« Vladimir Putin, Mr. Cuddly | Home | Patton Oswalt is everywhere »
July 9, 2007
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning
Tonight at 10 is the premiere of ESPN's original miniseries The Bronx is Burning, based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Mahler. It runs for 8 weeks, and will air on Tuesdays at 10 after this week.
It's going to be awesome. The book, whose subtitle is "1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City" is an incredibly thorough portrait of the nadir of New York City's troubled history. 1977 represented the culmination of poverty, poor governance, racial tensions, and general urban dysfunction; there were the Son of Sam murders, a nasty mayoral election, the blackout, and ongoing, slow recovery from the 1975 fiscal crisis. Outside the city, New York was seen as a national embarrassment: as the book says of the looting and mayhem that went on during the blackout, "America had expected the worst, and New York had not let it down."
But the real narrative of the book, and the focus of the miniseries, is the rise of the Yankees and Reggie Jackson, culminating in his famous 3 consecutive home runs in the 1977 World Series against the Dodgers. Not surprising that ESPN chose to devote the most time to the sports story, and as Mahler says in an interview in this week's Time Out, "Reggie's three home runs is as much a symbol of New York's resilience as its rebirth," though he says identifying it as the point at which the city's fortunes started to change would be an oversimplification.
But this is ESPN: the reviews suggest that the TV show has no problem with oversimplification. It emphasizes the Yankees story and maybe doesn't deal as much with all the other stuff going on in the city (Daily News review says they've "taken on several major, meaty stories at once, reducing them to their essences and intertwining them.") But it looks like we'll at least get to see Jimmy Breslin covering the Son of Sam murders. He's played by Michael Rispoli, who played Jackie Aprile on The Sopranos, and was also in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, which covers the same historical territory as this miniseries. No mention of hat-loving agitator and mayoral candidate Bella Abzug in the cast list, though, which is too bad, since she is at least as larger-than-life a character as Billy Martin.
Which brings us to the fantastic Yankees cast: John Turturro as Billy Martin, the Yankees' legendarily hot-tempered manager (Daily News reported he maybe got a little too Method during the shoot,) Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner, and Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson. Sunjata is also on Rescue Me, where he plays firefighter Franco Rivera. On Rescue Me, his character typically has a lot of lady troubles, and he plays his dramatic scenes with intensity as well as restraint, which is especially impressive considering how outrageously tragic the storylines of the show often are.
Now's his chance to lose the restraint and cut loose as the preening, egomaniacal Jackson, who always seemed at least as concerned about his image off the field as he was about his baseball games. I hope they recreate the interview he did for Sport magazine where he dropped the "I'm the straw that stirs the drink" bomb. In the Bronx is Burning book, Mahler writes that Jackson later said that interview was "the worst screwing he ever got from the press."
Anyway, Sunjata looks like he's heading into casting territory currently occupied by John Turturro and Tony Shalhoub, where he can convincingly play any number of ethnicities. Also interesting is that in 2002 John Turturro played Howard Cosell, whose quote inspired the title, in TNT's Monday Night Mayhem.
The Daily News has a good special section on the summer of 1977, and the Post has a great article on the chaos of the blackout, part of a five-day series of articles leading up to the 30th anniversary this Friday.
categories:
Books, NYC, Sports, TV
posted by amy at 1:49 PM | #
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://amysrobot.amyinnewyork.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/677
Comments
Agreed. Maybe I'm nuts, but that moustache-soulpatch-glasses combination might actually make him look even better than usual.
Posted by: amy at July 9, 2007 5:19 PM
Daniel Sunjata is the worst human being I met in my life. He uses women
for sex and money to support his drug addict life. Daniel also has no life so he comes on pretending hes his own
fan to protet his secret life. He did this to my sister and 100s of women.
Lots of nice girls come on his sites looking
for the truth so this is it.Daniel is Daniel's # 1 fan. LOL.
Daniel has a fake girlfriend named Ro. He don't love her by cheating everywhere with other girls.
If he tells you he single and nice
man All lies. She
is the hiffer you see in the pics of events. She is a doormat and fugly and barely speak english.He won't marry her he knows
she's dumb and not classy or smart to be wife material. She is for the public
image but he is dating other girls and white chicks.
He tells nice young girls hes single so he can date them and use them
for sex. He is a sex addict and he quit the meetings because they don't help him.
He don't love Ro he got an "arrangement" for his public image. She got
a man in Venezuela who is her real man. Daniel tells so many lies he don't know the truth. He is nasty bad man.
When the girls come looking for Dan and find Ro he tells her they are fake people. He won't even speak to the girls when he gets what he wants. He takes advantage of honest people.
Right. They weren't fake when you were trying to sleep with them or date them were
we?
Posted by: Ameilia at July 18, 2007 2:59 PM
My goodness. Well, I'm relieved that even though Ro is an ugly hiffer, doesn't speak English, and is a doormat who gets lied to all the time, she can still get a real man in Venezuela. Girl power!
Posted by: amy at July 18, 2007 3:40 PM
I have been a fan of Daniel Sunjata for quite some time now; dating back to his days on Broadway. We worked together once, although I doubt he remembers me lol, and though things have not gone well for me in acting as they have for him I have always watched his career as a fan waiting for his inevitable rise to stardom, which I think we are now witnessing the beginning stages of. I post and read on various sites dedicated to him and sometimes do random searches on Google or whatever to see what the blogg buzz is on him.
Sometime during the last year and a half or so I began seeing posts like the one from "Daniel Lies" accusing Daniel of everything from sleeping around, to being a drug addict, to passing STDs to women, to being gay, to stealing, and even being a pedophile, and the list goes on and on. In tracking this phenomenon of hate speech against Daniel, it became apparent that someone (two or three people at most but more likely one) was posting this stuff on various sites under too many alias' to count, pretending to be the voices of the many supposed women Daniel is alleged to have hurt.
HOW did it become so apparent? Well its difficult to expalin but in reading all this filth it just "sounded" like the same one, two, or three people; same exact way of writing, same grammatical errors, same terrible acting when it came to trying to sound like ten different people. Hard to explain if you have not seen it yourself, but it was obvious...thats all I can say. Scroll up to read some key examples, as this person has been doing the same thing here.
What was also obvious was that this person(s) had/have some kind of vendetta against Daniel Sunjata. It was personal and you could just tell that the individual(s) in question have an unhealthy and disproportionate interest in the man; think crazy stalker type. Some sick individual is spending hours and hours trolling the web and trying to discredit and slander Daniel in the most malicious of ways.
Now, I and some others of his fans have taken an interest in this to the point of doing some investigating of our own and we found something interesting that seems to support our theory. Namely that various moderators who manage the sites where most of these defamatory posts appear have given us THE EXACT SAME IP ADDRESS (in one case two different IPs but usually the same exact one)!!! On at least five different web sites and under as many as ten to fifteen different names/alias' the offending posts came from IP address:
4.225.138.169
which traces to LAWRENCEBURG, INDIANA. For instance, please read the following cut and paste from one blogg where this individual was exposed for the liar that they are by a true fan posting under the name "Santini"...
Santini said...
"Exhibit A) Staci [the moderator of this blogg] said Anonymous traces to 2 seperate IP addresses IN INDIANA right?
Exhibit B) The following post:
Anonymous said...
"Doesn't surprise me. The producer lives in the apartment building where my hubby and I live. He complains Daniel is known on set for being late and a cheater, liar He cheats on his plain older must be near 50 girlfriend with naieve girls he lies to. Not a nice guy."
Now riddle me this, Batman...
If Anonymous is in indiana, then how in the world do they live in the same building as the producer of a show THAT SHOOTS IN NEW YORK???!!!
C-a-s-e C-l-o-s-e-d
Anonymous you are obviously a coward AND a liar. Now pick up ya face and go play in traffic before someone informs the real Sunjata of your slander and libel and you end up in court. I think we can also safely assume that this other post from Anonymous is also a lie:
"Party on!!!!My best girl worked as a PA on Rescue Me(Season 2 & 3). She said everyone's fun work and party hard, especially Denis. But she did say that Daniel Sunjata is a dog and a player. He was trying to bang every girl on set and cheat on his girl. Nasty."
Unless the hill billies in indiana commonly have friends that work on hit television shows that shoot in NY, LMAO. wow, talk about pathetic."
Using this as an example from which to work we found the same IP used in every single slanderous post about Daniel on various sites including but not limited to the following:
-www.bossip.com
-http://yogo.wordpress.com/2007/06/19/do-not-pass-me-by-again/
-http://worldofstaci.blogspot.com/2005/12/denis-leary-crew-party-it-up.html
-http://tenacious1978.blogspot.com/2005/08/few-random-tidbits.html
Also considering the fact that the substance of the accusations and lies is of an illegal nature (like sleeping with young boys...yuck) one would think that instead of posting rumors and hearsay on random bloggs, that the "victims" would bring charges against such a supposed predator, but of course that has never happened and in all likelihood never will happen because IT IS ALL A LIE.
Daniel IS a fantastic artist, there is no doubt about his talent. He has been nominated for a Tony Award for his work on Broadway and I am sure that Emmys and Oscars are soon to follow. He advocates just causes and promotes foreward thinking political ideas. On his fan sites when he does post it is never about himself but about current events and social issues; in fact he goes out of his way to take the attention we try to shower him with and redirect it towards things that are substantive, humanistic, and relevent to the life of the average human being.
This is public record and can easily be proved with a few clicks of the mouse if you have the interest to do so. Given these facts and given the total lack of credibility (proven by the points I made earlier) of the person posting as various people on the sites I mentioned above, there is no doubt that Daniel is exactly who Daniel says he is and has proven himself to be; an actor whose goal is to inspire and uplift those who appreciate his work, and to provoke thought and stir discussion about things that matter instead of doing what most people in his position choose to do, which is to gratify their own egos and be caught up in the nonsense that so saddly predominates in this culture of celebrity worship.
I don't normally buy into gossip and speculation about famous people, as it is usually some vague facsimilie of half truths and lies and 99% of the time is driven by bad intentions. This is definitely the case here. Believe what you want folks, but the fact remains that Daniel Sunjata is the real deal, and no amount of mud slinging will change that. As a true Daniel Sunjata fan I felt the need to share this with all of you in the hopes that it will help to keep the more gullible of his fans from buying the bogus that IP 4.225.138.169 in
LAWRENCEBURG, INDIANA is spamming all over the web.
Thats what I came here to do and I've done it, so with that I'll return to Daniel's fan community at yahoogroups.com, where, by the way, (contrary to the claim made above by "Daniel Lies") there are NO women OR childeren posting nonsense about Daniel being any of the things that this sicko claims he is. God Bless you all.
Tank11
Posted by: Tank11 at July 21, 2007 11:15 AM
Sorry girls Daniel does lie this "fan" is just doing damage control is probably a publicist or Daniel himself. He took me out to dinner when he was shooting The Devil Wears Prada and he turned out to be a jerk and sorry to break it to fans but the asshole way he handled our short relationship would not surprise me about the rest. I wish I knew he had a old hiffer moo girlfriend I would have called her and told her what he was up to like girl to girl.
Posted by: S Girl at July 26, 2007 1:44 AM
My goodness, I feel bad for all those girls Daniel uses. There was a professional football player in my hometown Tampa who played for the Bucs and he was caught in a similiar scandal. The truth usually comes out for these types of people because they are reckless and don't think about the consequences. This Ro person must be an idiot to stay. She sounds like a gold digger or just a doormat. Come on girls, where's the girl power!
Posted by: other amy at July 26, 2007 7:34 PM
So many claims, so little proof (none actually). The world may never know =^( Well even if he did trick some sisters out of their panties, at the end of the day we still here talkin about him. Why do we care so much about the private lives of people we watch on TV and in movies and stuff? He's a good actor. I don't know about the rest.
Posted by: Shaunique at July 31, 2007 6:37 PM
Not sure what 2 make of all this. Pretty shocking and surreal at the same time. Can't post my email here for everyone to use. My girlfriend has read your post. She is not sad or hurt at all, just shocked, if all this is true, that someone can be so deceitful and sick in the head to go to such extremes. She hasn't decided if she is going to call it off yet because she knows he is a celebrity and stuff gets posted about them all the time. I'm the one who's doing more of the investigating. Will try you tomorrow. I know my girl doesn't like drama and would prefer to steer clear of it. She'll make the right choice. Is he still seeing your friends? How did he dump them? Was it after the sex? I'd like a lil info please. Thank you!
Posted by: Curious at August 1, 2007 8:23 PM
Hey Tank 11,
I think you are really Daniel Sunjata himself. Don't ask me how I know, I just do. And before you get all panicky..I mean you no harm.
I sincerely hope you get a peaceful and just resolution to these accusations if true. It seems people are bent on repeatedly publishing these private matter. In keeping with how passionate you seem to be about justice and righting wrongs....if your are indeed sincere and "real about your shit", you no doubt will do/have done the right thing and started appologizing and repairing your relationships with these women. If true, it explains why a wave of anger would come at you when you have a show airing. If you are an advocate for humanity then I'm sure you know that hurting people through deceit is just as punishable and dishonest as the goings on on Capitol Hill. If not, screaming for justice on 911 and sporting 911 Truth gear.... just makes for a very stange and interesting dichotomy. Then again some people get passionate about ethics and religion when they themselves are living in sin. It's called guilty conscience. That's my two cents.
Sidebar: Talk about 6 degrees of separation...Larenz Tate on Rescue Me---I met you before and actually waited on him in a restaurant before about 12 years ago. I vividly remember him saying he does not use profanity (his mum reared him that way) and he's a teetotaler. Very pleasant young man and if I vaguely recollect also from your neck of the woods
Posted by: BobMarley1 at August 3, 2007 2:16 AM
This makes my skin crawel. I am not a child I am a grown up and men like this belong on America's Most Wanted or that dateline predator show now on a tv show where people can be fooled into thinking he's someone to look up to.
Posted by: Mad at August 6, 2007 9:34 PM
I have known women like Rosalba. foreign women are like that. They come here uneducated and think its ok their man is allowed to be sexing with whorever. Some got serious girlfriends other kids with other women. They don't realize they their man don't really love them. If a man loves his girl he wouldn't lay down with lots of women and go lay down with her. It's wrong in the bible and it just wrong. If she find out she won't give a shit. She won't leave because she's desperate. I'm surprised Daniel must be so insecure to pick someone like this.
Posted by: Shanna at August 12, 2007 1:13 AM
Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't know what to make of Daniel Sunjata. After reading these posts these last weeks I am starting to lose a lot of respect for him and his work. I'm not trying to stir up more stuff, but the IP's point to only three posters according to my records.
CLIFTON, NJ.
LAWRENCEBURG, IA.
HARLEM, NY.
Is Daniel posting on this blog who knows. But there's a lot of questions that need answers. He or she has had too many "stalkers" or people who were "obsessed" with him or her in their past dating relationships. But to have too many people "obsessed with them" or "stalking" them is a sign that he or she played them and the victim just wanted to find out what was going on. Chances are, he or she, dropped the "stalker" like a hot potato, after he or she got done playing the game with them.
Posted by: at August 17, 2007 7:08 AM
Wow!!!!! this sh** is hilarious. The same argument is on other websites. Word for word. Even that tank person is on them too with his defense (daniel himself or publicist) Lmao! Someone is surely BITTER!
Posted by: This is great! at August 19, 2007 1:37 AM
I am truly shocked, how can someone who is well educated and comes from a good and loving family be or could have become so f.....up. People don't just come up with shit out of nowhere. Stuff like this are not just limited to celebrities or anyone in the public eye, even regular everyday people can have things come back to them if they have done something hurtful or truly horrible, the only difference is, celebrity stories get heard on a much larger scale which obviously comes with the territory of being in the spotlight. I would not be surprised if Daniel has read and is also posting on this blog and if so, why not respond in person and set all his accusers straight if in deed he is the real deal. I am deeply saddened that such a beautiful human being could be so ugly inside...
Posted by: Adelaide at August 30, 2007 11:45 PM
All I have to say is don't judge the poor woman befor you know her side. Whatever Mr. Sunjata is up to will eventually come back to haunt him and I think he and others like him, are already suffering a great deal internally. We say that we would leave someone who is cheating or mistreating us, but the majority of folks NEVER just walk out on someone they love. NEVER!!! So, don't be so quick to judge the woman. And just so you know, a little inside scoop, she's FANTASTIC, SMART. BEAUTIFUL and DELIGHTFUL. In the end it would be HIS LOSS!!
Posted by: Monday Night at October 8, 2007 10:48 PM
Are you all serious?! First off...NONE of you can credibly say that you know this man, or what makes him tick, or what bones may or may not be in his closet, so enough already with "i heard this..." and the "I.P. adress that." How stupid, really. Secondly, it is clear that some bitter and angry person is patheticly trying to run a smear-campaign on random blogs like this one (yeah, i'm sure they are reaching millions with the anti-Daniel message LOL). And lastly, PEOPLE....GET A LIFE. Speculation is such a waste of time.
Posted by: PAREVE at November 14, 2007 12:14 PM
Make peace, not war!
Posted by: oceassino at January 11, 2008 8:53 AM
The person who is making these claims about Daniel clearly has too much time on their hands and is very immature. Instead of posting lame, rambling, barely cohesive, and grammatically incorrect messages all over the web that time would be better spent studying proper English grammer.
Posted by: sunshine at April 29, 2008 5:30 PM
Sunjata should have the baseball star role down by now - this is the second time he's been a Yankee. He was nominated for a Tony in 2003 for playing a gay Jeter-type superstar on a Yankees-type team in "Take Me Out." He is also extremely hot.
Posted by: Emily at July 9, 2007 4:08 PM