing in the world, to be a middle-of-the-road wet noodle. That’s my greatest fear, to be like, “Oh, whatever.” That’s just not who I am. – Chris Black • You have to find a group that really desperately cares about what it is you have to say. Talk to them. They have something I call otaku. It’s a great Japanese word. It describes the desire of someone who’s obsessed to, say, drive across Tokyo to try a new Ramen noodle place ’cause that’s what they do, they get obsessed with it. – Seth Godin • You noodle around with tempo and sound until you get the perfect fit for that particular song, and then, so long as you can sustain it, God is on your side and everything comes easily and even the waiters smile. – Wilfrid Sheed • Zen is to religion what a Japanese “rock garden” is to a garden. Zen knows no god, no afterlife, no good and no evil, as the rock-garden knows no flowers, herbs or shrubs. It has no doctrine or holy writ: its teaching is transmitted mainly in the form of parables as ambiguous as the pebbles in the rock-garden which symbolise now a mountain, now a fleeting tiger. When a disciple asks “What is Zen?”, the master’s traditional answer is “Three pounds of flax” or “A decaying noodle” or “A toilet stick” or a whack on the pupil’s head. – Arthur Koestler • Zerts’ are what I call desserts. ‘Trée-trées’ are entrées. I call sandwiches ‘sammies,’ ‘sandoozles,’ or ‘Adam Sandlers.’ Air conditioners are ‘cool blasterz’ with a ‘z’ – I don’t know where that came from. I call cakes ‘big ol’ cookies.’ I call noodles ‘long-ass rice.’ Fried chicken is ‘fry-fry chicky-chick.’ Chicken parm is ‘chicky-chicky-parm-parm.’ Chicken cacciatore? ‘Chicky-cacc.’ I call eggs ‘pre-birds,’ or ‘future birds.’ Root beer is ‘super water.’ Tortillas are ‘bean blankets.’ And I call forks ‘food rakes.’ – Aziz Ansari

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equitiesstocks · 4 years

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Noodles Quotes

Official Website: Noodles Quotes

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loosejournal · 5 years

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Dwight Garner’s favorite quotations

For nearly four decades I’ve kept what is known as a commonplace book – a bound notebook, and later a long computer file, passed from desktops (1990s) to laptops (2000s) to my cell phone, into which I’ve poured verbal delicacies, “blasts of a trumpet”, as Emerson put it, and bits of scavenged wisdom from my life as a reader. Yea, for I am an underliner, a destroyer of books, and maybe you are, too. Commonplace books are not so uncommon. John Locke kept one, as did Virginia Woolf. W. H. Auden published his, as did the poet J. D. McClatchy. E. M. Forster’s was issued after his death. The novelist David Markson wrote terse and enveloping novels that resembled commonplace books in many regards; they were bird’s nests of facts threaded with the author’s own subtle interjections. For fans of the commonplace book genre, many prize examples have come from lesser-known figures like Geoffrey Madan and Samuel Rogers, both English, who produced books that are notably witty and illuminating. These have become cult items. Christopher Ricks noted about Rogers that, although he may not have been an especially kind man, “he was very good at hearing what was said”.

I use my own commonplace book as an aide-mémoire, a kind of external hard drive. Reading it is a way of warding off what Christopher Hitchens, quoting a friend, called CRAFT (Can’t Remember a Fucking Thing) syndrome. I use my gleanings in my own writing. Like Montaigne, I quote others “in order to better express myself”. Montaignecompared quoting well to arranging other people’s flowers. Sometimes, I sense, I quote too often, swinging on them in my writing as if from vine to vine. It’s one of the curses of spending a lifetime as a word-eater, and of retaining, so far, a semi-reliable memory.

I am no special fan of most books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, the Yale Book of Quotations and the New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations, to name three dependable reference books, have their uses, for sure. They are sturdy repositories of literary and verbal history. (Countless other books of quotations aren’t reliable at all.) But even the best contain a good deal of dead weight. They lean, sometimes necessarily, on canned and overused thought and, more grievously, are skewed to the upbeat. So many of the lines they contain seem to vie to be stitched on throw pillows or ladled, like chicken soup, on the credulous soul. “Almost all poetry is a failure”, Charles Bukowski contended, “because it sounds like somebody saying, Look, I have written a poem.” The same is true of quotations and aphorisms; too many have a taxidermied air, as if they were self-consciously aimed at posterity.

This small slice of the material I’ve hoarded is a sliver of a much larger book project, one that will break with the conventions of commonplace books and volumes of quotations by organizing quotes by feel rather than by category. There are few life lessons except by accident. I must add that I do not agree with everything that is said: retweet does not, as they say on Twitter, necessarily equal endorsement.

-----

(small selection)

“It’s only words, unless they’re true.” – David Mamet, Speed-the-Plow

“Why are you all reading? I don’t understand this reading business when there is so much fucking to be done.” – Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be?

“Better a good venereal disease than a moribund peace and quiet.” – Henry Miller, Quiet Days in Clichy

“Everything that is true is inappropriate.” – Oscar Wilde

“Everyone nodded, nobody agreed..” – Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

“Let’s, as if sore, grab a few things from the flood.” – A. R. Ammons, Complete Poems

“Fragments, indeed. As if there were anything to break.” – Don Paterson, Best Thought, Worst Thought

“He licked his lips. ‘Well, if you want my opinion–’ ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I have my own.’ –Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Love poems must be bounced back off a moon.” – Robert Graves, Paris Review interview

“See the moon? It hates us.” – Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories

“You know where the Beatles got that shit from. You know that’s our shit they fucking up like that.” – Albert Murray, South to a Very Old Place

“How come the Beatles never got busted for statutory rape – because they’re white?” – Eve Babitz, Eve’s Hollywood

“I hope you don’t mind, I’m from the South. We’re touchers.” – Charlie Rose, attributed

“Mick Jagger should fold up his penis and go home.” – Robert Christgau, Village Voice

“Somehow he knew, based on very little experience, that this faux-casualshit spelled money.” – Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities

“Being rich is about acting, too, isn’t it? A style, a pose, an interpretation that you force upon the world.” – Martin Amis, Money

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.” – Dorothy Parker

“Oh, fuck, not another elf.” – Hugo Dyson, as J.R.R. Tolkien read aloud an early draft of The Lord of the Rings

“I am putting a mental jigsaw together of what a hobbit looks like, based on a composite of every customer I have ever sold a copy to.” – Shaun Bythell, Diary of a Bookseller

“You put your finger in it, and go swish, swish, swish.” – Jane Jacobs, on how to make a West Village martini

“Wasn’t the whole 20th century a victory lap of collage, quotation, appropriation, from Picasso to Dada to Pop?” – Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence

“I suddenly began to realize that everybody in America is a natural-born thief.” – Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“The not paying for things is intoxicating.” – Philip Roth, American Pastoral

“I don’t trust anybody who hasn’t shoplifted.” – John Waters

“Cleanliness might not be next to godliness but it is certainly adjacent to horniness.” – Geoff Dyer, on hotels, in Otherwise Known as the Human Condition

“The assumptions a hotel makes about you! All those towels.” – Stanley Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show

“The meat around my skull can’t stop smiling.” – Catherine Lacey, The Answers

“Let’s have some new clichés.” – Sam Goldwyn

“I need some new attitudes, some new affirmations and denials.” – Lionel Trilling, letter

“Good-bye, and I don’t mean au revoir.” – Christopher Ricks

“Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.” – Barbara Pym, Less Than Angels

“Edward worried about his drinking. Would there be enough gin? Enough ice?” – Donald Barthelme, Flying to America

“I have no enemies. But my friends don’t like me.” – Philip Larkin

“There was obviously nothing to recommend me to anyone.” – Deborah Levy, Hot Milk

“I have always disliked myself at any given moment; the total of such moments is my life.” – Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise

“Talk into my bullet hole. Tell me I’m fine.” – Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son

“Every time he played a note he waved it goodbye. Some times he didn’t even wave.” – Geoff Dyer on Chet Baker, But Beautiful

“Let us reflect whether there be any living writer whose silence we would consider a literary disaster.” – Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave

“If we did get a writer worth reading, should we know him when we saw him, so choked as we are with trash?” – George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying

“Book publishing should be done by failed writers who recognize the real thing when they see it.” – Robert Giroux, Paris Review interview

“Books are, let’s face it, better than everything else.” – Nick Hornby, Ten Years in the Tub

“Revenge is the capitalism of the poor.” – Aravind Adiga, Selection Day

“It makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, peanuts, compared to what the immigrant fears – dissolution, disappearance.” – Zadie Smith, White Teeth

“The face of ‘evil’ is always the face of total need.” – William S. Burroughs, preface to Naked Lunch

“In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things.” – Edna O’Brien, The Love Object

“How desperate do you have to be to start doing push-ups to solve your problems?” – Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book Two

“The primary object of a student of literature is to be delighted.” – Lord David Cecil

TLS, 2018

#quotes #dwight garner #commonplace book

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flauntpage · 5 years

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The Kill is Alive: Thoughts after Flyers 2, Predators 1

The phrase being tossed around this week is that the Flyers “are fun again.”

Two home wins following the firing of a coach who was publicly maligned for more than two years by the fans and starting the heir apparent, a 20-year-old rookie goalie, who the same fans have been screaming for will bring about that feeling.

And to be fair to the Flyers, they have played two solid games, most notably on the defensive side. Yes, Carter Hart has done a fine job in goal, but more so because he’s been able to make more routine saves that many other goalies the Flyers have trotted out this season.

No, instead of focusing on Hart, the real change has been the Flyers playing more soundly in their own end. They’ve improved their breakout. They haven’t alarmingly turned the puck over in the past two games like they did so often in the previous 30 games.

Winning both games helps, too, because it also energizes the fan base into thinking they were right all along and that the problem was the coach and the fact that Hart wasn’t on the team.

If you want to believe that, fine. Go nuts. It’s not accurate, even if it has played out that way for two games.

There are other factors, like Detroit, the team they beat Tuesday, being pretty terrible. And Nashville, the team the Flyers upset Thursday, playing without a couple key players.

But that’s the nature of the sport. Good teams take advantage of those breaks in their schedule and while it’s likely too soon to call the Flyers a good team, they certainly did take advantage of those breaks.

But there’s something else that is vastly improved about this hockey team, and it’s something that began well before Hart’s arrival and well before Dave Hakstol was fired, and it’s the No. 1 reason they were able to stave off the Predators on Thursday.

Find out what it is after the jump:

A suddenly stingy penalty kill

There was a time this season when the Flyers were on pace to be historically bad at killing penalties. Through the first 21 games, the Flyers penalty kill was only successful 68.5 percent of the time. It was a pace that, if maintained over the course of an entire season, would have resulted in the worst penalty kill percentage since the NHL started tracking that statistic in 1979-80.

Yeah, it was that bad.

But since then, which coincided with Thanksgiving, the Flyers have done a complete 180.

Yes, it’s a small sample size, but in the 12 games since, the Flyers penalty kill has allowed just five goals on 38 chances, killing off penalties at an 86.8 percent clip.

Consider that three of those goals allowed came in a 7-1 drubbing at the hands of Winnipeg, that means the Flyers have allowed a total of only three power play goals against in the other 11 games.

Assistant coach Ian Laperriere has been a target of the fans’ ire for much of the past two seasons because of the ineptitude of the penalty kill. It’s hard to say those outcries by the fans weren’t justified.

But just as he’s deservedly been the scapegoat for the penalty kill’s failings, he also needs to be recognized in a positive manner for finding a fix to this long-standing problem with the team – even if it’s only been a temporary one.

The Flyers killed off all six of Nashville’s power play chances Thursday. And while not having P.K. Subban manning the point or three of their top five goal scorers (Filip Forsberg, Colton Sissions, Viktor Arvidsson) in the lineup likely crippled Nashville some, the way the Flyers competed on the kill was still impressive.

“Our PK hasn’t been the best during the season, but I think during the last 10 games it has been a lot better,” said Robert Hagg. “I don’t know how many PKs we had, but every single guy that was on the ice did a hell of a good job.

“It’s all about the small details and I think we play with more pressure now than we did 10 games ago. We’re trying not to let them set up inside the zone, and I think that’s the biggest thing. … But you need to block shots, that’s what everybody in this room is saying, we need to keep doing that to be successful.”

As a whole, the Flyers blocked 23 in the game against the Predators. Hagg and Travis Sanheim led the way with five each, although 13 of the Flyers’ 18 skaters were credited with at least one block.

But never were they more important than on a two-minute, two-man shorthanded situation.

Late in the second period, the Flyers took three successive penalties. Wayne Simmonds wiped out the end of a power play with a chintzy hooking call. Radko Gudas was then whistled for delay of game which was immediately followed up by a high-sticking call on Andrew MacDonald that never made it above the top of the Predators logo on Kevin Fiala’s chest. However, Fiala sold it well, and the Flyers faced a daunting task.

With Ivan Provorov already off the ice with a misconduct (more on that in a bit) and Gudas and McDonald in the box, Coach Scott Gordon had little left in the way of options to kill off the two-minute penalty other than Sanheim and Hagg. Yeah, Shayne Gostisbehere was available, but he’s not reliable enough defensively to kill a penalty at 5-on-4, let alone 5-on-3, so it was the two second-year defenseman and Sean Couturier who coach Scott Gordon turned to and, well, they delivered:

youtube

(video courtesy of Charlie O’Connor at The Athletic)

Sanheim (21:58) and Hagg (20:59) were the top two minutes guys among the Flyers defensemen and they combined for more than 10 minutes of ice time while shorthanded.

Couturier also shows why he is an elite defensive forward on this kill. And it energized the building, as any good penalty kill in a one-goal game can – but when you are doing it two-men down for two minutes… that’s something else entirely.

Speaking of Sanheim

He’s arguably the Flyers best defenseman right now. Again, I know there are fans who have been screaming this for two years – that he should play more, that Hakstol stunted his growth, yada, yada, yada. But the fact is, he needed to be put on this path. He needed to develop with a little more nurturing. He needed to build confidence a little more slowly than some other players. That’s all O.K.

And if you think it was Hakstol who was stunting him, you’re fooling yourself. I asked Scott Gordon about Sanheim’s development, and this is what he had to say:

“In Travis’ first three months in Lehigh (in 2016-17) he was keeping both teams in it, that was his biggest adjustment. By December he was a little more responsible defensively and picking his spots better to jump up into the play.

“He plays that first year and no matter how much you learn and get better in the American League, there’s always going to be another adjustment in the NHL. Players are bigger, stronger, faster and decisions have to be made quicker. You can’t replicate that in the American League.

“So, he had some growing pains last year. But this year, you started to see him score a couple goals. He’s getting up into the play more. That’s a strength of his. Somewhere along the way on this most recent road trip (Assistant Coach Rick Wilson) started mixing up the D pairs and wanted to try some different things. When I got here, his recommendation was to play Sanheim with Provy.

“Obviously if you play with Provy you are going to get more ice time, and when you are a big body like that you’re going get some ice time on the penalty kill. And your minutes are going to go up, and, now he’s getting time against the other team’s top lines.

“With all that being said, he’s got to do the right things to deserve that opportunity and he has. Some of it is simplification. There was one play in the third period on the far side where he didn’t have anything and he threw it off the glass and he lives to play another day. He lives to play another shift. You know what I mean?

“Sometimes, when you are a young player you always think you can make a play and that was just one instance of his maturity as a player, recognizing the situation and identifying the fact that ‘I don’t have anything,’ get it out in the neutral zone, let a forecheck happen. Get in my gap and defend. That’s something the best defensemen do – they don’t beat themselves.”

There’s a lot to unpack here.

I love the way Gordon gives you a detailed, thoughtful answer. This is bountiful with information and really gives you honest perspective.

Speaking of which, I love the quip that Sanheim’s problem was he would “keep both teams in the game.” In other words, he was superior offensively but he often made bad decisions that would cost his team, and he needed to learn not to do that.

He identified that getting going offensively is what Sanheim needed this year to really spike his confidence.

That working with Rick Wilson is already paying dividends for Sanheim.

That Gordon, ever the teacher, identified an innocuous clearing play in the third period as a seminal moment for Sanheim’s development. Never mind that the guy, who rarely plays on the penalty kill, helped author a textbook kill of a two-minute, two-man disadvantage, the clearing play off the glass rather than risking a turnover is what was most impressive.

Overall, that Sanheim is earning his promotion to the top pairing and his bigger minutes.

And yet, that this is a shining example of a good, patient process for a young player playing out before our eyes.

I also had an opportunity to talk to Sanheim one-on-one after the game. Here’s how that went:

Q: You haven’t been asked to play a lot of PK this season, and then tonight, you were called into duty. Can you talk about jumping into that role and then being out there for the entire 5-on-3?

“Last year when I was sent down to the American League (Gordon) would leave me out on the penalty kill for the entire two minutes. So, I’m familiar with the situation and being able to kill penalties. It was something different for me this season, yes, but it wasn’t just me out there. Hagg and Coots deserve full credit, too.”

Q: You had to know with three defensemen in the box and with Ghost not playing on the kill that you guys were probably going to have to play the full two minutes, right?

“It’s not something that I was really thinking about to tell the truth. It was just that ‘next man up’ mentality, really. I just wanted to step up to the challenge. Hagg did, too. He had three or four blocks on that one kill alone. Credit to him for doing that. It made it easy for me.”

Q: Good that you were able to get a breather in there when Scott called the timeout too?

“He came down the bench to talk to us and see how we were feeling. He asked us if we thought he should take the timeout. I said that if he was willing to use it there that it would be a good time. It was nice to get the rest there for 30 seconds and then be able to go right back out there.”

Q: It’s no secret that confidence is a big thing for you and that you’ve been playing with a lot of it lately. Does being able to help the team win in this way – through defensive posture more so than your offensive ability – just add to that growing confidence?

“Yeah, I think so. Anytime you get to play in all situations you feel like you are contributing more to the team. That said, it doesn’t matter how many minutes I’m playing, I’m there to help the team win hockey games, but in the end, I’m going to do everything I can for however many minutes I play to do just that.”

Now, while the penalty kill was the key thing to focus on in this win, and I spent an inordinate number of words writing about it, there are some other things that I have to touch on before getting out of here, so:

MISCELLANEOUS STUFF

Provorov is damn lucky:

Why Provorov got a 10-minute misconduct. pic.twitter.com/5pF8QBypIP

— Broad Street Hockey (@BroadStHockey) December 21, 2018

This kind of action usually results in a match penalty and a game misconduct. In that instance, there is an automatic 10-game suspension. No hearing. No negotiation. 10 games. Out. But, by getting only a 10-minute misconduct, he will likely avoid that significant suspension. I expect a fine of some sort… but that’s it. Big break for Provy and the Flyers.

The non-call on Sean Couturier

I took abuse from Twitter for saying I agree with the referee in not calling this a penalty. I will say that I wouldn’t have been shocked if it was called a penalty, but this is far closer to a borderline call/non-call than it is a blatant and egregious boarding:

youtube

It looks worse at full speed and from the wide angle than it really is. The angle to pay attention to is the one from behind the net. The referee isn’t wrong that Couturier turned away from the check and that he does reach out to brace himself on the hit. Usually, those two things prevent a boarding call unless the skater takes several strides to hit a player from behind with force, which Ryan Johansson does not do in this instance.

I talked to Coots privately after the game, and while I won’t quote him specifically because I didn’t have my recorder on at the time, here are some things that he said:

He’s fine. He doesn’t have a concussion. However, he was mad that he had to go to the quiet room to get checked for a concussion on a play that there was no penalty. If an off ice official was concerned for his health on a hit, then maybe the hit wasn’t good.

He admitted he turned into the boards, but said he did so to protect the puck.

He didn’t feel it was a major penalty, but thought it should have been a minor for two reasons. The first being that Johansson was not right on him, but took a stride before making contact. The second being they had just called a penalty on the Flyers for a high hit (Scott Laughton) and an earlier high stick on Andrew MacDonald (which wasn’t a high stick) was the result of Kevin Fiala throwing his head back. His thought process was if those were penalties than this should have been too.

I get the argument. And like I said, I wouldn’t have been screaming about an injustice for Nashville if the penalty was called. But, by the book – and not that the book is always right – this was a 50/50 judgment call and the ref went with the judgment that it wasn’t a penalty. I can’t disagree with that rationale.

The post The Kill is Alive: Thoughts after Flyers 2, Predators 1 appeared first on Crossing Broad.

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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20 Fantasy Hockey Thoughts

Every Sunday until the start of the 2018-19 regular season, we'll share 20 Fantasy Thoughts from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week's "Daily Ramblings".

Writers: Michael Clifford, Ian Gooding, Cam Robinson, and Dobber

1. Simply put, Marc-Andre Fleury has been a joy to watch during these playoffs. Looking ahead to next season, is Fleury a top-5 goalie in fantasy hockey drafts? For goalies that played at least half of their team’s games (41 games), Fleury posted the best goals-against average (2.24) and the second-best save percentage (.927). The fact that he was sidelined for two months pushed his overall season’s fantasy value slightly below the Vezina Trophy finalists because of a win total that ended up outside of the top 10. So, assuming the Golden Knights don’t make any moves to disrupt the core of their team, I think I’d include Fleury in my top 5 goalies for next season’s drafts. (may19)

2. Fleury’s teammate, William Karlsson, continues his scoring ways and the fact that his breakout season has been extended well into the playoffs bodes well for his fantasy prospects next season, as mentioned in a Geek of the Week from earlier this month. (may19)

3. Tom Wilson may not be a fan favorite outside the Washington fanbase but there’s no denying one thing: he had a monster fantasy hockey season in multi-category leagues. Putting up 250 hits, 51 blocked shots, and 187 penalty minutes, while being able to chip in 14 goals and 35 points is a very, very good year. Even in standard ESPN leagues where hits aren’t counted, he had so many PIMs that he was still a top-50 forward.

That brings me around to 2018-19. What do we do here? If he can replicate this season, there are no issues with drafting him as a top-100 player. The big concern is his usage. He was a nice surprise on the top forward line at five-on-five and that slotting got him nearly 16 minutes of ice time per game. Does he get that slotting again?

Jakub Vrana has played so well these playoffs he’s forced a reluctant coach Barry Trotz to eventually move him into the top-6. Andre Burakovsky is still a very talented forward who’s been battling injuries this year. If he can right the ship in 2018-19, do those two forwards push Wilson down the lineup? Maybe not. Maybe Trotz decides that it’s best to lengthen the lineup and use one of Vrana/Burakovsky on the third line with Lars Eller/Brett Connolly (or whomever) to give them three more balanced scoring lines. Wilson is also an RFA and is undoubtedly going to get a raise on his $2-million that he made last year. Will that factor in?

Wilson’s upside is capped. He’s just not that good offensively without significant help and he won’t get anywhere near the top power play unit barring injuries or severe underperformance by that unit. He can be a Patrick Maroon-type where 15-ish goals and 40 points is a good year. With the peripheral stat stuffing, that’s more than enough. As long as he stays in the top-6, it’s more than doable. (may18)

4. The Eeli Tolvanen situation reminds me of Alexander Radulov back when he was a year or two older than Tolvanen. The Preds were deep at the time, too, and then-coach Barry Trotz was notorious for bringing in prospects slowly.

Radulov earned the job before camp in 2006 (as Tolvanen has), and he earned the job during camp (as Tolvanen will). But Radulov was sent to the AHL anyway. And he embarrassed the league with a ridiculous 18 points in 11 games, forcing Nashville to call him up before he laid down any further beatings. With 11:38 of average ice time – ice time that he had to force, mind you – he scored 18 goals and 37 points in 64 games.

And that’s precisely what you’ll see from Tolvanen. There’s no room for him, he’ll be held down, but he’ll force the matter. I think he even starts the year in Milwaukee and that will last all of three or four weeks. And then his ice time will be held down because they won’t have room for him. But he’ll work his way up the lineup and have spurts of production when injuries happen. Off the cuff, I would guess 35 points in 65 games, very similar to Radulov. And then his ascension up the scoring race starts from there over the ensuing three or four years. (may14)

5. The Rangers haven’t officially announced anything, but David Quinn is expected to become the team’s new Coach. The Blueshirts have over a dozen players with NCAA experience, so the Boston University coach appears to be a good fit.

Kevin Shattenkirk has played for Quinn at Boston University. After struggling with injuries in his first season as a Ranger (23 points in 46 games), Shattenkirk could be in for a rebound now that he has a coach he is familiar with. In addition, Quinn is known for developing defensemen, according to the New York Times. So, that’s something else that works in Shattenkirk’s favor.

Expectations probably shouldn’t be sky high for Shattenkirk, who missed nearly the entire second half of the season after knee surgery in January. Remember that this is a Rangers team that has decided to rebuild and traded away Michael Grabner, Rick Nash, J.T. Miller, Nick Holden, and Ryan McDonagh while Shattenkirk was sidelined. (may20)

6. Word from TSN’s Bob McKenzie that Carolina would consider trading anyone except for Sebastian Aho: Two names in particular that will be of interest to fantasy owners are Justin Faulk and Jeff Skinner. Even though both players’ point totals slipped from 2016-17 to 2017-18, the Hurricanes should scoop a decent return should they decide to deal one or both.

One question I was asked during the past season was whether it was time to drop Faulk. I’m assuming this individual played in a shallower league than the one I owned Faulk in, which is a 12-team league that has six defense slots. So, 72 defense slots total in this league. In this particular league format (G, A, +/-, PPP, SOG, HIT, BLK), Faulk was the 55th-ranked blueliner, which still made him employable in my league.

In a standard-size Yahoo league with 12 teams and four defense slots, however, a solid argument could have been made about moving on from Faulk. If you play in a pure points league, Faulk’s value (31 points) was about in line with what his ranking was in the above league. Normally a peripherals beast, Faulk’s multicategory value was driven down by a minus-26 ranking (bottom 10 among blueliners). What saved Faulk from being a total bust was the fact that 19 of his points came on the power play (top 20 among blueliners).

Would a change of scenery help Faulk? It could no doubt raise that plus-minus anchor, unless he lands on a team worse than Carolina. But the offsetting danger is that he would lose some of those power-play minutes that are so crucial to his scoring. Faulk averaged nearly three minutes of power-play time last season, which was over a minute higher than the next-highest Canes’ defenseman (Noah Hanifin). No other Carolina blueliner averaged more than 40 seconds per game with the man advantage. (may19)

7. What about Skinner, you ask? His fantasy value kind of mirrored Faulk’s, except you’d swap shots on goal for power-play points. Despite finishing just outside of the top 100 in points, Skinner finished 11th with 277 shots on goal. That’s the good. The bad, like Faulk, is the plus-minus. Skinner’s minus-27 was bottom-10 among forwards.

Skinner might benefit from better linemates on another team, but the fact of the matter is that fewer pucks went in (37 in 2016-17 to 24 in 2017-18) because his shooting percentage declined from 13.2 percent in 2016-17 to 8.7 percent in 2017-18. With better luck, Skinner might be in line for 30 goals again. Even though it may seem like he’s been in the league for a while, Skinner is only 26, which should make that a reasonable target. He has just one year remaining on his contract, so a team acquiring him would have to be fairly confident that they could sign him. (may19)

8. Elsewhere, McKenzie also believes that Buffalo’s Ryan O’Reilly will be traded sooner rather than later. McKenzie suggests Montreal and Carolina as two options that would make sense for O’Reilly. The way those two teams are constructed, I think O’Reilly would help those teams in real life more than those teams would help the player��s fantasy value.

O’Reilly is basically a known commodity at this point – a second-line center on most teams. So, my take before anything happens is that his fantasy value probably wouldn’t change much with a trade, unless he won the lottery in landing on a line with two high-scoring wingers. (may20)

9. I drafted O’Reilly on multiple teams in 2017-18 because I liked the value he provided as a late-round option (at around the 170th pick for me). What’s not to like about consistent 55-60 point seasons and 20-plus minutes of ice time per game? And if the Sabres improve, then so could his fantasy value, right?

Well, the Sabres didn’t improve. In fact, they earned that first overall lottery pick with a true last-place team. O’Reilly was honest in how discouraged he was about the season. If he spent any time looking at his overall stats, then his career-worst minus-23 would have served as a source of pain. Plus-minus is a stat in both leagues I drafted him in, so eventually I dropped O’Reilly in my shallower league.

But it wasn’t all bad for the Sabres’ center. O’Reilly fired a career-high 230 shots, which placed him in the top 50 among all skaters. He also scored 15 power-play goals, which tied him for third in the entire league. That’s 15 of his 24 goals scored with the man advantage. On a Sabres’ team that was mostly worth avoiding fantasy-wise, that’s not bad. (may20)

10. I can remember discussing last summer the effect that a Steven Stamkos return from his near season-long injury might have on Nikita Kucherov’s point totals, particularly his power-play point totals. Now that the season is over, we can find out what really happened. Stamkos led the Bolts with 15 power-play goals (tied for third in the NHL), while Kucherov dropped from 17 power-play goals in 2016-17 to ‘just’ eight in 2017-18.

But that’s where the decline ended. Of course, Kucherov’s overall point total continued to rise (85 points in 2016-17 to 100 in 2017-18), which more than offset Stamkos cannibalizing the PPG. And if your league just counts PPP and doesn’t separate into PPG and PPA, Kucherov’s overall power-play points increased from 32 in 2016-17 to 36 in 2017-18.

With the Bolts’ power-play percentage improving a single percentage point (22.8 percent to 23.9), there was more than enough power-play wealth to go around for both snipers. If you’ve witnessed their PP, you’ll know that there’s no reason to believe it will slow down next season, barring an injury to one or both. (may19)

11. Brent Burns continues to be far-and-away the best volume shot option from the blue line. Dougie Hamilton was often among the top, and still is, but he’s got company now in guys like Seth Jones and Darnell Nurse. There are other young stars like Zach Werenski and Ivan Provorov who could be knocking on the door soon. Don’t forget a healthy Erik Karlsson. (may18)

12. There was a good read by Joe Smith over at The Athletic a couple days ago on Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy. They basically talked to current goalies like Henrik Lundqvist and Ben Bishop, as well as former goalies like Brian Boucher and Kevin Weekes on what made Vasilevskiy so good this year. Most of the praise came down to two things: athleticism and footwork.

This is a mea culpa. Last summer, I wrote a couple times that I wasn’t sold on him but reading the opinions of others and watching him more this year has changed my mind a bit. Goaltending is a fickle thing, so he could very well be a .910 goalie next year instead of .920. But when I read what is being said about him, it’s hard not to think he won’t have a very successful career. It’s easy to forget he doesn’t even turn 24 years old for two months. (may18)

13. Reportedly, the Arizona Coyotes and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are in discussions for a contract extension. Not that it’s a surprise they’re discussing it, but the fact that terms are reported would at least indicate to me that they’re getting close. OEL turns 27 this summer and has one year left on his current contract.

There had been some rumblings over the last year that Arizona may look to move Ekman-Larsson but outside of a lopsided, blockbuster package, this avenue always made the most sense. He’s a No.1 defenseman currently in his mid-20s. As long as he doesn’t turn into Brent Seabrook, they should be fine. Those with OEL shares in cap leagues, start budgeting to add at least $2.5-million after the 2018-19 season. Whether he’s worth it for you depends on roster construction. (may17)

14. Assuming Arizona signs Jakob Chychrun next year as his ELC runs out, that gives the Coyotes a top-4 of Ekman-Larsson, Jason Demers, Alex Goligoski, and Chychrun through the 2020-2021 season, along with Antti Raanta in nets. With Clayton Keller looking like a gamebreaker, and a bevy of prospects to come, the future is indeed bright in the desert. Don’t discount them short-term, though. If their depth can fill out a bit this season, they’ll make noise in the West. (may17)

15. Lars Eller has 13 points in the postseason and sits fourth on the Caps in playoff scoring. This on the heels of a career-high 38 points. He turned 29 a few days ago. I grabbed Eller in January or February for a late draft pick just as a rental and I’d drop him in September. Again, I’m wrestling with the dilemma of him possibly getting more offensive situations next season because of what he’s doing in the playoffs. If he can get 50 points and help me in the playoffs, then I’d like to hang onto that. Someone talk me off the ledge here; am I being victim of something I preach never to be a victim of: hype from a one-off hot streak? (may14)

16. Ryan Rishaug of TSN said that it appears the Oilers may be looking for a major shake-up. What they end up doing, well, we have another month or so to wait and see. They need depth, they need scoring, they need defensemen. One trade isn’t going to do it. On the other hand, leave it to Peter Chiarelli to trade Oscar Klefbom following a season where he played injured the entire year and had his performance suffer because of it. I want Chiarelli as a GM in my fantasy leagues. (may17)

17. Stuart Skinner signed an entry-level contract with the Oilers this past week. The 2017 third-round selection (78th) has been lights out for Swift Current this season. He’s led the Broncos to a spot in the Memorial Cup after totaling six shutouts and a .932 save percentage in 26 post-season games. He even managed to outplay three-time WHL Goaltender of the Year, Carter Hart, in the WHL finals.

The 6-4 netminder is trending very nicely as a potential starter for the Oilers down the line. Due to his 1998 birthdate, he’ll be eligible to head to the AHL next fall. (may16)

18. The Avalanche are a team on the rise. There’s no denying it. Colorado boasts a stable of U24s such as Nate MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, J.T. Compher, Samuel Girard, Tyson Jost and Alex Kerfoot. The latter of that group stepped in as a rookie performer out of the NCAA and exceeded expectations. His 19 goals were fourth most on the squad and his 43 points sat fifth. The 23-year-old was as a rover on the Avs in 2017-18, seeing action across all lines and in all situations.

However, there are some red flags that fly above the Vancouver native. Kerfoot managed only above one shot-per-game (1.025). That puts his conversion rate at an unsustainable 23.5 percent – the highest such mark of any player with at least 25 games last season. He wasn’t bolstered by an unusually high conversion rate with the man-advantage, either. During the course of his power play time-on-ice (195:25), he scored five goals on 22 shots (22.7 percent).

Another cause for concern was his deployment and production as the season wore on. The final two quarters saw his ice time reduced and his counting stats dropping right along with it. With Jost expected to take a leap forward next season, expect to see Kerfoot continue to see a reduction in opportunity and value. If he’s a player you’ve got on your roster, now might be the time to sell him to another GM. (may16)

19. Nashville’s Ryan Hartman is expected to undergo shoulder surgery and will be out 4-5 months. At best, he’ll be back in the middle of training camp and at worst he’ll miss the start of next season. I’m a big believer in his skill set being valuable in fantasy leagues if given a proper role but this injury is a concern. I really don’t like relying on players coming off significant offseason surgeries. It’ll be a wait-and-see approach as next year draws closer as far as fantasy relevance goes. (may15)

20. Once-promising prospect Ville Pokka has signed to play next year in the KHL. He was the key part of the Nick Leddy deal in Chicago’s trade with the Islanders. They ended up trading him for a depth guy in Chris DiDomenico. Pokka was a second-round pick, 34th overall in 2012. His second season in Rockford, he had 45 points in 76 games – and he went seriously downhill from there, coming nowhere close to that over the ensuing two seasons. (may14)

Have a good week, folks!!

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts-24/

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