Out of print for more than 30 years, now available for the first time as an eBook, this is the controversial story of John Wooden's first 25 years and first 8 NCAA Championships as UCLA Head Basketball Coach. Notre Dame Coach Digger Phelps said, "I used this book as an inspiration for the biggest win of my career when we ended UCLA's all-time 88-game winning streak in 1974."

Compiled with more than 40 hours of interviews with Coach Wooden, learn about the man behind the coach. Click the Book to read the players telling their stories in their own words. This is the book that UCLA Athletic Director J.D. Morgan tried to ban.

Click the book to read the first chapter and for ordering information.

Sex and the City (0/10)

by Tony Medley

What do “Sex and the City,” ABC’s “The View,” and Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” have in common? Give up? They are full of babbling, only occasionally coherent, women. There is one big difference among them, though. “The View” and “The O’Reilly Factor” end after an hour. “Sex and the City” drags on for two entire hours plus an additional fifteen minutes. My watch never had such a workout.

I missed the screening so had to see this at an early afternoon showing in a theater with a real audience. I was the only single heterosexual male there. The audience was 98% female. The only other males were either gay or had been dragged in by their female companions.

The same four ladies who appeared in the TV series are here, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), and Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon). Carrie has been living with Mr. Big (Chris Noth) and they decide to get married. Miranda, an attorney, is career-occupied has problems with her husband, Steve Brady (David Eigenberg), with whom she has not had sex for six months. Steve is a long-suffering wuss if there’s ever been one. Any man who would allow himself to be treated like this and come crawling to her like he does probably doesn’t need much sex with a woman.

Charlotte is Ms. Perfect. Samantha is still a sex-starved vixen, who is living with some movie star 20 years her junior in Malibu. She’s captivated by their next door neighbor who only appears in the nude having sex with breast-joggling bimbos in his all-windows abode. He even takes nude showers outside. Yeah, that’s real realistic. Also appearing in kind of a cameo is Candice Bergen who looks as if she could play tackle for the New York Giants.

Noth, who was pretty effective on TV’s “Law and Order,” gives a particularly wooden performance. He appears about as enthusiastic about appearing in this film as most men will be when they find themselves in a theater showing the film.

I wasn’t a fan of the TV show. I saw it a couple of times and thought it mildly entertaining, but not enough to watch again. This movie, written and directed by Michael Patrick King, is much less entertaining than the few segments of the TV show that I sat through. It’s full of clichés, like the gay wedding planner (apparently a holdover from the TV series). Gee, that’s real funny. Then there are scenes of the ladies in Mexico. Charlotte is afraid to drink the water. While taking a shower some water gets into her mouth apparently causing her to get the runs. These constitute the apotheosis of the humor in this film.

I was speaking with a lady from the media before the screening who came from New York. She was there to query men why they were there. I asked her if she was a fan of the TV show. She said she saw it a few times, but she lived and worked in New York and none of these women were typical New Yorkers. I had perceived the series as being based upon unrealistic characterizations of New York women, and women in general, so her opinion validated my perception.

Let’s face it, do women in New York really wear clothes like these four wear? Do they all walk around in Jimmy Choo shoes with 4-inch high heels? On New York streets? My sister lives part of the year in New York and she tells me that the uniform de rigueur is black pants with various tops and comfortable shoes, not all those gorgeous designer dresses and outfits in which these four parade . Do they really sit around and cat drivel like these four? Are New York women really this shallow? Far be it from me to accuse Parker, who produced, and her writer-director King (who also produced) as being sexist, but how else describe them when they picture professional New York women as being this superficial, self-centered, and lame-brained?

I can’t stop without mentioning the product placement that is replete throughout this film. It’s bad enough to pay top dollar to view something as bad as this, but to be hit in the fact with virtual ads for Vogue Magazine, Louis Vuitton (who died, incidentally, in 1892), and Apple Computer and others on top of the terrible film is too much.

I could go on about the many things I didn’t like, but why? Suffice it to say, this unfunny film as simply sheer fantasy, about as realistic as “The Chronicles of Narnia,” but without the special effects. Actually, instead of humorous, I found it to be dark and depressing. The entire film is about Carrie trying to get over being dumped at the altar by Mr. Big, and nice guy Steve debasing himself trying to get back together with the cold, unattractive, selfish Miranda. What’s funny about that?

May 30, 2008