Monday, October 29, 2007


Happy Birthday, N!

One of my closest friends from college, N, is from St. Louis. When I flew out to St. Louis to go to Game 4 of the 2004 World Series, I met her for a few beers outside of the old Busch Stadium. On that night--October 27th--N and I were toasting her birthday. She said that the best present she could receive would be to see her beloved Cardinals win, and force a Game 5. Unfortunately (for her), the Sox spanked the Cardinals, and won their first Fall Classic since 1918.

I began to think that maybe N had a talismanic quality that helped the Red Sox score some World Series iron. It seemed that if the Sox could play for the World Championship on her birthday, they would win.

Unfortunately, it took four years for the Sox to get back to the World Series.

Then, leading the Colorado Rockies 3 games to nil, going into Game 4, I looked at the calendar. All concern for the outcome disappeared as I noticed that the Red Sox were playing on the day after N's birthday.

The Sox won, the Rox lost. I can finally get some sleep.

And, as we citizens of Red Sox Nation celebrated our victory, I raised a glass to N.

Ed. Note: Last year, the St. Louis Cardinals played for the World Championship on N's birthday, and they won. Therefore, I think that it is clear that if the Sox are playing anyone on October 27th or 28th (for the championship), they will win. If the Cards are playing anyone but the Red Sox, they will win. Hell, she is 3-0. Oh, and I took the picture above. It is copyrighted, and may not be reproduced for any purpose.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The Deer Fared Better Than The Rockies...

Josh Beckett may look retarded with his goofy facial hair, but that cat can throw. As the Sox roll into the bottom of the sixth, leading 13-1, I wanted to find at least one picture that summed up the beat-down the Sox laid on the Rox.

I eschewed a wide range of photos before I found this bad boy.

And it reminded me of one of the great lines from My Cousin Vinny, when Ms. Mona Lisa Vito talks about deer hunting. And, I thought of the Rockies.

"You are a batter, coming to the plate. Then, blam!, Josh Beckett blows your fuckin' head off with a 96 mile per hour fastball. Do you care what sort of goofy-ass facial hair he has?"

Go Sox! Beat the Rox!

Ed. Note: One deer and something like nine Rockies batsmen were mowed down to write this post.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

I GOT DRUNK AT FENWAY AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY ESSAY

By: The Lifeguard

The Boston Red Sox, my favourite baseball team, won the American League Championship Series in seven games, taking three straight from the Indians of Cleveland, and reached the Fall Classic for the second time in four years. And, it was awesome.

In spite of the fact that I was shut off after seven beer-soaked innings, I had still managed to remorsefully imbibe a shit-load of Guinness Stout, eat six Fenway Franks, and a pretzel. I was standing for "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "Sweet Caroline"; and, I avoided a fist-fight with an unruly Tribe fan.

So, as I staggered out of the friendly confines of Fenway Park, completely and totally shit-house, I thought it best to just go on home. Instead, with my judgment clouded by drink, I ventured out onto the surrounding streets and started screaming and howling, celebrating the victory, nay, the ass-whooping handed out by the new Gashouse Gang.

Unfortunately, the Boston Police Department had other ideas for the celebrants; and, fearing contact with errant OC balls, I did the next logical thing. I threw up. The big spit. All over Officer Tierney, who promptly arrested me and threw me--hands bound with wire ties--into the back of the waiting Black Maria.

I was spirited, along with twenty-some other drunken, rock-throwing, vomiting fools to the station, where I was booked, then tucked away to sober-up and await arraignment, all while clenching my ass-cheeks to avoid any unwelcome exploration by any of the Vasco DeGamas sharing the cell with me.

And then, it was off to beautiful Roxbury District Court for a date with Judge Redd, who, as a sentence, gave me this essay...and told me to tell my parents about the arrest.

Fortunately (in a sense), my parents are both dead, so I am off the hook on that one. As for the essay, here it is.

What did I learn? A lot.

It is bad to drink two pints of Guinness every inning, for seven innings. It is worse to add the dogs and pretzel to the mix. I will never do that again.

Oh, and it is bad to join a riot. It would have been better for me to just go home.

And throwing up on a policeman. Bad idea. Really bad.

Go Sox!


Monday, October 22, 2007


Rox versus Sox! Thanks to Daisuke Matsuzaka.

The Boston Red Sox returned to the Fall Classic, thanks to three strong innings (and two so-so innings) by the Hundred Million Dollar Man (that's a Six Million Dollar Man, thanks to inflation).

Sox manager, Terry "Tito" Francona stated that he wanted Matsuzaka to go five innings, so he could get the win.

As a baseball guy, I understand this completely. Matsuzaka had been knocked around, and had not been able to string together more than a few solid innings before collapsing. Apparently, he took this very hard following Game 3 of the ALCS, and spent hours, staring at his locker, hiding his face in shame, and checking his Citibank Japan account. Francona and Epstein were afraid that their prodigy would commit seppuku if he brought more dishonour on his gaijin benefactors.

So, Tito let the man pitch, Matsuzaka hurling his trademark gyroball and his blazing fastball to the Tribe batsmen. He went five, then his Samurai second, Hideki Okajima came on in relief, which ultimately led to Papelbon and an 11-2 Sox win.

So, Matsuzaka--confidence restored--can put away his blade...and prepare for the Mile-High atmosphere, the home of the Rox, and the free-swinging hitters of the Colorado Rockies.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

It Is Not What You Know, It Is Who You Blow

Or who you blew.

Niki Tsongas, a woman with no credentials beyond being the widow of the late (Democrat) Senator Paul Tsongas, won the special election to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Martin Meehan (D-MA). She narrowly defeated LTC James Ogonowski (USAF, Ret.), who, prior to entering the race, did have a job, a career, and a brain.

Great.

The good news is that she had to fight for the win in a district that hasn't elected a Republican to Congress since 1972. Yes, Virginia, Massachusetts was once a red state. (Now, it is a Red state.)

In a related story, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) thinks that she is best suited to be POTUS because she lived in the White House for eight years.

In the Tsongas/Clinton model, I should be Mr. Olympia (because I worked in a gym for four years), a war hero (because I worked for the Departments of the Army and Air Force), and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame (because I have spent the better part of my life on and around baseball diamonds).

Is it any wonder that only 19% of the country think that Congress is doing a good job?
Theo Epstein Is The Devil....

Theo Nathan Epstein, at one point, the youngest General Manager in Major League Baseball history, is the Devil. Satan. Lucifer. Mephistopheles.

This is the only obvious explanation.

He is hired as GM, the Red Sox win their first Fall Classic since 1918, effectively ending (or, at least sending on sabbatical) the Curse of the Bambino. To get to the 2004 Series, they must erase a 3-0 deficit in the ALCS, including beating the Yankees twice at The Stadium. They must beat the Cardinals twice in St. Louis. They must overcome eighty-six years of pain, disappointment, and memories of Bucky Fucking Dent and Billy Buckner. The Sox cobbled together eight straight wins to bring comfort and solace to The Hub.

In return, Epstein did not want--did not need--souls. He wanted...

Eric Gagne.

As an aside, I note that the Red Sox become the first Major League Baseball team to go back-to-back-to-back with dingers in the top of the sixth inning.

Youkilis, Ortiz and Ramirez all hit taters in the top of the sixth, to shave the Cleveland Indians' lead from 7-0 to 7-3. The fan that caught Youkilis' ball threw it back. The fan that caught Big Papi's ball sold it to a Red Sox fan for $20.00. I do not know the fate of Manny's home run ball.

And, should the Sox come back from four runs down to tie the series, then go on to win six more games, I will know it is true.

And next year, in return for the win, Theo will get...

Eric Gagne, with a five-year, $50m deal, and a no-trade clause.

Muahahahahah!

Sunday, October 14, 2007


Not A Fan Of Gagne...

Tribe 9, Sox 6. Eleventh inning. ALCS Game 2. It is the fault of Gagne.
Not This Lifeguard!

This blawg originally started as a commentary on lawyers and the law. Unfortunately, I am neither smart enough, nor interested enough in the law to stick to the plan. Instead, it became a commentary on life, politics, and the general stupidity of humankind.

I have commented on the Sox, the Yankees, the state of American politics, and things that struck me as funny. Until this very moment in time, when I read about a Maryland jury awarding four million one hundred fifty two ($4,000,152.00) dollars to the parents of Connor Freed, a six year old who drowned at a country club on June 22, 2006.

This was interesting to me for several reasons.

First, it places a value on a six year old. Two million seventy six ($2,000,076.00) dollars per parent. That means, with my two kids, I am sitting on four million ($4,000,000.00) dollars.

Second, it raises questions about the training of lifeguards. I note that in my early years, I both worked as a lifeguard, and trained lifeguards. I worked them over, forcing them to perform extreme feats of strength and swimming ability, like recovering a fifty pound weight from the bottom of a pool, of rescuing fighting victims, and swimming a hundred (100m) metres with a heavy rubber brick. I failed people for failing to make three consecutive rescues, and I would routinely climb on the heads of my students as they were treading water. I did this because a drowning man (or woman) is insane with the will to survive.

And, when asked why I did this, I said that I thought that "...lawyers were scum and I didn't want to get sued for their failures." (I said this in 1984.)

I failed a young woman who was otherwise perfect in her skills because she could not get me to the side when I started fighting her attempts to rescue me. I tortured my students, providing realistic scenarios to test their mettle.

This should be the norm for lifeguards. Obviously, it is not.

As an aside, when asked how many rescues I made, I answered, "Two."

Not because I didn't work at busy pools and waterfronts; but, because I was a superlative lifeguard. I also note that the two rescues that I made were men who outweighed me by a cool hundred pounds.

The first, a man who could not swim, went off of the three (3m) metre board to impress a girl. I saved him, then asked him why he was going off of the board. He said, with a straight face, that he "...was trying to impress a girl." (Note to everyone: girls are never impressed by drowning.) The second, a man who could swim a little, was caught in a rip current, and was trying to swim against it. I got him, controlled him, and took him down the beach to a point where he could stand up and walk to dry land. He had panicked, and I calmed him, saved him.

Finally, I note that lawyers are always quick to cast blame on the guard, and not the family friend, who should have been watching the child.

People assume that, because there is a lifeguard, their responsibility for their child (or the children in their care) is absolved. This is not the case.

If a child is swimming in a pool, an adult should be watching. The fact that young Connor's adult friend was not is the real crime. And, yet, he was not hit by the jury because he was a) representing himself, and b) because he did not have the deep pockets of DRD Pool Service, Inc.

I am not saying that there was no negligence on the part of DRD. I am saying that when children are swimming, adults (other than lifeguards) have some responsibility, too. In fact, they have the greater responsibility.

So, when contemplating this result, let us consider the following:

1) Lawyers are scum;

2) Parents are always responsible for their children; and,

3) Not every lifeguard is as good as The Lifeguard.


ALGORE WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE!
JOINS YASSER ARAFAT, JIMMY CARTER, AND KOFI ANNAN ON THE LIST OF IRRELEVANT IDIOTS THAT HAVE MADE THIS PRIZE A MEANINGLESS JOKE.


Really, a committee that gives the peace prize to a terrorist (Arafat in 1994 for his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East by killing every last Jew), a traitor (former POTUS Jimmy Carter in 2002 for his support of murderous dictators such as Zimbabwe's Robert "I Will Kill You If You Mispronounce My Last Name" Mugabe and Cuba's Fidel "JFK Is Dead, I Am Not" Castro, and Venezuela's Hugo "Fuck You, America" Chavez), and a criminal (Kofi "Oil For Food, Money For Me" Annan) can not be all that bright.

And now, they give credit to AlGore's scare-mongering about world-wide climate change.

Frankly, as a victim of sixteen Boston winters, I am hoping for global climate change, for the better. Boston would truly be the Hub of the Universe if we had a reliable annual average temperature of 80 degrees. We would be San Diego with Sox, Pops, and history galore. This would be paradise.

The only upside to this, as far as I can tell, is that with AlGore winning the prize, he effectively lays the smack-down on President (William) Clinton, who wants the prize--and the cash--as much, if not more, than did petulant, micro-managing traitor, Jimmy Carter.

If we are honest about the world in which we live, we would realise that warming is not a bad thing. We would, instead, focus on managing forests (by clear-cutting dead-wood to help prevent forest fires), on developing self-sustaining carbon sinks, on wiping out malaria (a little DDT goes a long way), and providing safe and clean water for the hundreds of millions of people who don't have it.

We would work to ensure that we worked for the common good of man, rather than the good of a man.

And, we would ask why Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev alone won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his work in ending the Cold War, when he couldn't have done it without the help of two other men--former POTUS Ronald Wilson Reagan and His Eminence Pope John Paul II.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Equality? Hah!

Josh Drimmer, 26, went for a stroll, in the nude, in Times Square. People were amazed and when he was caught, he was taken to Bellevue Hospital for evaluation. And, I really like the fact that a cop asked the buck-naked Drimmer if he had any ID on him. (Nice touch, officer. However, I'd advise you to wear some gloves if he comes up with anything.)

I thought of this story as I stood in the local doughnut shop this morning, behind a woman in her pajama bottoms and a plain white T-shirt.

All of the men in the shop were dressed, she was in her jammies. Men would be arrested for less. Women get away with it. (And I am glad. I don't want to see men, in public, in jammies.)

So, let's recap: Naked man* in Times Square goes to Bellevue. Man in jammies in Dunkin' Donuts has scorn and ridicule heaped upon him. Woman in jammies becomes the subject of this blawg.

Nice. Very nice.

*The naked man went to Yale. As in "Yale University." As in Ivy League college. As in, "I can not believe that my parents spent so fucking much money to send me to university with idiots who walk naked in Times Square." And, for the record, if another famous Yale alumna--Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) went for a naked stroll in Times Square, I'd check into Bellevue.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

EMPIRE STATE BUILDING TO GO GREEN FOR MUSLIM HOLIDAY.

That is because the twin towers of the World Trade Center were not available.

The Empire State Building will be lit with green lights to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid (Holy shit! I just realised that Eid is an anagram of "DIE."), which marks the end of Ramadan.

Frankly, I believe in religious freedom; but, I have a hard time celebrating a holiday important to the religion that is trying to kill us, destroy Western Civilisation, and create an Islamic Caliphate complete with Sharia Law. I have an even harder time accepting this given that the adherents of the Religion of Peace flew two planes into two buildings just down the street. Are they lighting it green to make it easier to see?

Ahmed: "We just received the word. Once Ramadan ends, we are to blow up the building that will be lit in green."

Mohammed: "The infidel would never be so stupid. Hey! There it is!"

This is even harder to take on the day that the Islamic world's biggest cheerleader, former President Jimmy Carter, called President Bush a liar, said that America tortures terror suspects, and has a disastrous foreign policy.

Thanks to the One-Term Wonder, we have live in a world with less peace, more hate, and Muslims that want to kill us (and are willing to die trying, if only for the seventy-two Virginians).
And, by the by, if President Bush were as bad as Mr. Carter thinks he is, then the President would prosecute Mr. Carter for sedition for his embarrassing comments.

Oh, and he'd get the property managers for the Empire State Building, too.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Indigenous Peoples Redux

Every reference to the Carib Indians, the "Indigenous People" displaced by Christopher Columbus, describes them as "fierce." They were known to have captured so many Arawak females in their raids, the women spoke a different language than the men. They were successful in their expansion because of their aggressiveness and their mastery of the art of making war. Oh, and they may have practiced cannibalism.

As for the indigenous people of what is now Mexico, they practiced human sacrifice. This was pretty intriguing to the Europeans, who found the Aztec practice of killing young virgins to appease the gods a waste of good virgins.

The bottom line for the retarded souls who loathe Christopher Columbus for being a slave-trader and practitioner of genocide should remember that the culture they now live in allows them to snivel and whine about the mistreatment of the savages inhabiting the Americas. It is highly unlikely that the Aztecs or Caribs would have let these weak links hang around long enough to complain.

So, for the second day in a row, thank you Chris.

Monday, October 08, 2007


Happy Columbus Day!

Thank you for sailing the Ocean Blue in 1492, you lovable Guinea bastard.

Christopher Columbus--arguably the first illegal immigrant to the New World--arrived in the Americas on October 12, 1492, and do-gooders and morons have been complaining ever since.

A group of unemployed malcontents disrupted the Denver Columbus Day Parade, as they have done every year for the last twenty years. As an American, I am happy that all voices--even the slow-witted--are heard. As an American of Italian descent, I am downright offended that the historic accomplishments of Columbus are trampled and derided.

Christopher Columbus bravely set out in search of a naval route to India, ignoring the taunts and scorn heaped on him by his contemporaries. He kept his crew in line, even when they were ready to pitch in the towel, and he made it to the Americas. He brought attention to the New World, and prompted the European powers to spread their influence and civilisation in what would eventually become the United States, the greatest nation of all time.

And while Columbus wasn't perfect, his accomplishments demand acknowledgment and celebration.

That is why we celebrate Columbus Day, not Indigenous Peoples Day.

And for any fuckwitted asshat who wants Congress to make a change--like Berkeley, California did--don't paint signs and disrupt the law-abiding celebrants of this important national holiday. Get a job.

If you think a great man's character flaws prevent the ultimate celebration of his accomplishments, then let's shit-can Martin Luther King Day (adulterer), President's Day (slave-owners, communists, adulterers, morons), Veterans Day (killers), St. Patrick's Day (snake-haters), Christmas (remember that "wall of separation of church and state"), and Thanksgiving (turkey makes me sleepy).

Fuck it, let's just work every day.

Until then, thanks again, Chris.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007


"Do You Know Who I Am?"

83-year-old former president, Nobel Laureate, and the asshat who kept me out of First Class, was visiting Darfur, when he confronted Sudanese security personnel, shouting, "You don't have the power to stop me." He was trying to get into a town, to talk to refugees fleeing the government-sponsored bloodshed.

Said Omar, the security officer, "I have a gun. I have the power to stop you, old man."

In reality, the 26,000 UN and African Union troops who will be arriving in the region to try to settle tensions in Darfur will do fuck-all. Fuck-all because they do not have the gumption to kill every last one of the fucktard janjaweed militia, and government troops. Jack shit because many of the African Union troops are also Muslim, and they will not kill their coreligionists. Cock because--in the main--African Union troops are not particularly effective.

I find it amusing that the same people who want us out of Iraq now want us to stop the genocide in Darfur. However, I would wager that within five minutes of the first bomb falling on that African shithole, these same do-gooders would be screaming about torture, civilian casualties, and how we need to get out of Darfur because it is a civil war.

Frankly, I do not believe that we should judge these people, these Islamic fanatics. Only God can do that. Our job is to arrange the meeting, at the earliest possible occasion.

Or, we could just send President Carter there, with a one-way ticket (on Virgin Atlantic, no doubt), and let him try to sort out the morass.