38 Ditches

What a sad day. Curt Schilling announced his retirement from baseball. Notice he didn’t mention anything about retiring from shooting his mouth off. Most recently he boldly denounced Roger Clemens as a past, present and no doubt, future ” cheater.” Really went out on a limb with that one huh. He and that fathead burgomeister looking Papelbon need to keep holding those Bundestag bashes. Herr Oktober & Herr Oktoberfest–two clowns who would not have appeared out of place singing the Horstwessel Song in 1936.

Curt wants to enter the pure and virtuous world of politics. If he doesn’t like cheaters, he better rethink that move. Not to mention any dirty laundry he might have around, specifically hemotropic hosiery. He also has a blog. Hey! I have a blog. But all my socks are blood free, so far. He could do an album of songs & title it Blood on the Sox. Or Soxday Bloody Soxday. That spotlight ho Bono would probably sing back up. A Hollywood bio-pic could work for him too (not too big a stretch for his ego, or socks)— There Schill Be Blood. Only some suggestions. Nothing written in blood.

Schilling is/was an anomaly among athletes. He rarely resorted to spouting cliches or avoiding the media. In fact, he rarely waited to be asked to give his opinion, often calling a radio program & speaking his mind. Though he’s not a gifted extemporaneous speaker, he dazzles the jockocracy. Of course, they are the same clowns who think Kid Rock is major talent & Peter Gammons is a good guitar player. Not, to the former and meh, to the latter. Being fair & balanced, as a Yankee fan, I would say former NYY center fielder, Bernie Williams is a better guitar player than Kid Schlock & Gammons. That said, that ain’t saying much.

When Mr. Schilling did go to Washington, testifying in the Congressional Hearings on the dumbass Mitchell Report, he was uncharacteristically brief, if not actually curt. His pre-game had loads of bluster, I guess he choked when the game was on the line; he only wins v. the Yankees. For money and the fickle love of Beanotown. Still, who knows, Curt Schilling might help turn the fortunes of the USA around, just as he did with the Red Sox. He didn’t exactly leave there in perfect harmony, but hey, who ever does. At least his doughy pal Papelbon didn’t gloss Schill a ” cancer ” as he did another former soul, er, I mean team mate Manny Ramirez, the current poster boy for Boston persona non grata status. The Boston MLB franchise’s ESPN sponsored annual American League pennant front runner label, comes naturally to them; the fans have been front runners for a century. We’ll see. For sure we’ll hear.

So, Schilling can talk and form his own opinions. Yowzah. It’s easy to admit he was a clutch pitcher (damn facts), who twice got it up to beat the Yankees in championship level games. All this will serve him well if he enters the political arena. He might want to invest in a good pre-wash stain remover though. Politics is a much bloodier game than baseball. Those boys & girls do more than steroids to get a win. Someday he might rather he was in Philadelphia. . ..

Bias some peanuts & crackerjack

There will be quite a few major newspapers closing shop by the end of 2009. On the list is the first one I ever read—The New York Daily News. It is a tabloid and that is the size & shape of the page, not a value judgement. Though, through the years it was castigated for a bit of yellow journalism, it was essentially, along with The NY Post, the daily of the common man. Also on the list is the Boston Globe, its unfortunate location aside, another legendary newspaper.

For those of you who may not know, the place where a reporter’s name is found, is called the byline. In the last few years of the 20th Century, it became more and more a biasline as regards sports. Whether in the print media on real paper, the online version or even the audio/video format, it was the journalistic signature. It took and gave sole responsibility for that piece of work to that individual (sometimes more than one). Well, with help and/or hindrance from the editorial staff & the headline editor. Again, for some of you who wouldn’t know this, the byline reporter does not write the headline for the story. Does not.

In the advent of self-centric existence, proving more than just cream rises to the top, contemporary journalists let their colors fly. Like some gangbanger in East LA. Or a gay man cruising Greenwich Village 4 AM Sunday. It once was ethical to not do this, journalists prided themselves as impartial. “Just the facts, ma’am. . ..” hmmm well, that was Dragnet ( a 1950’s TV show ), when being biased was bad. Though the words drag and net oddly suit. Now, most do it because, no one cares. They barely seem to spell check. As I point out ad nauseum, the TV and the radio guys especially make Mrs. Malaprop sound as if she’s William Safire. Suggesting they stick to words of one syllable would only pour gas on the flame. I wonder if they ever listened to radio before they got jobs. AND who the fuck is hiring these idiots.

I’m not a cultural anthropologist, I just play one on the web o’net. The illiteracy is acceptable to management because the offenders are paid to comment on sports, not be exemplars of elocution. Sure, I get that aspect—hardly rocket science. Yet, it is sad to hear words repeatedly misused and with such casual certitude. Any way I came to attack bias, and went off on my own. It just pains me to hear otherwise, almost intelligent people from bloggers to Hall of Fame writers, continually have to dump on the Yankees while building up the team they not so secretly support. The media people who are hovering under the 30 year old mark, only seem to go back to 1994. They also routinely refer to 2 or 3 years ago, as ” a long time.” Historical perspective is also taking a hit. I guess when one is myopic, it’s a problem seeing much clearly, let alone the ancient past of say, the 70’s.

One word the jockocracy loves and managed to use correctly is apologist. I suspect Keith Olbermann is responsible for this anomaly, he has read several non-sports books. He’s graduated from the playing fields to the smokey backroom, from Rick Reilly’s pal to Bill O’Riley’s archnemesis. This is as rare in the media as an actor getting elected President. Or governor, and still getting a movie rôle after leaving office. The world is so creepy now, I had to look up apologist, because they were getting it right. Proving the adage, even a blind pig finds it’s still a blind pig in the morning.

I am a New York Yankees apologist; I know it is difficult to root out bias in one’s self. Once I respected some of these sports media people. Until they were virtually the only radio I could listen to, in my special circumstances. In high school I was co-opted by punk ass authority figures into doing sports reporting. I’m not sure I’ll ever tell that whole story—not enough readers. I need a big audience for that one. I played baseball & then tennis, tennis after I realized I could neither hit nor throw a high school curveball. My antipathy towards sports is aimed at the suits & jocksniffers and not at the unis. Admittedly, I have very little in common with the players—I even love the game more than most of them too. I know why: they are in it for their paycheck—and rightly so. Guys like me are in it to get a small win in life & sometimes a big one, i.e. a World Series.

When I am Supreme Ruler of Existence, no announcer will wear a suit & tie, ever—that one is pure bullshit. Naturally, that mostly happens on network TV. The real guys in the trenches doing 150 plus games know better. A TV clown doing maybe 18 games, dresses up like the man tells him. Try talking for 4 hours wearing a tie—it’s not a coalmine for 18 hours, but it makes no sense. On the other hand, if you are an ahole who is ripping the Yankees—let me adjust that knot for you, maybe show you something in a Colombian? I abhor violence and never advocate it as a solution. But if every Yankee hater died right now, believe me I’d still have plenty to rail against.

Radio guys are always going to use the word continuously when they really mean continually. Or say comparable as compare-able. They just don’t care. I heard a guy, who seemed to be otherwise articulate and knowledgeable, say stigmatism ( no such word ). He meant stigma. Would I fire a guy for that? no. I would however, expect him to learn the right word. My sad consolation is, if you get simple words wrong when you are bashing the Yankees, you likely have some other holes in your game. Why does it grind me? because 97% of the audience doesn’t know this. Or much.

So, root root root for your home team and not against mine. If you do at least pronounce the words correctly and know what they mean. Practitioners of schadenfreude can all lech mich am arsch. If you know what I mean.

_____________________________

PS while reading some movie news, I happened across some vidcaps of that Tyler Perry in drag. In no way does he resemble a human female. He really needs to buy a good mirror.

Something in a 48 and long

I am so worn out with people pontificating, who have never read a book, much less studied history. Even in their own ( and only ) area, of so called expertise. Yet, they look at everything through a toy microscope, while seemingly observing nothing beyond the obvious at the macro level, around them. They do have a name—they are the sports talk hosts, sports writers & the majority of sports fans. There is an old saying: If you can’t be a sport, at least wear a sport’s coat. Sport’s coat collection keeps getting pilfered by the aforementioned. AND they are ill-fitting.

ESPN is purportedly a sports and entertainment network. Most of their program content panders to the NFL and the Boston Red Sox. They have all the instincts of piranha with blood in the water. The current Alex Rodriguez story of steroid abuse, is right in their wheelhouse. They are tracking down A Rod cousins with the pit-bull tenacity of a yenta trying to get a match for an unmarried Hasidic woman pushing 30.

Only a lead with a heavy anti-Yankee angle could drag ESPN kicking & screaming from sucking up to the NFL. The National Football League—where 104 players guilty of steroid use would be the results for just two of their teams. Admittedly, it would be believable if an NFL player had no idea what substance he was shooting up. Baseball players are not all that bright, but compared to football & the other sports ( tennis the one exception ), they are virtual MENSA members.

Oh yes, ESPN is having a field day with A Rod’s downfall. Every move is analyzed, every facial expression critiqued. I can’t help but wonder how they’d have handled this, had Rodriguez become a Boston Red Sox player. Something which almost happened, but for the greed of the Major League Players Association.

Here’s how I imagine ESPN handling the same story—only A Rod is on the A Sox, er I mean Red Sox. . ..

Sports Center — A MLB player, whose anonymity is legally protected, has allegedly tested positive for a substance. This is ESPN Sports Center. Now back to Mike, Mike, Mike, plus Mike with special guest—Other Mike.

Mike: Wow. That’s some story. Hey Mike! You know Sports Illustrated has that swim suit issue coming out.

Mike: Yeah, my wife won’t let me see it. I made a doctor appointment, hoping he’ll have a copy in the waiting room.

Mike: Ha ha ha well, I bet what happened is the player was struggling and maybe had a protein shake right before the test any way.

Mike: Absolutely. And the SI reporter—isn’t she the one who got that Duke Lacrosse rape story all wrong? I’m trying to wrap my head around that.

Mike: That’s her all right. Hmmmm and also I’m guessing she’s not in the swimsuit issue too.

Mike: Ha ha ha ha ha. OK going forward. The NFL Draft is coming up in a few months. I hear this season they’re drafting Junior High kids. Smart move!

Mike: For sure Mike. I bet they have training programs especially set up for them. Lots of juice and running!

Mike: You bet. Lots of healthy juices.

Mike: I guess we should mention baseball spring training Mike.

Mike: Yep. Red Sox look awesome of late. Especially A Rod. What an ath-ah-lete!

Mike: You got that right Mike. Madonna sure looks awesome for 50. She’s un-compare-able. Probably in the Top 100 or at least 1000 for her age.

Mike: Mmmm SHE could be in the swim suit issue!

Mike: Great Mike. But I really can’t wait to see some of those 12 year old boys run the 440 at the Combine.

Mike: I’m not the Mike who said that!

Mike: Me neither!

Mike: Not me I’m married.

Mike: How ’bout that swimsuit issue!

______________________________________________________________________

I wish they’d all just go to Texas. AND take all those bad sportscoats with them.

Hackety Hack Do Talk Back. . ..

These are the Top Ten phrases I personally loathe, most often employed by intellectually challenged writers & talk show hosts. Anyone heard using any of these should be thought less of immediately, strapped to a rocket & sent into deep space. Below each, is my witty comeback. Dorothy Parker just IM-ed from Heaven to say — she ain’t worried.

1. Excuse me?

OK you’re excused. In fact, you’re expelled. Forever.

2. Moving forward

Be my guest, and please do keep moving.

3. Wrap my mind/head around

Hold still, I’ll help, just let me get my Louisville Slugger.

4. of late

Miss Manners’ lawyer called. She’s suing you for speaking like a prig from a Henry James novel.

5. share with you

No thanks. I’m not into sharing. With you.

6. I’ll be honest with you

I’m pleased you admit it. Up until now, I had the feeling you were lying.

7. own it

Really— you looked like more of renter to me.

8. unlimited use

B U L L S H I T

9. here’s the weather for your ( fill in day of week )

I rather have that guy’s weather over there. He looks happy.

10. I got nothin’

Seriously, I got nothin’.  I ran out with number 9.

A is for A non. . ..

Alex Rodriguez aka A Rod aka A-Fraud aka A Roid * tested positive for anabolic steroids in 2003, according to a story in Sports Illustrated. He was a then member of the MLB franchise Texas Rangers ( now a New York Yankee ). Yankee haters have all ready jumped on the NY organization, as if they needed another excuse. This because Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi & Andy Pettitte, past & present NYY, are also tainted by purported juice use. Barry Bonds, who may actually walk on his charges, missed being a Yankee because he didn’t like the way they treated his father Bobby, who by all accounts swung to his own beat.

All these issues go much deeper than athletes doing drugs to enhance their performance. When the US passed the Volstead Act in 1919 and the Prohibition Era ruled American life, it was with the best of intentions. The negative effects of alcoholic beverage consumption on the family and society was the virtuous ( ? ) impetus. And it failed early and often, creating lots of crime, drunkenness & the Kennedys of Boston, Mass. After 13+ years & a lot of flapper pregnancies, it was repealed and Americans went back to getting a good old legal buzz. I don’t drink alcoholic beverages because I don’t like the taste of alcohol though I have been known to make a few women under the influence, sober magically, once they get a load of my act.

Anabolic steroids are illegal without a doctor’s prescription. This is due to long term effects, one of which is premature death. Even after steroids were against the law, sports entities lagged behind in the rule making department. So, part of many players defense is—it wasn’t against the rules. Then. For the record, the list of players who failed the drug test, was supposed to be sealed information. It’s not the first time the steroid issue provoked an illegal leak; an act much more sinister than a jock abusing a PED. Meanwhile, for many reasons ( mo$tly obviou$ )the National Football League rolls on, laughing up its sleeve while organized baseball weathers the firestorm.

OK enough history. It’s covered better, with more detail and annotation, elsewhere, ad nauseum. I just wanted to show I knew something about the subject, other than, it’s nothing new. Humans always want an edge. Literally, for example, as in the Stone Age case of Ogg v. Grrrn. Ogg objected to the fact Grrrn had honed the edge of his stone knife. Mr. Ogg was fighting fairly, using a blunt stone. The case was never adjudicated, as Mr. Grrrn stabbed everyone in the cave and ran. All survivors agreed Grrrn made his point—he didn’t need an edge. He was just competitive & possibly the first known sociopath.

Alex Rodriguez catches heat for everything. Choking in the clutch, dating strippers, being a numbers hanger & being seen with Madonna. All the former are moot, the Madonna thing might just prove he needs glasses and could explain the need for performance enhancement. . .. Regardless, he’s an easy target, a Golden Idol, who is turning out to be a gilded lily and getting more tarnished with each passing pigeon carrying bad news.

The Jockocracy hopped on a bandwagon ( they love to—for most of them, it’s their only form of exercise ) a few years ago. This one was called Athletes Are Rôle Models. Then some rebels ( ha ha ha ) got on the Athletes Are NOT Rôle Models float. Well, they are and they aren’t, so they got that part right. Uh, some did–never mind. Any way most of them had been hoping Mr. Rodriguez would erase Barry Bonds’ current but tainted homerun total, because in the sports world, A Rod passed for a good guy. Oops.

What I mean is, sports figures are certainly looked up to by young athletes. Guitar godz are looked to by kids with their first six-string. Rappers, by other no talents dreaming of bling & bad fashion statements. But are they models for morality & integrity? Nope. In fact, hardly anyone is. Certainly there are always exceptions. Mainly because they haven’t had their privacy invaded by a voracious media. Or been caught with their pants off in Thailand. Yet.

The true disconcerting thing is the so called Court of Public Opinion. Essentially this means guilty until proved innocent (it used to be the other way around in the US) and likely even after you’re proclaimed innocent, because idiots who go by the CoPO, are too ignorant to form a new opinion. You know what they say about opinions—every one who has one is one (that’s a W quote btw).

I wish athletes never cheated. Or spouses. Or me, and I really didn’t cheat, I just happened to see a copy of a Math test once in 7th grade. Didn’t help my career—QED. I can’t condone it and I do think our culture is going downhill faster than Spanky & Alfalfa in that barrel episode of Little Rascals. That said, it might be the time to reveal Santa isn’t real. The Easter Bunny is not a hot chick who visits good boys on Easter. Though the Tooth Fairy is a fairy ( and that makes his dad sad ).

Still, somebody needs to answer why Bud Selig, Commissioner Of Baseball, makes almost 20 million per annum. Federal fatheads won’t, he’s one of them. For now. As for A Rod? I think Madonna is punishment enough.

©2009 Jukeofurl Prod

There’s November like November – part ll

” We love our god and our guns. . ..” this a direct quote from a political ad, approved by John McCain, running on a local radio station here in the New River Valley of Virginia. A political statement meant to exhort Virginians to vote against Barack Obama, because he apparently doesn’t love their god or their guns. Love means cleaning, oiling & fondling your grandaddy’s 30 aught 6.

They love guns here all right. They love to sell them too. That’s how a mental patient, who slipped through a loophole in the VA TECH student psych screening process, bought two guns here in Virginia. Then took them to school for Show & Kill. Who is their god? Glock? or the twin deities, Smith & Wesson?

Not too far from here, about 10 miles as the Jim Crow flies, there still stands the site of slave cabins. No doubt my own house is built above the unmarked graves of somebody who caught a free cruise to the land of the free. This area rarely has a sunny start to a day.* Often, it’s more a mist, I call it gray-light. Maybe it’s the angry gun god, all smoke and bitter ash for dirty deeds. Or possibly the arsenal also, just down the road apiece. . ..

I have said previously, the President of the United States is a spokes model. He/she(?) walks point for the daily patrol-an important job, yes. But the chief exec leads the team out front. There are those no longer so deep in the shadows, who run things. Those guys have no gods. This, because they think they are them. What they do best is send out people to do things for them, destabilize a Third World country or prop up a druglord in a slag heap ending with -stan. Then they trot the Pres out to meet the press for an atta boy and a tutorial in spin doctoring.

Doing that needs lots of guns and money. No doubt Mr. Obama would prefer to use what’s left of the American economy to keep us strong at home. Roofs over our heads and a chicken in every pot and/or microwave. But that kind of thing upsets the ‘ foreign policy ‘ of the power brokers who work behind the curtains of the Oval Office.

Hollywood has remade a classic flick, The Day the Earth Stood Still. The premise of which is, extraterrestrial is sent to Earth to terminate it. Mainly due to our warlike ways. Naturally this is greeted with loads of firepower, which makes the alien think it’s actually on Mars, named after the god of war. Right after the shameful name of the NFL franchise in our nation’s capitol is changed, I’m petitioning the new administration to switch from Earth to Mars. Or at least the Dirty 3rth. Hey, yo I’m street, dogg!

When a political party’s endgame endorsement has god & guns as the slam dunk argument for its candidate, you know it’s in trouble. If McCain really heard that ad and approved it, it’s troublesome. If a lackey rubber stamped it for him, it’s even more so. I knew we were backwards here, but this is straight out of the Johnny Reb Handbook. The South will rise again? well not before my dinner does.

So, while I continue to live in Bubbadoon,* where it’s always 1808 with football & cell phones—their god approves of some new fangled things! I get out my pork rinds & moonshine, ready to watch the election returns. Who will win—Hatfield or McCoy? er, um I mean Obama or McCain. Actually, I thought Obama was an Irish name- what? you never heard of the Black Irish!

* not to mention 24ºF on October 31—sunny south my @#%&*! ass

Kid Hack

A couple of weeks ago I heard two different radio sports talk hosts intone their rapt admiration of the same guy. Before the venom spewing starts, I have not one thing against the use of a nom de plume. This country was built on the pen name, Ben Franklin alone had at least 3 going at any given moment.

I think Country music as a genre, is the aboriginal minstrelsy of the US of A. There is a time honored tradition of desperate former rock artists stumbling into Tennessee for one more go at the charts. Kenny Rogers did it. More than once. Succeeded too! God bless Nashville ya’ll.

I hated Hootie & the Blowfish. Darius Rucker’s voice is awesomely awful. But if he wants to go Country, hey, it’s a free country. Same with Jon Bon Jovi—he had the good sense to record with Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland. Hit! Subsequent singles on his own stiffed.

But I’m not here to rip those dudes. The guy those jock sniffers were ass kissing, as if they knew anything about music other than stuff played at ballparks by child molesters & dead gay guys, was Kid Rock.

My first objection to that clown is, how self absorbed and limited in creativity do you have to be to gloss yourself Kid Rock? I bet it took him awhile too. His real name is Robert Ritchie, I guess he didn’t want anyone to think he used to be in the Commodores? He does seem to have an endless supply of no creativity. Yet, he must sell records. There are a lot of sub 80 IQ people with enough cash who think he’s bigger than the Beatles, more than say people like me. They are likely people with CSA flags on their trailers. You don’t want to mess with them.

But Kid Rock sucks. He can’t sing, play guitar or write beyond what any inebriated inbred could do. Must have something though, after all, he married Pamela Anderson twice. She’s very selective, based on penis size. Tat sleeves are a bonus. He does look like kind of a big prick to me.

Mr. Ritchie is pretentious for such a low rent intellect too, Rock & Roll Jesus! wtf. He’s as reptilian as Snoop Dogg ( another mega-Zero talent ), without the charm. Thank the gods, one of those mutants isn’t female.The thought of them propagating conjures visions of an Armageddon that would scare Stephen King. Bet they’ve tried it too.

Hey! dude is allowed to have a career. But it shouldn’t include being paid to record. Kid Rock is to Country songwriting as the Middle East is to world peace. Which is, not at all. Sheryl Crow got him that huge Country hit a few years ago—and his voice lacks any color, it was repetitive and could’ve used a rewrite. If I’d pitched it to any decent publishing house in Nashville, they’d have passed. On his own, his writing resembles bumper stickers slapped on the side of a barn. A barn with vinyl siding. There are 20,000 Country songwriters a gillion times better than he is, if you rolled them out of bed at 3 AM to tell them they had to write a song in 15 minutes. Without a guitar. And btw, their dog just died. You’d have to know me to know how much I dislike guys like Kid Rock, for me to have added that last thing. He must have @#%&*! donkey photos.

And jock sniffer radio aholes are to musical taste as well, nothing. Stick to predicting football scores. At least you’ll be right occasionally. Now go crank up Freebird, and dream of dating that college quarterback you have a man crush on. . ..

An Early Xmas Present [part 1]

What a week for the self righteous. And for the type who think showing up late to a party, makes you sophisticated. Not to mention me, a person with more than one dimension, all of which are worn out by the same old shit. Michael Vick gets sentenced. Then MLB does a mea culpa for use of performance enhancing drugs ( PED ) and famous pretentious windbag Oprah Winfrey, throwing her considerable weight ( it yoyos ) behind Barack Obama.

First, Vick. Jock thug gets busted for an illegal ‘ sport.’ Apparently making millions of dollars doing his questionably legal sport, football didn’t meet his needs. Sadly, he has supporters, who say things such as—it’s only dogs-or-dogfights are part of the culture he was raised in-or-he’s a moron, what do you expect! OK, I said the last one. To date, my suggestion to take all his earnings & use them to help animals, seems to be ignored. The Atlanta Falcons, his former team, is more concerned with recovering the monies they’ve paid him. This isn’t just because they’re justifiably disappointed, but so they can remove this huge amount from their payroll and open up room in the salary cap, the proscribed $ limit they can spend for player salaries per season.

Another aspect of the Vick conviction, is what happens after he successfully serves his time, 23 months. Theoretically, since many spend jail time in the gym, Vick will still be young and fit enough to make a football comeback. I can say what I want about his lack of intellect, the guy has mad athletic skills. My opinion is: if he can play again in the NFL, I say let him. Take half of his pay and use it to help animals. Yes, I am dogged with my suggestions, like hmmm a pitbull! Oh yeah, and create a restraining order involving him & dogs. . ..

Bud Selig, former used car salesman and owner of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team & current commissioner of baseball, finally noticed some players had fatheads. This wasn’t just from a disproportionate sense of self worth. Nope, it was from anabolic steroid abusage, which rhymes with dope. Selig hired former Senator George Mitchell, once on the board of directors for the Boston Red Sox, to head an investigation into the use of PED in professional baseball. Gee, maybe they should start by ridding their sport of conflicts of interest first. Our sitting President, G.W. Bush, was once the owner of a MLB team. He & Congress would like nothing better than to really get in on this ( they did previously in 2005 ). Can you say: Major League Distraction?

The report came out yesterday December 13 and several names of alleged users are provocative. This fuels the jock talk in the media. For me, it’s excellent. It bumps time from the sick radio & TV network obsession with football. It won’t last, but it’s something.The lords of baseball are like dads who finally figure out the reason their kid is burning incense isn’t because the kid has embraced Buddhism. Now daddy is pissed—no kid of mine is gonna be a hophead— kind of thing. Sigh. Yes, some of these drugs are now illegal. Yes, they could cause future health risks to the user: at least one athlete has died from steroid use, Lyle Alzado, a football player. That this fact is a throw away AND that it occurred well over 10 years ago, shows the continued cupidity, if not culpability of sports suits and their ancillaries, sports writers, reporters, fans etc. Did I mention football?

It remains to be seen what these buttoned down boardroom blowhards will do to rid the baseball world of dopers. A world they encourage & enable by demanding performance, which due to expansion has diluted & spread thin the premiere performers & allowed many to linger on at older ages and/or make major league rosters, who once would’ve been career minor leaguers. Some of the use was to speed up the healing from injury, to simply return to performing, as opposed to unfairly enhancing it. But illegal is illegal. Now. Hey, daddy needs to bring home the bacon. But this and the Vick situation raises the dilemma of authority favoring curative versus preventative solutions. See how well the war on the rest of the drugs has gone! Not. I bet the sales numbers on Kentucky whiskey & cigars goes way up. Though not Cuban cigars. Those are still illegal. Unless you have a source.

Root cause(s) need to be addressed. Oh, I don’t advocate letting off a rapist, child molester, mass murderer because they had early childhood trauma. It’s not easy or effective yet, accurately predicting who will grow up to be a Manson or a Mother Theresa. Or even if we could, what to do about it. I sure hope that’s where the real effort must be. Better prisons or smarter lawyers ain’t gonna do it. So, good luck.

Now as for Oprah’s endorsement of Mr. Obama. I bet she wrestled long and hard. Hillary or Barack? Over and over. I’d say maybe two commercial breaks worth. Obvious which way she’d go. Hey! he’s from her home state of Illinois. I so wanted to use a black & white( meaning obvious ) decision. My third choice was slam dunk, but everybody knows white women can’t jump.

I would like to take this opportunity to endorse Mr. Obama too. This does not bode well for him, based on my political track record. As much as I’d like to see a woman in the Ovule, errrr Oval Office*, Mrs. Clinton has way too much baggage on so many levels, including the problem of what to call the first Presidential male partner**, who just also happens to be a former President! The First Man? too anthropological. First Husband? technically accurate on 2 counts. First ex-Pres and guy in US history in this situation? shorten it to Expotus, sounds Greek, a foreshadowing of the theatrics sure to follow. I like that one best. BTW there is no prize for observing how many capital O’s were necessary to create these two paragraphs.

Wasn’t that fun. I need a long Winter’s nap.

* serving as President and not servicing one

** in a legalized heterosexual union they call marriage

Thanks, but no thanks

It’s good to change things up. So, in honor of Thanksgiving, the second major US holiday in a 10 day period this year! I will do just that. Time to pick on another medium. Magazines.

There are so many awful mags to choose from and though they are often difficult to differentiate, I have one in my sights. Before I do, I’d just like to report, albeit maybe 7 years after the fact, on magazine covers. You can walk into almost any library in America now and see displayed on its shelves, lots o’ skin. The kind of pics, when I was a kid, your dad had hidden in the garage underneath Popular Mechanics. To be fair, and probably due to all that hard work of Gloria Steinem & her feminists in the 70’s, now it’s both female and male skin.

One of the pioneer men’s mags still extant, is ESQUIRE. They had scantily clad ( a dated, yet apt phrase, if I ever saw one ) women & illustrations by a guy named Vargas. Appreciating his work was a rite of passage for boys in that era. This was pre-Playboy. Can you imagine! if not the Dark Ages, it certainly was not so nakedly out in the light. Make that the spotlight. It’s that selfsame ESQUIRE I am about to rip a new one.

Now, in the 21st century, ESQUIRE is a compendium for all that is wrong with humans. They are a publication aimed at upscale men, or wannabes, in the 21-49 demographic. Features are always about how to dress, dine, drink, drive, drives ( sex ) and yes, even die. ESQUIRE never met a word beginning with the letter D it couldn’t publish 2000 words on it’s slick, pretentious pages.

ESQUIRE magazine at it’s inception was for men who are heterosexual. It ostensibly still is, unlike contemporary GENTLEMAN’s QUARTERLY ( GQ ), which is umm, metrosexual. . .. While being told black wingtips is the go to shoe for the serious grown up man on a monthly basis, is Hitler-like enough to make me bristle, the ads are truly something special. Somebody please explain to me what demo guy considers this a desirable kind of scenario? Five men, one woman? This is a family kinda blog, so I won’t use the word that scene brings to mind. It’s routine for ads in ESQUIRE and GQ though. In the name of full disclosure, I’m forced to admit, if the bashes I went to as a young dude are any measure, that disturbing ratio is about right! Maybe I’m just having difficulty accepting reality. Again.

What I really want to address ( undress? dress? redress? ) are the full page ads, sometimes a 2 pager, with no women to get in the way of good old homoeroticism. They often depict a naked or scantily clad male, surrounded by a male model mix of adoring and diffident chums. Oh boy! ( pardon the expression ) now there’s a party. Why wasn’t I invited? OK, I’m not good looking enough. But still! In the minds of twisted advertising people, they calculate a woman friend will open ESQUIRE and imagine her male companion in this setting, immediately run to Barney’s in Manhattan and do a Pretty Woman level shopping spree/music video montage for him. Deep in their fashion slave hearts, all the hot chicks wanna be Richard Gere ( the pre-white hair version, natch ).

If you got this far ( cough ), you’re likely puzzled. Why does this guy even know this stuff? Research, and I just like magazines. Also, I got it at the library; I sure wouldn’t pay for it. Hey, I really wanted to write how there are probably more than a few people out there who think the Pilgrims were racists because no black people were invited to the first Thanksgiving. No fear, things changed over the next 300 years. Slavers apparently being the 1660’s analog to the bussing of the 1960’s. Now we are all here and we all have so much to be thankful for annually, on the third Thursday of November. Me? I’m thankful I don’t own , or ever will own, a pair of black or any other color wingtips. That’s just shoe-ist not racist.

So much more to say, so much antipathy for typing & filing via dialup. Yet, I am compelled to add, is there anything more heartwarming than hearing barely articulate morons call in sports talk radio on Thanksgiving and share their golden memories of boxing? I am thankful for the off switch. I bet all of them were wearing boxer shorts & black wingtips too. . ..

A Rot + the BoZton Red Zox

Sure, the headline is about Alex Rodriguez. But first things first. Congratulations to the Retard Sox! Maybe now the rest of the 2004 team can leave town. . ..

Alex & his agent Scott Borat, I mean Bora$, have notified the New York Yankees, Mr. Rodriguez wishes to explore free agency. Rodriguez hung up MVP/superstar numbers this past season. That would be the regular season, where he typically does so. Not during the playoffs, though, that’s when he typically gets hung up.

The guy has superior baseball skills. He’s a bit sensitive; I can relate so I won’t knock him for that, except to say, when he’s not thinking, he’s a great athlete. His impetus for seeking a new team is purportedly a need to play the next 10 years all in the same place. From A Rod’s POV the NYY weren’t offering him that kind of longevity; also and more likely, the kind of long green which would make him feel truly loved.

This being the age of disingenuity & duplicity, Alex Rodriguez might yet be a Yankee when the 2008 season starts. New team spokesman, Hank Steinbrenner’s comments aside, the talk money talks, will always rule. While more parochial sports pundits might claim any fan not wanting A Rod on the home team is a moron, I think that opinion is, well, parochial.

Of my 3 readers, only one is a baseball fan. So, details of why I know Rodriguez is an asset in a MLB lineup is moot. The opposite is a bit more fun to blog. The main point however is, at 30 million $ per season, A Rod money can be better spent by an aging team, which, despite some good young pitching, is what the current Yankees are. Also, the sports cliche—they lost with him, they can lose without him— springs to mind. Or more apt, falls.*

Headlines follow Alex around. Stripper PR companions. A wife in a F–k You top. Shirtless in Central Park. A forthcoming appearance in a new Jose Canseco MLB confessional. Choking ( again ) in a playoff game. You get the picture. If not, for sure, you can Google it. Then there was the 3 years worth of copy regarding the break-up with former BFF, Derek Jeter, Yankee captain & serial starlet dater. Now that was just silly. Hopefully.

If, Alex Rodriguez is done with the NYY, I’m okay. When they traded for him, I was positive. Especially since they got him after the Bostons showed they not only had feet of clay but hands of stone and mealy mouths. There is some conjecture the aforementioned de-cursed team from Mass., might consider signing Mr. Rodriguez. Wow! what a lineup of jerks whose name end with the letter z, that would be. That’s a lot of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

* for non-baseball readers, this refers to the World Series aka the Fall Classic