Morton Malaise

I’m sure everyone has heard AI’s famous “Practice” press conference. Someone took a hiphop beat and an autotuner and made it infinitely more amusing. Also featured are Dennis Green, Joe Namath, and others.

I don’t like watching golf on TV very much. Unfortunately, my current employment situation and the atrocious programming on television during the day have dictated that I watch the US Open. It’s really not terribly bad, but for one thing. WHO THE FUCK LET BERMAN START DOING FUCKING GOLF?!?! His voice makes me want to slice my dick off with a grapefruit spoon. He knows about as much about golf as I do about knitting. The stupid shit he says on NFL PrimeTime and Sportscenter sounds 20 times dumber when he’s talking about golf, because instead of saying stupid shit about something he knows about, which occassionally makes some people somewhere laugh, he says stupid shit about something he doesn’t know about and makes the entire golf-watching world want to slice into his stupid bald head with their lob wedge. I hope he chokes to death on the next load a 12-year-old Thai ladyboy blows down his throat. Fucking asshole.

From Deadspin:

The best subplot of the Stanley Cup Finals is the tale of Marian Hossa, who turned down a long-term deal from Pittsburgh after last year’s Final to join up with the team that vanquished him and his Pengiuns. I bet he didn’t expect to run into those guys again.

Hossa got his wish, riding the Red Wing bandwagon back to the championships round, but now he has to beat his old team if he wants to claim that Cup. I wonder if anyone has reminded him that if he’d stayed with the Penguins, he’d be in the exact same position—or arguably a much improved one the way Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are playing. Oh, and he would be much, much richer. If Hossa wins the title with Detroit, he will look like someone who made a shrewd, calculated (possibly cynical) risk and saw it pay off. If Pittsburgh wins, he will look like a colossal chump who jumped ship at the first sign of trouble and got a much deserved comeuppance.

In that eventuality, people will probably even joke that Hossa was the dead weight that dragged down both losing teams, which isn’t true—he lead the Penguins in playoff goals last year—but will still sting like a mighty bumblebee.

“He came here, we took him in, fell in love with him, made songs for him, cheered for him,” said Pens fan John McClelland, of Squirrel Hill. “Said he wanted a big deal. We offered it to him, then he goes to them for a one-year deal….”

“He abandoned us after the season was over, and I think a lot of people are still angry about that,” said Pens fan Kim Piganell, of Oakdale.

Seriously, no pressure though.

I’m a Red Wings fan. I have been a Red Wings fan since 1990. The Red Wings have been called the Yankees of hockey. There is a very, very clear difference. The Red Wings are classy, they play the game right, and they don’t charge $3,000 to sit next to the glass, even in the playoffs. And we don’t have a fuckwad cheater on our team. GO. WINGS. GO. 5 Stanleys in 12 years like whoa.

Like the wrath of the Looch. It seems Mr. Luciano may have been overserved on Friday night at the Owl’s Nest and got himself into a little trouble.

I, for one, don’t really think it’s a big deal. Phil has taken his share of ribbing on this site in the past, but let’s face it- we all get a little drunk every now and again, and most of us have done something stupid that we would probably never do sober. It’s a shame Phil got the cuffs for this one, and being a local columnist who can be a bit abrasive certainly doesn’t help.

The fact of the matter is, we haven’t heard Phil’s version of the story. As we all know from watching years of Cops, all suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Unfortunately, the court of public opinion is notoriously premature on passing judgement. Especially when the court of public opinion is being held for a person who has rubbed more than a few people the wrong way.

So, good luck Phil. I enjoy your column and hope you can keep doing it for a long time.

Richard Ashcroft was appreciated by the press in the UK and the US as a great songwriter, but he gained only marginal success on American radio. The song “Rolling People” is a favorite of mine from the album Urban Hymns:

I got one more life
Can you see it wasting away?
But I got a plan
Do you understand?

The drugstore wife
I was dealing soul and other white
I won’t shake your hands
‘Cause death has no plans

But here we are the rolling people
Can’t stay for long
We gotta go

So come alive with the rolling people
Don’t ask why
We just know

I’m on a big jet plane
With my briefcase and crime in my veins
I’ll be the first to toast
To my rotten soul

But here we are the rolling people
Don’t ask why
We don’t know

So come alive with the rolling people
Don’t ask why
We just go now
Yeah

Don’t even know which way I’m going to
The lights are on and I am feeling blue
I hope you know which way I’m going to fly
Thank you for my life
I said good night, good-bye

You see me going

But here we are the rolling people
Can’t stay for long
We gotta go

So come alive with the rolling people
Don’t ask why
We don’t know now
Yeah

While reading Autoblog today, I learned of a wonderful, wonderful website called Zapatag. It offers a forum, free of censorship, to vent about the bad drivers we all encounter in the course of our travels, including their plate number and the location. Imagine my relief when I found that my plate wasn’t mentioned. I’m sure BJ will be particularly fond of this website, as his ire at bad driving is pretty apparent and often blogged about.

As I’m sure everyone knows by now, Manny Ramirez has tested positive for the drug human chorionic gonadotropin, a woman’s fertility drug often taken by steroid users to restart the body’s natural production of testosterone. We can all run around saying “I told you so” and “These guys have ruined the game,” but I have a news flash for you. EVERYONE with any sort of success in MLB over the last 10 years has used PED’s of some sort. If they didn’t, they hung around the minor leagues for a while or just faded away. It was impossible to compete at a high level during the late 90’s without using PED’s. Many of these substances, such as creatine and diet pills, are perfectly legal for you or I to take, but can destroy a career and reputation in MLB. In fact, several of my friends cycled creatine through high school.

The more I think about it and learn about it, the less black and white this issue becomes. It’s easy for us to lay a verbal bitchslap on the players of today, but people seem to forget that everyone, and I MEAN EVERYONE in baseball popped amphetamines like candy in the 60’s-80’s. Mantle, Maris, Carew, Seaver, Koufax, Clemente, all of them. It was the only way to stay awake and aware during the games after drinking and/or travelling all night, and made a marked improvement in skill and awareness for the players. Cortisone and Albuterol are both steroids. Who doesn’t know someone with a knee problem or an asthma inhaler? Since the beginning of professional athletics, the athletes have done everything they could to get an edge on their opponents, and for many years, most of the substances that are now banned were perfectly legal in MLB and in the eyes of US Law.

The point is this: Major League Baseball looked the other way for a lot of years, and many of the fans will never forgive the league, the MLBPA, or the owners. Personally, I can put myself in a mediocre player’s shoes and see how he really didn’t have a choice. Most of these guys never finished college (if they even went at all) and don’t know how to do anything else. If he wanted to compete, if he wanted to provide for his family, he had to stick a needle in his ass.

1.) An affair
2.) Travelling for business
3.) On vacation
4.) Change of scenery
5.) To eat hummus and grapes

Now, this is spring. 70-80 degrees and sunny. It’s about damn time! I look forward to a full weekend of doing outdoors stuff. Like sitting outside drinking, cooking out and drinking, rolling the windows down in the car and drinking, maybe even washing the car and drinking! Huzzah!

I challenge anyone out there to present ANY empirical evidence showing that closing some Peoria schools and consolidating is a BAD idea. Peoria does NOT need as many schools as it has. Period. As far as I know, there are no high schools in Peoria with enrollments greater than 1000 people. I believe the smaller ones have 500. This is a Waste. Of. Money. And. Real. Estate. While I don’t expect kids to be forced into portable cities like the Palm Beach County schools I attended in the 80’s and 90’s, there is no reason why enrollment can’t be doubled in some of the schools. The following responses/comments or their ilk are not acceptable answers and will be disparaged accordingly:

“I went there and it’s not fair they’re closing MY school.” Guess what? The school you remember from 20 years ago IS NOW A SHITHOLE. District 150 can’t afford the upkeep for all the outdated facilities.

“But what about the kids in XXX neighborhood who will be forced to go to school with the HORRIBLE kids from YYY neighborhood?” Get over it. That’s how kids learn to socialize with different types of people, to stand up for themselves, and myriad other life lessons. The ‘neighborhood’ schools are probably one of the largest reasons for the city being racially segregated like it is.

“The schools are the hearts of the neighborhood.” Bullshit. The only time you ever hear “school” and “neighborhood” in the same sentence when they’re not tearing one down is when someone says, ‘Those damn kids at that school are littering/loitering/trespassing/ejaculating/dealing drugs all over our nice, quiet neigborhood.’

“Our city won’t be the same with fewer schools.” Exactly. It will be better.

Know what? Fuck it. Go ahead and put another .25% tax on yourselves. Call it the “Give the School Board Another Raise and Fuck the Kids” tax referendum.