Thursday, January 29, 2004

It truly ain’t nothin’ but a thang thing, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Take one:
CIA Agent one: “Are you sure there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?”

Agent Two: “Well all the evidence points to it.”

Agent One: “I have to get this to the White House. You better be sure, because this could lead to a war.”

Agent Two: “OK, yes, I’m sure, there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Narrator: Want to get away? Southwest Airlines has flights available right now.

Put a cape on him and take him away
*James Brown was arrested on a domestic violence charge. Did you see his mug shot? Even Nick Nolte is making fun of that picture.

James Brown and Glen Campbell are starting a new singing duo: The Scary Clowns.

James Brown has a new single, it goes; “I feeeeel good, hah, but I loooook bad.”

For James Brown’s mug shot, Papa should have worn a brand new bag over his head.

James Brown and Glen Campbell are starting a new singing duo: The Mug Uglies.

In defense of his domestic violence charge, James Brown said it was a mistake. When Brown went to jump back and kiss himself, he accidentally knocked her down.

Did you see the James Brown mug shot? Apparently Brown has his hair done by the same guy who does Nick Nolte.

Misunderstanding
*Former chief US weapons inspector, David Kay, said the US government was wrong that Iraq was maintaining weapons of mass destruction. Today, a White House spokesperson said; “Did we say weapons of mass destruction? No, we meant weapons of VAST DECEPTION, yeah, that’s it, it was a huge fake.”

After Kay’s announcement, Hillary Clinton had to seek treatment for a strained abdomen for trying to retain a “Neener Neener Neener.”

I hope this doesn’t mean we have to plug Saddam Hussein back in his spider hole.

How gauche
*The Martha Stewart trial is a little different. Today, Stewart’s attorney objected that the prosecutor didn’t send the jury personally hand-written calligraphy Thank You notes for serving.

*Good news for the Super Bowl. Today ten more people actually decided to actually give a crap about it.

Yikes
*There’s a sex tape circulating the Internet of former NBA great Julius Irving and a woman. This video is a different from Indian reliever Kazuhito Tadano gay porn video, Tadano apologized for his video, after watching the Dr. J. tape, guys have to apologize to their girlfriends or wives.

Arrr me matey
*Pirate attacks on the high seas are up 20%. The pirates are using more weapons, they are more aggressive and, for some odd reason, they are dressing and sounding exactly like Keith Richards.


Since you asked:
Slats and Nugs, do you remember watching your first Super Bowl? Boy, I sure do. It was January of 1969, our country was on the cusp of changes unimagined, I was ten and I was into football and that game like only a ten-year-old boy can be into something.

With coaching from my Johnny Unitas-loving Dad, I started to follow the success of the Baltimore Colts and adopt them as my post-season team. We lived outside Chicago so the Bears, of course, were our team. But man did they suck in 1969. My idol, Gayle Sayers, was not the same since his knee injury, and George Halas –as we now know – was too cheap and too stupid to field a decent team.

So, during the post-season, I had no choice but to adopt a playoff team to cheer for. And in 1969, it was always the NFL winner. As far as we were concerned, the AFL was only a little bit better than communist Russia. The AFL had funky facemasks, they huddled up in two funky lines, they had a narrow goofy-looking football, they were, in short, pure evil. But the most evil of all was the New York Jets' quarterback, Joe Namath.

Joe Namath had long hair. At the time, my Dad and I hated hippies. (Later, of course I grew my hair because you had to legally) Joe Namath had white shoes, low-cut Riddell cleats. Football players don’t wear low-cuts, they wore high tops and a crew-cut like the God of football, Johnny Unitas. But worst of all, Joe Namath was . . . A LADIES MAN.

At ten, you still try to convince yourself - and everyone else - that you hate girls. Of course you don’t. I didn’t. I was hopelessly in love with Karen Dean, but I expressed my affection to her in the way ten-year-old boys do: I pushed her into the mud. I threw dodge balls at her. I stole her hat during recess, which, in Chicago in January, can lead to immediate hypothermia. I tortured poor, beautiful, flaxen-haired, green-eyed Karen Dean every chance I got. My affection for Karen Dean got me sent to the principal’s office – death row for a ten-year-old – about ten times.

So, the fact that Joe Namath was “a ladies man” made me hate him even more. The Colts versus the Jets was the clearest example of good versus evil that a ten-year-old boy could witness.

This is how big this game was: it forced my Dad to break his "We don't need color TV, dammit" law and buy a Zenith the size of a Buick, just for the third Super Bowl game.

The game was played in Miami and started at dusk. In Chicago we were one hour behind, so it started in the late afternoon. As the game wore on, and the Colts faltered, the darkness outside descended and mirrored the darkness that covered our hearts and souls. The freakin' dog-assed Jets won.

How could this happen? How could the Jets win? Why did bad things happen to good people? This was not just the worst sports-related thing that had ever happened to me, but the worst thing - besides taking trumpet lessons from Mr. Bakehouse - that had ever happened to me period.

Until that Fall when the Chicago Cubs lost to the New York Mets and Karen Dean moved away.