Dad has taken issue with the title of the blog, particularly with the use of the third word.

Is it time to make a small modification?

Clean up our act?  Nah.  We're from Dirty Jerz.  Go Jets Ho!

It’s no secret that New Yorkers generally have a love-hate relationship with their sporting team coaches.  Uttering the name of one of these gentlemen in a crowded subway car will usually garner you at least one “He should be fired”’s .  Yet we remain in awe of these chaps and hang on to their every pronouncement as though they were oracles, or even the demigods of sport, capable of moving mountains and delivering our heroes to the promised land.  I needn’t belabor this topic. After all, it can be summed up in one awesomely loved/loathed New York byword: Steinbrenner.

So I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t both horrified and also a tad bit pleased to see poor Tom Coughlin bulldozed by Giants running back TJ Ware in yesterday’s NY-NY faceoff.  

 But I would also be lying if I told you that I wouldn’t kinda rather have seen Rex Ryan laid out flat under similar circumstances.  It might at least give me the opportunity to feel bad for him.  Because as of right now, I’m pretty ticked off with the old Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I understand that part of Rex Ryan’s bluster is calculated to take the heat off his team.  He doesn’t want to saddle his players with the burden of public scorn that they cannot bear, so he places it upon his own hefty shoulders, going so far as to invite the media mockery.  But there are moments when our Tyrannosaurus Rex just goes too far.

Keep in mind that this is a blog being written by a little sister for her older brother.  I wouldn’t dream of trying to act older/wiser than YM, and I am pretty sure that YM knows better than to try and act bigger in the britches than HM.  We also all know that Mom, in all of her loving fairness and her complete and total equity, cannot help nor be blamed for harboring a secret and inextinguishable torch for HM--the eldest, the tallest, the grandest of the lot.  These are not matters to be disputed nor to be helped.  What we can do within the pecking order is to know our place and do our best within it.

Which is why I take issue with Rex when he tries to pull off this kind of reasoning:

"  There's no way I'm going to be second fiddle. If we were playing the New York Yankees, I don't want to be second fiddle to them. This is the same type of deal. I want to be the best team in football, not just the best team in this city. But we'll start by being the best team in this city….Quite honestly, I never came here to be little brother to anybody.”

The New York Yankeees….whaaaa?!?!  Comments like this leave a person to wonder just how addlepated Ryan actually is, and does he even know what sport his team is playing??!  The fact is that the opening moments of yesterday’s match revealed that the Jets were, in fact, the better team on the field.  I’m willing to go that far, having reveled in the sparkling display of Jets D that looked so spot on in the opening twenty minutes of the match. That alone could, should, have set us up for the win. 

It seems to me that it was just plain bad coaching at the helm that drove us into the ditch, and left us, the better team on yesterday’s field, to consider the bleak prospects of 5% chances.  That’s just not a number that I can take to the bank. I live in Harlem, and I know some Five Percenters who think that makes them legit.   

But I guess I’ll reserve my opinion on that for another blog.

It is difficult to describe just how dull Christmas day can be for the little Muslim children of America’s ‘burbs.  Time creeps to a sloth’s pace as one waits for friends to finish their revelry, and for shops and markets to open once more. To pass the time, I would faithfully watch the misadventures of Ralphie in A Christmas Story, besotted with the Red Ryder BB Gun, his heart’s sole desire.

No longer a resident of the suburbs, I now live in the one city of the world that lights its shops and plies its trade, come holiday, hell or high water.  But the great blizzard of 2010 trapped all New Yorkers indoors for a period of three endless days, during which time little was playing on television save this classic flick.  Three successive viewings of the film played in the background as I read feverishly for a comprehensive exam in Islamic travel literature and paced the apartment in which I was literally trapped.  By the time I got to a passage about Baghdadi ‘Abbasid travelers so heavily bundled in layers as they prepared to travel north to the frontier edges of dar al-Islam that they could no longer walk nor mount their rides, I looked up to catch a glimpse of the classic scene of Ralphie’s brother so smothered in puffy zippered warm things that he could no longer move the arms distended on either side of his snowsuits.   

I had to laugh at this weird nexus, but it was strange enough that I firmly resolved not to watch A Christmas Story again for at least a couple of years.

Christmas time is upon us again, and my new sister in law is planning to visit with my eldest brother for the weekend.  She asked me what we might do to pass the time together.  I was hard pressed for an answer, since we have no particular tradition for Christmas, and asked her if we ought to consider baking a gingerbread house.  But I didn’t reveal the real prospect that this weekend has to offer the Mahmood household: a face off between the New York Jets and the New York Giants.  You could not ask for a more tailor made event to bring each member of our very eclectic family in front of the same screen.  It might not be the warmest and fuzziest celebration, since allegiances under the same roof are not united.  But it will make for a historic Christmas weekend.  A Jets victory over the Giants would set just the right tone for a Triumphant Underdog 2012.  Merry Christmas to all, a Happy New Year, and GJH!

Philadelphia, in the words of Husain Naqvi, "a series of slums with no interconnecting city in sight."  Philadelphia, in the words of Dad, "what a dump."  Philadelphia, a city whose slim claim to a modicum of fame consists of the possession of a cracked bell that doesn't even ring. 

Philadelphia, I hope you enjoy your win tonight.  You have so little else to celebrate.

A three game winning streak is typically all it takes for Rex Ryan and Co. to start the swagger....and we all know how that turns out.  That's why it's actually encouraging to hear Bart Scott take a more dispassionate view of his team and what's needed,

"You have to be playing your best football. We’re still trying to play our best football, we’re still trying to play completely as a team. You can be playing great as a unit one week or as a unit [the] next week. But a Super Bowl team puts it together consistently. You have to be able to play three games -- if you get in the playoffs, three great games -- to get an opportunity to win the Super Bowl. You just don’t wake up and say, ‘I’m a Super Bowl team.’ You have to be able to get better, and you have to play a certain way.”

Scott, now a seasoned 30-something player, seems to have the right perspective to bring a maturing influence to his teammates, and to provide the kind of encouragement towards consistent cohesion and forward moving progress that will push our players playoff-ward.  He also seems to have the sort of high octane energy that counts.  During a recent interview on the Jets Network, Scott admitted a weakness for Mountain Dew, that fizzy acid green jolt of carbonation and unadulterated caffeine typically associated with gaming geeks and insomniac nerds stuffed in the basement computer centers of U.S. colleges across the country.

Mountain Dew: Elixir of the Jets?  I know our mantra is Go Jets Ho, but maybe this week while we watch our heroes, we can Do the Dew.

I spent a considerable number of weeks this semester discussing convivencia Spain with students.  The marvel of the Moorish heyday has left no small impression on the class, and has tempted me to put down my numerous Arabic tomes to consider the pursuit of Spanish fluency.  After all, what polished academic dares complete her course of studies without attaining proficiency in at least one Romantic language?

It should come as no surprise that all and sundry have turned me to the most recommended program for the acquisition of this Romance language: the hyper-romantic telenovela.

I have been told that if I wish to learn Spanish, I should put myself on a strict diet of these syrupy Spanish confections. Having been raised on a steady consumption of Bollywood, I should find this a particularly easy transition to make.

 The telenovela should not be confused with the American soap opera, in which the same series and the same heroine can be counted upon to reign supreme for decades on end.  There is no analogue for Susan Lucci in the telenovela realm.  Instead, the telenovela provides its audience with the pleasure of viewership for the indefinite and unknowable future.  There is no way of predicting when an escalating story arc may suddenly come to an abrupt finish.  The story unfolding before the viewer’s eyes may continue to blossom for months on end, or may come to sudden completion in a couple of dazzling, heady weeks.  The true devotee of the telenovela understands to appreciate the run, no matter how long, and to taste the sweetness of whatever successes the favored characters are able to find.

 

It is not especially difficult to imagine Mark Sanchez as the buff male lead of a particularly addictive Mexican production.  Recently spurned by his own fans during the Bills match, Sanchez has managed to woo his way back into New Yorkers’ good graces with the dramatic turnaround delivered in last week’s episode against the Redskins. 

The most engrossing serial productions leave the audience begging for more. Let's see what Mr. GQ can do!

Juliet:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Juliet was clearly not a Jets' fan.  Consider the names on our roster:  Plaxico Burress.  Antonio Cromartie.  Vladimir Ducasse.  Santonio Holmes.  LaDainian Tomlinson.  D'Brickashaw Ferguson.

It's almost as though Alexandre Dumas and William Shakespeare were jointly invited to name a cast of characters for a joint stage production of epic proportion, featuring swashbuckling heroes of true valor.


We all know that ink was never spilled for the sake of a great epic that didn't include a few great names.  We also know that no cracking adventure story ever made it into print without a strong element of peril at work.  So if there be peril in our upcoming skirmish with the Redskins, I say, bring it.  Our aristocrats know how to throw down the gauntlet and how to keep us on the edge of our seats until the very last.