(Gentle readers, I wrote this about ten days ago and I am finally prepared to put it on the blog. Sickness, Matty Ha! Ha!'s Magical Mystery Tour to NOLA, and some enhanced job responsibilities have curtailed my writing but fear no more. I have returned like Brian Piccolo. (Actually, he died.) I have returned to syndicated television like Don Cornelius. (Uh, he recently passed away.) I have returned like Newt Gingrich to take back Florida from the hands of moderates. (Psst … he lost to screw the poor Romney.)

Well … read on. And is there something going down in Indianapolis on Sunday? I am going to a Super Bowl party at Schneider's, where I plan to meet up with saucy divorcee Ann Romano and her teenage daughers Julie and Barbara.)

__________________________________

I made a pledge well over a month ago to be more relentless with my writing, and that sort of fell through the cracks, but my intentions were sincere. Since I last wrote, Sheridan’s strange and sordid life has gone through a few changes.

I am now a supervisor at work, which is sort of hilarious, considering that twice I have been forced to break into houses where I was dog sitting. Each time I misplaced the keys. Misplaced is a joke of a word. I lost the keys to both houses. I did not misplace the keys.

I believe Cornwallis’s set of keys ended up at the bottom of a doggie doo-doo bag, and the other set of keys were a result of me having a morning vision of losing my brother’s house keys.  The vision proved to be prophetic.

I recently returned from Matty Ha! Ha!’s Magical Mystery Tour, which resulted in the two of us recreating that seminal 70s television show, BJ and the Bear starring Greg Evigan and some anonymous chimpanzee whose name I cannot find on imdb.com.  Did you know that the chimp’s character was named for Roll Tide Roll’s Bear Bryant?

A gem from Wikipedia: In 1981, when the show returned from hiatus, B.J. had settled down to run Bear Enterprises, a trucking company based in Los Angeles. His nemesis was Rutherford T. Grant (Murray Hamilton), the corrupt head of the state's Special Crimes Action Team, who was a silent partner in a competing trucking company. Because of Grant's harassment, B.J. was unable to hire experienced truckers, and he was forced to hire several beautiful young female truckers, including Grant's daughter Cindy (Sherilyn Wolter), and another busty blonde nicknamed “Stacks” (Judy Landers).

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I had no recollection of the thespian, Judy Landers, but this photo unequivocally jogged masturbatory fantasies from 1981. (Hubba! Hubba!)

“Stacks” reinforces the notion that 70s’ tv writers were a diverse group of forward thinkers. Did a writers’ meeting consist of heading out to a Hollywood Boulevard strip club for some advanced character research?

The Matty Ha! Ha! Magical Mystery Tour, which also had elements of Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise’s Captain Chaos in Cannonball Run, consisted of us driving from the outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts to New Orleans, Louisiana. We thought it would be best to perform most of the drive in a twenty-four period. After driving from 5:00 pm to approximately 6:00 am, we cried “Uncle” and Matty Ha! Ha! took a long-haul trucker’s quick snooze at the wheel without the assistance of a sleep-inducing hand job from a lot lizard.

Burt & Captain Chaos

UrbanDictionary.com’s readers/intelligent commentariat provide three definitions for a lot lizard:

I had already succumbed to the effects of piloting our seventeen-foot piece of shit leaking U-Haul truck with a car trailer attached to the rear, exhausting  my Fandango alter ego, Gardner Barnes, as my split personality made the bitch ride nice from Bedminster, New Jersey to the Virginia-Tennessee border from  approximately 10:00 pm to 5:00 am.

Kevin Costner's Gardner Barnes In Search of Dom

We stopped for lunch in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, at a shade after noon, where we savored fantastically good char-grilled burgers, fries and fried green tomatoes at Rama Jama’s on the day of the national championship game between Alabama and LSU. Rama Jama’s burgers are otherworldly, but this is a shrine to Alabama football. Roll Tide Roll mementoes, photos, helmets and buxom pictures of “Stacks”-like cheerleaders adorn the walls.

After Matty Ha! Ha!’s Magical Mystery Tour ended with nearly a week’s worth of New Orleans voodoo, I flew back to Boston to witness the fourth quarter of the Giants’ epic upset of Aaron Rodgers’ Green Bay Packers, and then I took in the Camper Van Beethoven/Cracker show at the Middle East courtesy of a free ticket from Disco Danny.

Getting to sleep somewhere after 1:00 am, I then woke up at 6:30 am to make it to work for 8:00 am, where I “supervised” until 11:00 pm on MLK Day. I believe that I have discovered a multitude of reasons why I have not been able to shake this cold/flu bug that initially bedeviled me on December 28^th.

Expect some good posts in the future, and I will not be writing a self-help tome on taking care of all aspects of your physical heath. Bartender, hit me with another taste of Chartreuse.   

After putting in some time at the Arlington Public Library, I’m now sitting at a Starbucks located in Arlington Center and I’m debating taking a crap in their men’s room, but every homeless person and suspected vagrant uses this bathroom. I’ll hold off my bowel movement until I get home, but I’d like to declare to the world that I am no longer afraid to take a crap nearly anywhere. Well, maybe I’m a little intimidated by this Starbucks, but if I really felt the urge, I would storm into this bathroom with the wanton recklessness recently exhibited by Vladmir Putin’s Russian stormtroopers.

Discreetly performing surveillance at this hazardous waste site, located in Arlington, Massachusetts, there is a steady parade of men (questions abound as to their level of employment.) to the bathroom. Men walk briskly through the door and make a sprint for the bathroom. Since I have started my covert action (approximately 12 minutes), five men have attempted to use the bathroom. All of them repelled, because the first subject of my surveillance is still in the men’s room, daunting the prospects of other men to relieve themselves.

The man currently subletting the bathroom is a denizen of Arlington Center. He hangs out at the library, Starbucks, and other locales where a person can spend time without being labeled a vagrant – and I would seriously doubt that he is employed or completely sane.

We’re well beyond the twenty-minute mark, and he’s probably contemplating how long he can reside in the bathroom until a male barista unlocks the door on his commodominium.

The other men, who have attempted to intrude on the serenity of his bowel movement or masturbatory fantasies, have left with facial expressions of desperation and anguish. The #77 bus stops almost right in front of this Starbucks – men with contracted sphincters and seething colons searching for a public restroom to expunge near lethal projectile diarrhea – are forced back onto the street. The number is now at eight. Eight men have been rebuffed at the bathroom door in less than thirty minutes.

Apparently, the guy does not feel rushed to leave the confines of the men’s room. The only solution to this problem maybe something that resembles the Berlin Airlift. This guy owns the bathroom!

The Friday Fish Fry

Vladimir Putin is a force of democracy.

Boston Occupy protesters should thank the ghost of Abbie Hoffman that Boston Mayor Tom Menino has no desire to be the next Vladimir Putin or deceased Chicago Mayor for Life, Richard J. Daley.

For those unhinged and politically tone deaf progressives (I hate that word.), Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, had to maintain an age restriction on purchase of the “morning after pill.” For those progressives (liberals living in the Progressive Witness Protection Program), who want to shake their fists at President Obama, it’s a goddamn freakin’ election year. The Obama administration had no choice, or else they could have offered Mitt Romney a guided tour of his 2013 residence.

[#9 was thwarted. A MBTA bus driver looking for a place to take refuge and relieve himself. We are well over thirty minutes. ]

The franchise has left St. Louis. Albert Pujols has signed a ten-year deal, worth $250 million dollars, to take his big bat to Anaheim. These age-defying long-term contracts seldom work out for the teams. Former St. Louis skipper Tony LaRussa knew that Albert was out the door – don’t doubt that for one second – and decided that retirement was better than managing a team without Albert Pujols. Pujols will be 41 when his deal ends, and the man already moves like Mo Vaughn around the bases.

Arte Moreno’s Los Anaheim Angels also signed former Rangers starting pitcher C.J. Wilson to a five-year, $77.5 million contract. Wilson is the only pitcher in major league baseball history to lose an All-Star game, a LDS game, a LCS game and a World Series game in the same year. It doesn’t appear the Angels signed a young Jack Morris.

This is the same Arte Moreno who fired most of his baseball staff. I guess an advanced metrics guru didn’t have to give his blessing for Moreno to sign Pujols.  

Good to see Chicago Cubs legend, Ron Santo, finally received the nod to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  It would have been nice if the Veterans Committee had done the right thing when Santo was alive.

Governor Blagojevich received a fourteen-year sentence. He probably won't miss the Cubs winning a World Series title.

Is Newt Gingrich the Tim Tebow of politics?

Former Larry Lucchino cabana boy and current Cubbies President, Theo Epstein, just bought a house for $3.25 million in Lakeview, Illinois. Good to see that Theo is keepin’ it real. Who doesn’t need a house with a four-car garage?

Phife Dawg & Q-Tip

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“I left my wallet in El Segundo.” – A Tribe Called Quest

Michael Rapaport’s documentary, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, is simply a great story of friendship, jealousies and rivalries, and the tale of two friends (Q Tip and Phife Dawg) who can’t quite figure out where or how their friendship went astray. This is Rapaport’s self-proclaimed love letter to A Tribe Called Quest, but perhaps, it’s better viewed as a study of friendship. I liked this so much, that I watched it twice.

“Bonita Applebum, you gotta put me on.” – A Tribe Called Quest

Breaking News: The Mets did not sign Jose Reyes. Why didn’t the Mets trade Reyes during the regular season? I wouldn’t mind all that much if Fred Wilpon sold the Mets to Frank McCourt.

TV On The Radio’s Nine Types of Light has to be one of the best albums of 2011.

Does anyone else think that Frank Turner sounds like Billy Bragg?

JWOWW graces the cover of January’s Maxim. Grace may be the wrong word, and I’m not even sure she still resembles a human being.

2012 is the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. JWOWW's advanced flotational equipment would have been a welcome sight. 

Jersey guy, Charlie Weis, landed the head football coach’s job at Kansas. How far has this guy’s career fallen? Remember when people used to expound that Bill Belichick had never won a Super Bowl without Charlie Weis.

As a society, we’re fucked when we’re complaining about Tim Tebow’s religious beliefs but lauding the courage and grittiness of Ben Roethlisberger. Tebow could possibly be the most polarizing figure in the NFL, and this is a league that includes athletes such as Michael Vick, Ben Roethlisberger and LeGarrette Blount.

For some people, Starbucks is a perpetual doctor’s waiting room, but with better furniture and more current reading material.

Boston College second-year basketball coach, Steve Donahue, has assured fans that the team will be better in a month or two. The season ends in early March.

Harvard men’s basketball is a Top 25 program. Where will Tommy Amaker land when the coaching carousel begins in March?

Manchester United and Manchester City have been ousted from the Champions League. And David Cameron thought he had problems.

Why do some people talk on their cell phones as if they are playing Mr. Microphone?

I like to ask Starbucks’ baristas if they use locally whipped cream.

Sheridan’s Dating Rankings

1.       Jenny McCarthy (Normally I don’t go for blondes, but I could make an exception for Ms. McCarthy.)

2.       Demi Moore (The ultimate cougar. And I am a big game hunter.)

3.       Zooey Deschanel (Her Christmas album with M Ward, A Very She & Him Christmas, has been downloaded by Sheridan.)

4.       Pippa Middleton (Look for her to move up in the rankings.)

5.       Kim Kardashian (Domestic abuse is hard to ignore.)

 And I am rocking hair like Jim Carrey right now. Alright, I have a bald patch that he doesn't, but I'm keepin' it real.

Better looking women come through the doors of Starbucks than wander through the bar across the street from my work. Should I purchase a Starbucks’ canvas bag?

I believe the bathroom is vacant.

I'm sitting on the toilet (Starbucks toilet?)

With my sunglasses on

Wondering what you are up to

This hotel's got bathroom telephones

But I don't want to interrupt you

You might be painting your nails

With your hot curlers on

Each one a different color

Or listening to that Beach Boys sailing song

Sloop John B or another

- John Hiatt

Friday night, I again ventured across the street to enjoy a single beer at the bar that is nearly directly across from my office, to watch the Pac-12 Conference championship game between UCLA and Oregon. By the time I sat down a little after 10:00 pm, the Oregon Ducks had a comfortable lead, and UCLA’s coach, Rick Neuheisel, was counting the minutes until his coaching tenure ended in Brentwood. When he was interviewed at the end of his gutty Bruins team’s ass-kicking, Neuheisel seemed on the verge of tears, but there is always another job for a college football head coach.

I was roaming the internet, checking my Facebook page and e-mail account that were not overflowing with correspondence, and then this guy sits down next to me at the bar. I looked at the guy. Didn’t think much of it. Oh, I know this guy!

Actually, I don’t know him (in a personal or Biblical manner), but this is the guy my co-worker and I watched from the street-facing windows of our office building as this guy made laps up and down Mass Ave in  Cambridge’s Porter Square. It was apparent to both of us that this guy was wired out of his mind.

Walking past our office building, he would tug and scratch underneath his shirt. My co-worker and I would signal each other – when this guy strutted up and down the street as he was tweaking out of his mind –  but I never thought I would be having a conversation with this same guy.

“Hey, do you have a connection around heh?”

I look at the guy with a quizzical I’m Raised in Suburbia look, “D-o-o-o I have a connection?”

“Yeh, like … do you know someone dat .. ah … mehbe has a line on sum … uh … weed or blow? You’re not a cop, ah ya? Da guys at the end of da bar look like cops. I did a line of blow befaw I got heh.”

“With this hair, do I look like a cop?”

“Uh-h-h-h-  … zsszszsz … cops can look like you.

“Yeah, I guess they can.”

“Da ya have a connection?”

“No, I don’t. Sorry.”

“Ya don ‘t know anyone?”

“Sorry”

“Ahhhh … dat will probly save me some money.” My new found fiending friend then shows me the inside of his billfold, which is stuffed with cash.

“I’m a laborah. I just worked sevendy hours in five days. “

“Wow, that’s rough.”

“Sevendy hours is nuttin’. I can handle it.”

“Hey, my name is Zsssz Rzszszsz.” (He introduced himself a few times and I never got more than Zsssz Rzszszsz.)

My fiending friend then explained to me that he was a former amateur and professional boxer, that he had an amateur record of 200-17, which he said wasn’t very good. I assured him that was an outstanding amateur record.

[This guy was about 5’8”. He was wearing a plaid green and black shirt, black wind pants, black sneakers and stylishly attired with contemporary frames for his glasses. He could have passed for 40, but the way he talked he was in his late 40s or 50. The guy didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.]

He then explained to me that he had grown up in a much different Cambridge. My fiending friend told me that he was born deaf. The first words he learned were not good words. And that he used to say n*gg*r to the black kids and got into a ton of fights. He was quick and fast, but his punches lacked power, until he knocked out a big, black kid that he threw down with.

He assured me, “I’m not like dat anymaw. I married a black woman. Love black women. My kids ahh black, and they’ve had sum problims wit guns n’ drugs, but I love black ladies.

In his wallet, prominently displayed, was a photograph of him and his attractive African American wife on their wedding day (circa 1991).

“Hey, kahn ya give me a ride to East Cambridge?”

“I don’t have a car. Sorry.”

“Ya can drive mine.” [This guy has a car, and I’m taking the fucking bus. Don’t get me started.]

“Ah … I’m kind of comfortable here.”

“A-w-w-w … right.”

“I’ll give ya ten dollahs to use yaw phone. I need to call ma man in East Cambridge n' see if he has any blow.”

“Yeah, you can use my phone.” (I did not ask for $10.00.)

I dialed the number for my fiending friend, which he provided to me on a scrap of paper, and then to hear his drug connection – he headed out the bar’s door.

My first thought: There goes my cell phone, but then I noticed that my fiending friend had left on the bar his wallet stuffed with cash, which would have paid for my cell phone. I was confident that my friend would return.

After returning from his conversation with his drug connection in East Cambridge, he settles down next to me again.

“Did I leave my wallit like dis?”

This was what I feared. This guy is going to think I was rooting through his wallet – stealing his cash. This could get ugly.

“When you sprinted out the door, you left your wallet like that on the bar.”

“Drinkin’ 30 beers will do dat to ya’.

“They’ll do that and more to ya’.

“Heh … heh … heh. You’re right.”

I debated for a moment taking the ride to East Cambridge. This could lead to an epic blog post or I could end up as a resident of Cedar Junction MCI in Walpole, Massachusetts. I was tempted for a millisecond, but then I picked up my bag, and wished my new found friend a good night.

When Barney Frank held on to retain his Congressional seat versus Republican challenger Sean Bielat, in November of 2010, his victory speech signaled the end of his run. Frank went out of his way to attack everyone. In many ways, Frank should be admired for his courage to take on anyone and everything, but his 2010 victory speech exposed a candidate who was unable to read the changing political topography. When Massachusetts lost a Congressional seat, state Democrats seized on the opportunity to nudge Frank out the door.  Frank was vulnerable, and Democrats could not afford to lose his seat in Congress.

Sheridan’s April 8, 2009 Take on Barney Frank

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank recently made an appearance at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and his visit is generating a lot of interest on YouTube and the blogosphere.

Someone should take Barney aside and inform him that he comes across as shrill and pedantic. Do I believe Frank truly cares or will attempt to modify his bombastic tone? There is a better chance of Levi Johnston being invited to the Palin household for sandwich night than Frank dialing it down. (A wise Inuit or grizzled pipeline worker needs to get in Levi's ear, and tell him to shave and tuck in his shirt before he appears on national television. The Beverly Hillbillies' Jethro has more polish than this kid. Good thing Tyra Banks has more integrity than to pimp out Levi Johnston.)

Barney was a bully at the Kennedy School and we've all witnessed this behavior before. The snot-nosed Harvard Law School student, Joel Pollak, who posed the question to Barney came off as calm and measured next to the shrill tone of Frank. Would it have taken much for Frank to have acknowledged mistakes were made and ultimately all of Washington is responsible for the plight of the American economy? Those words will never leave Congressman Frank's mouth, but someone needs to convince him that attacking law school students does not help in advancing the Obama administration's economic agenda.  

Frank thinks labels are important – Barney really stepped into it with that comment. Barney might not have lost the room at the Kennedy School, but he's clearly lost the Internet p.r. battle, which is best illustrated by the woman in the video who admonishes Frank for using labels.

Full Disclosure: I have voted for Barney Frank and he used to be my congressman, but his constant orations and jeremiads get old. The odds of Frank losing an election, within the boundaries of his current congressional district are slim to none, which explains why Barney never feels the need to temper his comments.   

For more perspective, check out the Los Angeles Times.

Sheridan’s Bid to Replace Barney Frank

Here’s what a douchetard will say about the Wall Street protests that are springing up in select cities throughout the nation: These modern day Dave Matthews Band hippies simply want a handout. This is the same conservative rhetoric that has been employed to broadly paint welfare mothers, the long-term disabled, food stamps recipients, greedy teachers in Wisconsin and New Jersey, those insane enough to sign their lives away to pay the vig on student loans and Pell grants, and those that have been unable to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Dave Matthews Band Dirty Hippies

It’s 2011 – and we’re still using bootstraps. What exactly is a bootstrap? And how does one pull one’s self up by a bootstrap?

The douchetard would be happy to know that probably the greatest single handout, given to undeserving Americans looking for a free lunch, is the G.I. Bill. Why should veterans of our armed services be eligible for a benefit that is not offered to the entire American populace? Hey, they volunteered to serve our country and why should the rest of us be on the hook to pay for their education? This is a social program, right?

This social program created the middle class that flourished after World War II. The G.I. Bill allowed World War II veterans (Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation) to enter institutions of higher learning, earn college degrees, buy homes in the suburbs with two-car garages and raise children that were afforded better opportunities than their parents.

Most of us, progressive or conservative, would view the G.I. Bill as a success.  (I still refer to myself proudly as a liberal, but I’ll adopt the post-Bush/Rove Democratic construct of progressive, as being a  liberal is now the political equivalent of a 1920s’ Trotskyite – I will comply – and use progressive.)

For those patriotic Americans, who would argue that World War II veterans were not awarded a handout, but earned every bit of their college tuition through sacrifice and service to the United States. I would suggest it all depends on how one looks at a social program that redistributed wealth. A douchetard might refer to that as socialism.

We have now become a nation that loathes helping our fellow Americans. New Orleans stands as a testament, or a sickening reminder, that we as a people are comfortable with allowing fellow Americans to suffer.

The Wall Street protests are not the first acknowledgement that something is completely amiss in America, but these protests are canaries in a coal mine, simply voicing opinions that have been offered by many Americans: our financial system is broken.  America is broken – when we allow Tea Party douchetards and Republicans to highjack the American Jobs Act – and for these same douchetards not to provide an alternative is unconscionable. It’s fairly obvious that Republicans have no interest in improving the economy with President Obama residing in the White House.

When did putting Americans back to work violate the principles of our Founding Fathers?

When did acts of protest become subversive and unpatriotic? We teach our children to revere Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, but let’s not allow these protesters to postpone our commute for fifteen minutes. That is an unpardonable sin.

As Americans, we are far more concerned and agitated if our cell phone loses service than we are worried about an international financial crisis, which has already paralyzed economies and endangered financial institutions throughout the globe. Douchetards will have us believe that teachers, unions, and pension plans have placed the American economy in dire straits, but I’m firmly of the opinion, that Wall Street’s credit default swaps, derivatives and constant push for deregulation created the economic crisis in the fall of 2008. Apparently, it’s now politically acceptable and easier for American dumb asses to believe that our financial crisis is the result of a greedy, union dues paying Wisconsin home economics teacher, who is making $48K a year, and douchetards will believe it.
We teach our children to share, we teach them to care for others and to think of those who are less fortunate, but, when as adults we are asked to make sacrifices to better our nation, we refuse to pay more taxes and choose to view any government program that helps Americans in need as a handout. When did a person wanting a job become a subversive act?
Barn raising is an American tradition. It involved a community of folks gathering to raise a neighbor’s barn, and when did that concept disappear from the American landscape? The American Jobs Act is a barn raising, to help Americans get back to work, and the douchetards have co-opted it as being unfriendly to business and violating sacred American principles of self-reliance and individualism.
Give the douchetards their Tea Party, their 700 Club, their mega churches, Rush Limbaugh, a quite night at home speaking in tongues, there is no Adam and Steve but Adam and Eve, and I’ll take the rest of America. I’ll take the part that believes in helping fellow Americans, and that helping fellow Americans does not equal socialism.
When did anyone ever raise a barn alone?
  

The theatre of the absurd continues at Family Friendly Fenway Park. After Terry Francona witnessed his character attacked by an unnamed person in the Red Sox organization, Theo Epstein left his hometown to take over baseball’s Mistake by a Great Lake, and now Red Sox Nation is introduced to the new sheriff in the clubhouse: Bobby Valentine.

The Red Sox have hired Stamford, Connecticut’s Director of Public Safety to pilot the Old Town Team for 2012. I can’t help, but laugh at all of the descriptions of Valentine, which characterize him as a hardball disciplinarian, and that he is the man to root out Popeye’s Fried Chicken and Bud Light from the Red Sox clubhouse.

Stamford's Director of Public Safety

This is the same Bobby Valentine that had Rickey Henderson and Bobby Bonilla playing cards in the visitors’ clubhouse during Game 6 of the 1999 NLCS versus Los Bravos. This is the same Bobby Valentine that had to answer questions about players taking The Pineapple Express to and from Shea Stadium in 2002.

Bobby V isn’t going to clean up the clubhouse, he isn’t going to make Jacoby Ellsbury like his teammates, but he does possess baseball smarts and a knack for romancing the media. Valentine is great copy. Bobby V is the anti-Bill Belichick.

The Red Sox are desperate to generate interest in a perennial third-place team. In Seth Mnookin’s Feeding the Monster, Mnookin characterizes Larry Lucchino’s organizational philosophy, where a tradition-laden franchise like the Boston Red Sox, requires stars to generate interest in its own market. There is no way that the hiring of Dale Sveum would have generated the same media and fan titillation, which we have witnessed, with the hiring of The Big Dodger in the Sky Tommy Lasorda’s favorite seamhead son, Bobby Valentine.  The Red Sox do not appear to be big players to land a superstar in free agency, so Bobby Valentine has been hired to excite Red Sox Nation.

This marriage between Larry Lucchino and Bobby Valentine has an Over/Under of three years. Eventually, these two guys are going to loathe each other, and when Bobby V is escorted out of the manager’s office by security – the ad hominem attacks on Terry Francona will resemble the behavior of a seventh-grader engaging in cyber-bullying.

For those of you, who are naïve and borderline delusional, this is not the start of the Ben Cherington era of BoSox baseball, but the Valentine hiring signifies that Larry Lucchino has firmly returned to a place of power within John Henry’s Baseball Court.

When the Red Sox released white smoke from the executive offices, Lucchino gave his imprimatur to Valentine and made sure that newly named Red Sox general manager, Ben Cherington, understood that he was hired help who worked for Larry Lucchino. (I wonder why Theo bolted for the Windy City.) Cherington will work in tandem with Valentine. Sure, Cherington is going to tell a baseball lifer, who has clashed with every general manager that he has worked for, what the deal is.

It’s the Larry and Bobby Show. Lucchino and Valentine are strong-willed Northeast guys, who don’t back down. Valentine’s pregame and postgame press conferences could possibly be more interesting than the games.

Bobby Valentine will spark the team. He will ignite the fans. The media now have a human quote machine to fill their notebooks. And I simply can’t wait for the first Bobby Valentine tussle with management, because Valentine won’t be managed by Red Sox media censors.   

Larry Lucchino infamously referred to George Steinbrenner’s New York Yankees as the “Evil Empire.” Henry, Werner and Lucchino’s organization is now filled with high drama and palace intrigue reminiscent of The Boss’s Bronx Zoo, which is in stark contrast to Hal and Hank Steinbrenner’s New York Yankees, who have become less than perfect back page tabloid fodder.

New England has experienced Morgan Magic, but is it ready for Valentine Voodoo?

[Space is still available on a Sheridan Bus Bonanza to Bobby V’s Sports Gallery Café in Stamford, Connecticut. Mark “Plower” Sullivan (no relation to former Red Sox owner Haywood Sullivan) will present the keys of the city to moi. ] 

In a previous life, my brother used to pick up lunch for the WWE’s Vince McMahon from Bobby V’s.

I mentioned in a previous piece that I’ve been reading Craig McDonald’s Rogue Males: Conversations and Confrontations about the Writing Life, and I was struck by his interview with James Crumley. I had never heard of James Crumley, but McDonald put forth that Crumley had written perhaps the single best sentence to open a noir/crime novel.

Some people may argue with McDonald’s characterization of the sentence, but it captivated my imagination. I raced to the library and requested Crumley’s The Last Good Kiss from a neighboring town’s library.

This sentence is spectacular. If I had written this sentence, I would never want to write another thing. How could a writer craft anything better than this sentence?

When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.

How could anyone not want to read a novel that opened with that sentence?

Crumley’s tale of damage and destruction centers on a sometimes private detective, C.W. Sughrue. Sughrue is a Vietnam vet, who has experienced the ‘60s from both sides, and displays a knack for sentimental causes that appeal to his sense of justice and not the bottom line of his bank account. Sughrue, in a roundabout way, partners with alcoholic poet and novelist, Abrahaham Trahearne, and the pair take off on a journey that is destined to end badly.

Crumley writes, Change is the rule. You can’t go home again even if you stay there, and now that everyplace is the same, there is no place to run. But that doesn’t keep some of them from trying.

Crumley’s C.W. Sughrue reinforces Thomas Wolfe’s assertion That You Can’t Go Home Again. As the characters move along, it becomes apparent that none of them are able to escape their pasts. Their pasts haunt them, and Crumley convinces the reader that home may be more of a mythical destination than a tangible place.

I savored every sentence and every chapter of this book. I couldn’t get enough of it. Crumley’s sentences are loaded with grit, truth and verite. This book is a masterpiece of Americana. Call it noir. Call it crime fiction. It’s simply a great novel.

Rarely do I re-read a book. In fact, I have never re-read a book. I’m thinking of picking this up again, and I just finished it a week ago.

Let me leave you with C.W. Sughrue’s 12-Step philosophy:

“Slowed down before I had to quit,” I said. “Now I try to stay two drinks ahead of reality and three behind a drunk.” She smiled with some sort of superior knowledge, as if she knew that the idea of having to quit drinking scared me so badly that I couldn’t even think about it.

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From Jay-Z’s Decoded:

Elizabeth Mendez Berry wrote in her essay: “Squint and you see a revolutionary. But open your eyes to the platinum chain around his neck: Jay-Z is a hustler.” No doubt. It’s a simple truth, but complex, too. Identity isn’t a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow.

-          Footnote 15 of Public Service Announcement (page 31)

Jay-Z & King James

On Monday night, I go over to Matty Ha! Ha!’s place to watch the New York Football Giants travel down to the Crescent City to take on the New Orleans Saints.

Matty Ha! Ha! had made some grub, which I appreciated, but the tone deaf motherfucker had made red beans and rice – a New Orleans staple.  Hey, why are we eating Who Dat Food? How about some linguine and clam sauce or an Italian sausage sandwich coated with onions and peppers? Now, that’s Gotham City food and not red beans and rice. Talk about going native and forgetting your roots.

I chow down on the red beans and rice. Wash it down with a Sierra Pale Ale, which is never a bad call for any occasion, and then I watch the Giants’ defense resemble the Boonton High School Bombers. Safety Deon Grant couldn’t cover Clark Kent in a telephone booth. It’s unfair to pick on Deon Grant, because the Giants couldn’t cover any of New Orleans receivers.

I suffer through most of the game, with El Manning attempting to complete passes to receivers named Ramses Barden, Jerrel Jernigan and Devin Thomas. (Devin Thomas was great at Michigan St., but he’s struggled to find a foothold in the NFL.) With all of that, Eli Manning still managed to chuck the rock for 406 yards, as the Giants suffered a  49-24 destruction by the Saints.

Saints quarterback Drew Brees was playing flag football, and the Giants were unable to match the points put up by the Saints. Giants’ middle linebacker Mark Herzlich shellacked Brees, in the first half, but the guy was still able to complete the pass.  It appeared Brees was using Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak to elude the Giants non-existent pass rush.

It appears that Tom Coughlin’s Giants are heading for another late season slide, but they are also hitting the iron of their schedule, and the Giants have been exposed for having a lack of depth across the roster. The Giants have no answer to replace injured running back Ahmad Bradshaw. Bruising running back Brandon Jacobs has shown that he is unable to still be a feature back, and his 46 yards of rushing versus the Saints, is better than the 21 yards he gained versus the piece of shit Eagles.

The Giants are done. They have to play the Packers on Sunday at Lambeau Field. And then it’s Dallas, Washington, the J-E-T-S, and  Tony Romo’s Cowboys again.

So, what’s the big deal, right? The Giants are not going to make the playoffs. To quote Richard Gere from An Officer and a Gentleman, “I got nowhere else to go.”

The Giants are my Sunday religion. They are the one thing I have to look forward to, in an existence, which is far less than fantastic. The Gaints are my moon, my sun, my light and the only thing that will put up with my crap. The Giants are always there for me.

Fuck women. Fuck the 1%. And fuck the man.

I can be a Big Fan of the Giants and I don’t have to worry about appeasing someone’s insecurities or pretending that I like to go leaf watching. (I grew up in New Jersey. I’ve raked enough leaves to heat the city of Passaic for a week.)

Is it too much to ask to get to the playoffs? I need this to happen. I need to have something in my life that is bigger, and more important, than fantasizing about getting a blow job from some woman I barely know, but it’s either dream or purchase discounted porn DVD’s. (I believe most public libraries frown on watching porn in the Reading Room.)

I haven’t lost my faith in the Giants, but fuck this red beans and rice shit. You gotta represent. And red beans and rice ain’t representin’ Phil McConkey, registered sex offender Lawrence Taylor, or the snarling Chris Snee.

I need some meaning in my life, and I’m just askin’ for an inconsequential (Maybe inconsequential to you, but this shit is epic to me.) playoff appearance.

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Bernie Fine

Based on what has already been reported in various media outlets, I’m not sure who is more loathsome former Syracuse assistant basketball coach, Bernie Fine, or his wife, Laurie. In a taped conversation with one of the alleged victims, Bobby Davis, Laurie Fine admits to knowing of her husband’s alleged sexual abuse. Laurie Fine is obviously crazier than a Kardashian, and she admits to having sex with an eighteen-year-old Davis, but how does a person stay in a marriage that is a sham and where she seems to understand that her husband has committed sexual abuse?

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I have never liked Syracuse basketball and Jim Boeheim is an overrated coach, who has succeeded with unparalleled talent rather than innovative coaching strategies or player development, but anyone calling for his firing is a little misguided. That Boeheim came out in support of Fine, and challenged Fine’s accusers of looking for a pay day – that is a mark of Boeheim’s loyalty – perhaps it is misguided loyalty, but we could use a little more loyalty in our society. More details will come out, and there is no question that Boeheim is sitting on a live grenade, but how is Boeheim more culpable than Laurie Fine? Boeheim claims no knowledge of Fine’s alleged underage sexual abuse, but Laurie Fine will chat openly about her husband’s alleged criminal sexual behavior.

Urban Meyer  

Urban Meyer has landed his dream job as head football coach of the Ohio St. Buckeyes. He has also landed a dream job, where he doesn’t have to coach against SEC powerhouses, such as Alabama, LSU, Georgia and Auburn.  Coach Meyer miraculously resolved his health and family issues in two years, and couldn’t wait to move to Columbus. These college football coaches are the biggest charlatans. Meyer received a” Get Out of Jail” card from the SEC – that alone has improved his health – and his chances of returning to the BCS Championship game are much better in a mediocre Big Ten. I wonder if Urban knows that Ohio St. has the largest athletic department budget in the nation?

Urban Meyer, The Gator and Jesus Christ

 Missouri Football Fans

After stomping on longtime rival Kansas, in the recent Border War, Missouri fans chanted, “SEC, SEC, SEC”, leaving the game. Missouri just went 5-4 in a down Big 12, and do their fans realize they are now filler in the SEC? Please hold on to the hope that this will help recruiting, and maybe it will, but it won’t help enough to move the Tigers past any SEC powers. (The same applies to Texas A&M.)

Kansas Football

After two years at Kansas, Turner Gill was canned. Gill was hired by former Kansas Athletic Director Lew Perkins and was fired by new Kansas Athletic Director Sheahon Zenger.

[Sheahon Zenger? What type of name is Sheahon? I don’t anything about the guy, but with a name like that; he has to be a complete douchebag. ]

After two years, Gill had compiled a record of 5-19 and had gone 2-16 in the Big 12. This season, the Jayhawks had failed to win a game in the Big 12. Gill is owed $6 million over the next three years by Kansas. As we know, wealthy alumni will pick up the remaining years of Gill’s contact and provide the funds for Kansas to hire another coach.

In two years, Turner Gill went from one of the hottest coaching properties at the University of Buffalo, to a two-year coaching stint at Kansas, where he was summarily canned. The guy didn’t all of a sudden become a bad football coach, but the new A.D. wanted to bring in his guy.

If Kendall Gill had been smart and wanted to win immediately – by whatever means – he would have recruited every junior college player that could ball but didn’t have a brain. No one really cares how you win, but if you win.

Former Ohio St. football coach Jim Tressel, who is familiar with the Youngstown Mafia’s code of Omerta, would have allowed his player boats and hoes in exchange for their silence of trading tattoos for team swag.  Tressel will eventually land another coaching job – to guide young men through life’s ethical dilemmas – but the Turner Gill firing points out everything that is dysfunctional and wrong about college football.

It points to why Jim Tressel would remain silent on NCAA infractions, which appeared sort of trivial, but would have forced the Buckeyes to lose key players.

All of this crap makes me wonder why I watch college sports. And I don’t watch college sports that much anymore. I’d rather watch pro sports and not have to deal with all of this hypocrisy and bullshit.

College sports is broken, and when will college presidents step in and try to remedy the situation?

 Conference re-alignment is the biggest money grab since Secretary State William H. Seward purchased the territory of Alaska from Russia in 1867. Seward’s purchase price was $7.2 million, and that pales in comparison to Urban Meyer’s new $24 million contract or the $6 million owed to Gill.

In Meyer’s new contract, he enjoys creature comforts like a private jet and a golf club membership. (You can’t afford shit like that making $24 million over six years.) Oh, and as part of Meyer’s Buckeye blood pact, he will receive $10,000 a year for making appearances for Coca-Cola. Will Coca-Cola be on the Buckeyes’ training table spread?

If you refuse to acknowledge reality, don’t believe in evolution, have a problem with the science that supports climate change, then college sports is the place for you.

Give me another late season New York Giants swoon over this shit.

Why is it that every supermarket chain has to outdo the other with the size of the receipt provided to its less than satisfied shopper?

On a recent foray to Stop & Shop, I purchased:

-          2 Dannon yogurts on sale for .60 cents.

-          1 Stop & Shop brand 16 oz. organic black tea with some other crap in it for .89 cents.

-          1 Joey’s Black and White cookie for $1.49.

-          1 Oatmeal Raisin Walnut Clif Bar for $1.00

-          1 White Chocolate Macadamia Clif Bar for $1.00

-          2 Bananas for .46 cents

Not a lengthy shopping list, but I did manage to save ninety-one cents with a Stop & Shop card, and then I received a receipt that had to be 30 inches long. I bought a total of eight freakin’ items!  Why do I need a receipt that is nearly longer than my arm?

The Typical Reaction of a Consumer Armed with an Array of Coupons

Stop & Shop is generous enough to provide the consumer with a lengthy assortment of coupons, on the back of the receipt; which contains an optical store offer, a restaurant discount, an offer for a $22.99 oil change at Firestone, something called www.rtui.com, another oil change enticement for $19.99 from NTB that trumps Firestone’s offer, but then Valvoline has a deal for $5.00 off an oil change. The back of my Stop & Shop receipt appears to be a Cold War battleground for oil change services.

There is other pertinent data on my receipt:

I made my purchases at Store #776 located in Arlington, Massachusetts. I used a Self-Checkout Lane, which I loathe because it reduces employment opportunities and isn’t faster, but I don’t have a Stop & Shop card and the Self Checkout/Make the Customer Work for His Food option allows the consumer to exercise the “Forgot My Card” feature.

My ex-girlfriend would always insist on using the Self-Checkout lane – not that she went to the supermarket more than maybe three times in the last year of our relationship – and I would shake my head and mutter. The Self-Checkout lane is a scam – there is always some type of complication – the scanner is charging the Asian woman ahead of me $49.00 per pound for her head of cabbage, I am told that I have to wait until my item makes it to the Promised Land of the bagging area before I can scan another item, and there is always a misguided dolt who doesn’t know how to spell the fruit or vegetable that is about to be purchased.

For those Type A personalities, who like to feel they are constantly accomplishing something, you’re being conned. Your egotistical and better than thou delusions of, “I Can Do It Better and Faster than the Checkout Person”, are being used against you.

If you’re curious, Jeff Kelley is the Store Manager. And I can earn Gas Rewards Points for qualifying purchases, but since I don’t own a car thus making me unqualified for its rewards program, that’s Stop & Shop stickin’ it to the man.

C’mon, do I really need a supermarket receipt longer than the Dead Sea Scrolls?

When I purchase a burrito, do I need two receipts?

Taking items out of the library, I receive a receipt.

Do Craigslist escorts give out receipts?

I need to bring a dessert for Thanksgiving. What are the chances of finding a pie at this late date and how long will the receipt be for a single pie?

I’m tempted to purchase a mince pie to screw over any vegans thinking of sinking their teeth into my dessert. Mince is the ugly stepchild of holiday pies. I am 100% certain that my dad always wanted a mince pie, for Thanksgiving and Christmas, because he wanted the whole thing for himself. I would then gladly sample a slice of mince pie to foil my father’s efforts at mince pie domination.

I will dominate my mince pie tomorrow. There will be no snotty-nosed kid to ruin my day of ruthless and brutal pie suppression. If anyone gets close to the pie, I will covertly place the radical pie activist in a sleeper hold, and the offending party will ostensibly be a victim of too much holiday cheer or the Ambient-like effects of turkey’s amino acid, Tryptophan.

Alright, time to get a receipt with my pie.