Here We Go...Again

I hate to harp on this. I really do. Whomever wins the Democratic nomination will be a fine candidate and far, far superior to whatever bag of pus the GOP can muster.

But, give us a break, people. There was a primary in Florida today, in which all the Democratic candidates were on the ballot, and Clinton appears to have won and won big. Many of you are saying, "well, who cares? The delegates won't count."

You're wrong. Besides the creeping suspicion that many of the people taking this tack are Obama supporters who can't believe everyone isn't as stoked about his coronation as they are, if anyone thinks the fate of the Florida delegates is sealed, they're crazy. That case will be litigated again and, I suspect, ultimately they will be counted.

Furthermore, Florida matters even if the delegates never count officially. Last week, polls had Clinton ahead by 10-15 points. Then, if the media is telling the tale accurately, Obamania swept South Carolina and, by their reckoning, the universe. And yet, perhaps because people from Florida watch only FOX News and are illiterate, Clinton appears to have won the primary there by 15-20 points. Her advantage apparently increased after SC. What does that mean, pray tell?

Watch and Listen

Maybe it's time to see Taxi Driver again? I've never heard of this person, but the review is pretty persuasive.

FJM, What Gives?

Still waiting for Fire Joe Morgan (at right) to take on Roger Clemens' agent who, if you haven't heard or don't care, has put out an 18,000 word report "clearing" Clemens of taking steroids by citing--get this--statistics. Oh sssssssnap!

Actually, the media has distilled it down for all us not-readers and has zeroed in on this piece of "evidence" as the key point: Clemens' ERA was lower than the league average for 21 of his 23 seasons. There's a bitchy little thing about averages, though, and it is that roughly half of all the pitchers in his league were also below the average ERA during that span. Because, see, except for a few outliers, most everybody is going to be right around whatever the league average ERA is, some above and some below.

Of course, nobody is actually talking about what Clemens' ERA was in any given year, and those numbers would tend to cast doubt on his agents' case, because the ERAs themselves are so far away from what everybody else was doing that he's either Jesus Christ with a splitter, or he's a doper.

Let me help:

In his first full season as a starter, 1986, Clemens not only won the Cy Young Award but also posted a 2.48 ERA. In the American League. That's amazing! He was 24 years old.

The next 6 seasons, he posted an ERA of 3.13 or lower, including an unreal 1.93 in 1990 (of course, he also pitched a period-low 228 innings that year, too).

In 1993, he had the worst season of his career: 11-14 with a 4.46 ERA--which was still lower than the AL league average of 4.64, but a funny thing happened around 1993: ERAs across baseball jumped dramatically, almost as though the very game itself had been redesigned to produce more runs...and the inflation lasted, well, until now. See for yourself (scroll down to pitching stats--the jump in ERA for both leagues is incredible).

Clemens then had two injury-plagued years before appearing in 34 games for Boston in 1996, at which point the Red Sox must have figured he was about done and they let him go to the Blue Jays...where he won 20 games each of the next 2 seasons and also back-to-back Cy Young Awards. Boston, a team that really liked Roger Clemens, thought he was washed up. And then he became reborn as the best pitcher in baseball for one of the worst teams in baseball. His ERAs in Toronto, compared to the league averages, were 2.05/4.53 and 2.65/4.61, respectively. A 2.5-point difference between actual and average ERA? How is that possible?! If I were his agent, I don't think I would want people looking at this stuff!

Then he went to the Yankees and had 3 pretty mediocre years and 2 very good years before signing with the Houston Astros, a fairly crappy team, and experiencing a post-Boston-like comeback for the second time in his career. You know, it's weird how when a team Clemens wants to play for, like the Red Sox or Yankees, tells him to take a hike he suddenly becomes the best pitcher in the game again for the next few seasons.

In Houston, Clemens averaged a 2.33 ERA in 3 seasons while pitching his home games in one of the best hitters' parks in baseball. In 2005, he posted a 1.87 ERA (NL league average was 4.23) in 211 innings. He was 43 years old. And based on those 3 seasons, he got another contract with the Yankees.

Given his career numbers, Clemens either pitches wonderfully for short periods and doesn't have any clue how he does it, and those periods happen to coincide with being traded or released by teams he wants to play for, or else he uses steroids. You really could say "ERA, his ass!"

Memo to David Kurtz: You're Bad at This

An article about the upcoming state of the union address by the worst president ever speculated that it would probably be the last from this particular president, and the "maybe" part got David Kurtz all in a twist. Conspiracy? Conspiracy!

I googled the term "state of the union address" and read all about how those speeches work and why some presidents give 5 of them in a term (because their successors aren't sworn in until later) and whatnot. It took all of 60 seconds.

Dumbass.

Obama Gets Established

Mrs. Josh pointed out yesterday, in that cute way she has, where she uses the wand taped to her forehead to tap out messages on a giant keypad propped up in front of her HoveRound motorized scooter, that Obama has been endorsed by John Kerry and Ted Kennedy. I think that makes Obama the odds-on favorite to win the Massachusetts Senate race, not to mention he now has the two most respected and sacred (to Republicans, too!) Democratic figures of 2004 in his corner. So he can't lose, is what I'm thinking. But Mrs. Josh, she always has another angle, and she pointed out, literally, that Obama has now officially shed his "anti-establishment" label. In fact, it's hard to imagine how one could get more "establishment" than to become the choice of two guys who have a combined 62 years in the US Senate. Now if he can just get that fudgepacker Robert Byrd's endorsement, Obama will have over 100 years of senatorial establishmentariousness in his corner!

Search for "Random"

What is Weird Magazine (Wired? That doesn't make any sense--must be a typo)? Somebody felt the need to rebut an article in the February issue. Is it February already?

Fuck Everybody

You know what, fuck Jon Stewart. His routine had become stale years ago and his interviews morphed into embarrassing suck-offs of right-wing icons notable for their utter stupidity, like Bill Kristol.

And you know what else? Fuck Stephen Colbert for asking Debra Dickerson--the woman who asserted that Obama wasn't "black enough"--back on his show and then giving her a platform to bash the Clintons. She looked like just another smug "intellectual" who can't prove the title by anything coming out of her mouth. Her act is all Cheshire Cat grins and half accusations--she plays the race card...then takes it back...then plays it again: "It's not fair to say that Obama will win the black vote in SC. As a black person, I wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton. Only racists think black people would vote for a black candidate."

Also, fuck Colbert for playing footage of the Democratic debate from SC and then announcing that the winner, presumably because of all the arguing among the candidates, was the "Republican Party." You're right, Stephen: I cry myself to sleep at night wishing that the Democrats could learn to get along, because until we truly love one another we can't really embrace our Republican opponents. Good point. Shut up.

And fuck the round-heeled liberals on Talking Points Memo, beginning with Joshua Micah Marshall's pretentious ass. First he insightfully critiqued the Obama supporters' outrage at Hillary Clinton as being based solely on the Obama camp's delusion that he somehow transcends politics and thus must never be attacked or even challenged--God is not mocked! But then, Marshall turns around and allows bullshit headlines like "Hillary Flies Out of SC After Defeat" to go up on his site. Inquiring minds want to know, Mr. Marshall, sir: should she have canoed out of SC? You tell me, because I don't get what point you think you made.

If Democrats, in general and as represented on TV and on the internet, don't want to do politics, then they should stay home and take drugs. These people apparently wish they lived in a special, more spiritual and less gritty world, and I think they should go there. Leave the engine running and the doors closed.

But if they want to do politics, then they need to grow up and dig in with both hands. This St. Barack horseshit is unacceptable.

Finally: When Clinton wins NY, CA, and FL (well, as much as anyone can "win" FL), and thus all but ends the contest for the nomination, will anyone in the media revisit SC and note how irrelevant this whole week of coverage was?

Why Does Water Suck So Much (Ass)?

Perhaps this list will answer the question.

You can deny its persuasive power if you want to, but that will only confirm that you also suck.

Pay the Piper

Look, I can understand not wanting to take one's medicine. People have a tendency, when they feel optimistic, to shoot their mouths off and then, later when reality bites deep and hard, to pretend they aren't the same partisans they once were.

Enter Andrew Sullivan, a man I've never particularly cared for--perhaps it's his forced air of aloofness when beneath the skin I think he's really more than a little in love with the militarism and hints of fascism in the Republican project of the past three decades. Maybe it's just that he uses his phoney distant persona to avoid taking his lumps. Sullivan, as much as any "intelligent" conservative (sorry, "moderate"), was a willing rider on the Bush express 8 years ago, but now he's so very, very disappointed that he simply must set the record straight about how misled he was. It's not that we should doubt his intelligence or sincerity, or re-examine the respect we afford him despite his failing judgment; no, we must understand how bad wrong the GOP plans went, not because they were bad plans (cue Hitchens) but because they were botched by one or two unsuitable and unfortunate appointees.

So, now Sullivan spends his time attacking the one symbol of liberalism that most Americans somehow still accept as an excuse for conservatives' intellectual, moral, and real failure: the Clintons.

I'm not going to link to his shitty, shitty columns in the Atlantic (.com!). But the quick read on the last week or so is that Sullivan just luuuurves himself some Obama and hates hates hates (as only gay men can...he is gay, right? He looked gay on Colbert) Hillary Clinton because she's a bitter and faded "Pied Piper" who senses that her prospects have diminished and she's on the cusp of irrelevancy (and that's why she's so uppity and "crazy" and, to Sullivan, who must be watching a different horse race, "desperate"). Up come all the leftover resentments for the 1990s Clintons, the visceral, intangible discomforts and qualms and things Sullivan can't put his finger on because they're just so, you know, like total or whatever.

I know why I hate George Bush. He's a lying, sociopathic idiot, and I have mountains of evidence to support my view. Real stuff, like his actual words, and deeds, and the consequences. Sullivan's hatred of Hillary Clinton begins and ends with, "yeah, everything in America was just fine, but I don't LIKE her, OK? Now agree with me!"

He wants every Democrat to embrace Obama instead of Hillary. Now, why would he want that? Maybe he really, really thinks Obama is the answer--the shining avatar for the "moderate" agenda he secretly pushes when he's not, you know, pushing George Bush as a cool experiment in government. Or maybe he thinks a black man is the least likely Democrat to get elected. Very sneaky.

Or, possibly, like Mike has been saying, Obama's message of unity, hope, and togetherness resonates with weak water GOP-ers who fear a Clinton presidency as condemned men fear the gallows. Maybe Obama really speaks to Republicans and erstwhile Bush faithful who think he's offering a pardon and a seat at the table.

In which case, double fuck that.

Take It Away, Fat Boy!

So Bush, et al, lied excessively on the way to Chimpy's Desert Adventure. I'm still slightly amused, if also psychotically angered, when people posing as "experts" bring up how they have *gasp* suddenly unearthed the proof that the war in Iraq is illegitimate. My God! How could we not have noticed that it was all just a house of bullshit-smeared cards?!

Where were these people back in 2001, 2002, and 2003? Inquiring minds want to know, because I recall clearly being pissed off about the stream of lies coming from Washington in the years leading up to the war. Transparent, silly, galling lies that only Congress and the press swallowed without complaint (what a time to have utter morons manning the battle stations in those two places, eh?).

So, you're late to the party, but the exact count is great and all. Except, of course, that giving an exact number invites scrutiny--especially from the Republicans who've made it their industry to challenge any and all assertions that go against them not on the merits but on technicalities. Stupid people--by which I mean, the average conservative citizen--don't think very well and are apt to believe that an entire argument is bogus if even one tiny detail is shown to be iffy. It's called rationalization, it's a defense mechanism people use to shield themselves from blame and uncomfortable self-analysis, and it's the cottage industry (what a big cottage!) of the right-wing dissemblers like Rush Limbaugh. I don't have the stomach (fat joke!) for him, but should anyone listen today, they will no doubt see that Fat Boy has decided to address this report head-on, as he must do with anything damning to the GOP or Bush, but can only pick at the details. His defense of lying may appear weak, but to people who can't and won't face their own culpability and basic small-mindedness, black hearts, and lack of Christian understanding, it will look like a masterful demolition of a "liberal attack" on the God-king, George.

Wisconsin Death Trip

Several years ago, I rummaged up an oversized book called Real Life: Louisville in the Twenties, by Michael Lesy. The cover photo is of an armored car surrounded by men in suits and hats, who appear to be standing still for the camera, and two policemen flanking a Santa Claus whose hat droops as much as his eyes and shoulders. He is hemmed in not only by the officers but also by five enormous sacks of mail. It is a bizarre and melancholy picture but poisitively fades away when one reads next to the author's name that he is the "author of Wisconsin Death Trip"!

Wow, said I, Wisconsin death trip! Bad ass!!

Desafortunadamente, the book--which is really just a collection of photographs Lesy found whilst himself rummaging around in the Midwest--costs too much for me to actually buy a copy. And, my library was fresh out. But que suerte! Netflix has a DVD by the same name and carrying the following description:

"In the late 1890s, the small town of Black River Falls, Wis., suffered its fair share of pestilence in the form of a diphtheria epidemic coupled with a lingering economic depression. But the worst was yet to come: Soon, the residents of the rural town began to collectively go insane. Via re-creations, old photographs and vintage newspaper clippings, James Marsh's documentary (narrated by Ian Holm) shows just how bizarre this true story really is."

To which I can say, after having seen the "film": bullshit! This movie, to start with, isn't about Black River Falls, WI, because within mere minutes of the narrator--a very suspect "Ian Holm"--making that claim, he begins to relate anecdotes about Kenosha, which last I checked, is over 200 miles away! This is not an isolated case of anecdote-slippage, either.

The larger problem with this movie, though, is that it isn't a movie. It's a slide show interspersed with silent actors miming the narrator's reading of newspaper clippings. None of the vignettes or photographs are connected to one another or to what we would call "real life" or "historical context," or what filmmakers might call "the plot."

The fiasco begins with the juxtaposition of an editor's celebratory scribblings regarding Black River Falls' history and development into the most perfect place on earth, and the historical facts of mine closures, diptheria's decimation of the youngest residents, and violent outbursts by transients, immigrants, and desperate residents. There is no attempt to sync these events in time, however, so the viewer must fabricate his own timeline (did the prosperity come first, and then the pestilence? Who knows...).

And then, just like that, the film skips blithely off to every corner of the Dairy Land, never pausing to pull away and set the scene or locate new subjects in time and space.

This is a short review. Then again, it was a short "film," short on everything: time, ideas, execution. If the same experience can be had reading the book (and I suspect it can!), then what the fuck right does this DVD have to exist?

Clinton Obama Who Cares?

Liberals are all twisted about the debates and the Internets are abuzz with foot-stamping and clucking that by a slim majority takes Hillary Clinton to task for being "mean." How encouraging. I don't give a flying fuck about anything short of the nomination and general election, but there are a few things here that bear examination.

First, Clinton is a mean person. And that's good. Policies don't get made from rainbows and breathy wishes and happy thoughts. Nor are they fought for and won by overly-serious, pedantic stiffs whose rhetoric of hope and unity is belied by their thoroughly uninspiring delivery. There's a real trick to be pulled off here: Clinton can make the streets run with blood if she can get elected; she could purge our government of the moronic lackeys of the held-over Republican Revolution and the Bush Era. But, can she win the election? She, after all, has a vagina, and that's strike one in America. She's also, as we have said, deemed "mean" by liberals who live in Harry Potter fantasy land. Bush is Voldemort, we get it. Slag off.

The biggest question, though, is what will become of Barack Obama. Personally, I am tired of his halting-yet-deliberate delivery and his Kerry-esque inability to make a point in less than 5 minutes. Voters have shown, twice, that they won't deliver super majorities to Democratic candidates who are long-winded, high-minded, and authoritative. Obama is frightening for two reasons: he speaks in platitudes and cliches, with no details backing the easy assumptions he leaves with his audiences; and his rhetoric of hope and unity feels for all the world like code-speak for "let bygones be bygones"--in other words, there is no reason, yet, to believe he would tear up, root and branch, the perverted government Bush will leave behind. Obama has to avoid the appearance of being an angry black man (again, because American culture demands it--thank you, Sidney Poitier!) and he expends so much energy keeping his voice calm and his smile plastered on his face that his words all come out as cliches as he lapses into a smirky monotone.

Hillary Clinton, it still seems, has too much baggage and too many enemies in the press corps to win the nomination. Barack Obama is too moderate and uninspiring to win an election. What to do, what to do?

Nader Hader

Ralph Nader is thinking about running again? What news! In other topics, the sky is blue, donuts are plentiful, and "The Daily Show" stopped being essential viewing long before the writers' strike.

Please, Ralph, pretty, pretty please: run again. That's right. Go with it. Get your name on all the ballots, make some campaign ads, challenge the Democrats and Republicans (but mostly Democrats--let's just be frank about this, yeah?) to stand up for your principles, whatever they are at the moment, and do your goddamnedest to become president!

At this time, in this race, you will get so thoroughly abused by the public, and you will garner so few votes ($100 says the final total is under 1 million) that you will finally become as politically irrelevant as you deserve to be.

I dare you, Nader. I fucking dare you.

3:10 to Cloverfield

What is it with American movies (and remakes of American movies from the 50s) that lately they insist on killing the main character(s) at the end? In the case of the Bale-ful (get it, because of Christian Bale? No? Fuck you.) remake of 3:10 to Yuma, the plot doesn't really allow for the good guy to die at the end--when he does, the film becomes a long shaggy dog story because everything you've just seen is deprived of meaning. But, it's totally, like, deep and stuff, man. Now please buy American movies, French people and critics! We've gotten rid of the happy endings you hate so much! Now, everybody dies!

Cloverfield, which could have been a solid monster movie, came to the same conclusion and really just completely pissed me off. What is this, When the Wind Blows?! Bunch of jerkoffs. I guess, since it had nothing to do with the movie, the writers got together and said, "what should we do with the main characters at the end? I mean, the monster is immortal, so humankind is fucked, but what about the two people the movie follows the entire time?" And then one of them said, "I have it! Let's kill them off in a really gay and sudden way, so that teenagers will all leave the theater like, 'whoa, dude. That was saaaaad.' and then they'll think the film is way better than it is because it doesn't have a happy ending!" And then they all got baked and went off to cash their giant paychecks.

You heard it here first: in every movie made in America, until further notice, the main character will die at the end. Don't try to read anything into that, it's just that directors and writers don't know what else to do to make people take them seriously.

Somebody's Late to the Party

FOX will, apparently, broadcast the Super Bowl interspersed with segments on the presidential campaigns. Why is this newsworthy? (The New York Observer, of course, is not a real "news"paper, but still.) The political parts, surely, will be slanted to the right, and I'm certain there will be allusions to Democratic candidates that suggest no faggoty liberal ever played football (for the record, none of the faggoty Republicans did, either).

The mashup of sports and politics is drawing the ire of people who (I assume) just want to watch the Super Bowl or a presidential debate, but not both. And some of the teeth-gnashing is coming from Democrats who just know that FOX is going to find a way to smear them. But here's the thing: the NFL has long been associated with a certain conservative demographic and post-9/11 all the games are sponsored by the Army or Marines. Football is war, boy! And the Republicans are the War Party, so what're you gonna do?

I'm going to watch the game, laugh with my friends, and marvel at how far the GOP and its Aussie pimp have fallen.

Only in Texas

This guy gets it: Bobby Knight is a fucking asshole and an embarrassment to sport.

One correction: I do believe that Pat Summitt, not Knight, is the all-time leader in Division I wins. That's right: women's basketball is still a first-class sport, despite all attempts to ghettoize and hide it.

(don't) Stop the Presses!

This douchebag has just written an article that, no doubt, will turn your world upside down. It's about politics and the South, and what's important when you blend the two. The piece is called--brace yourself--"Why Race Matters in South Carolina"!!!

Crackerjack reporting, sir! I hope you get paid, a lot, to recycle those tired ideas!

Slow Boat to Nowhere

So some goof in a speedboat buzzes a Navy ship and supposedly replies to the Americans' standard request to identify by saying, "In three minutes you will explode."

Is it just me, or are we not training our swabbies very well? Everybody knows the appropriate response to that jibe is, "yeah, that's what your sister said."

Get smart, dumbass!

MLK is the Israel of Black People

SC Congressman is mad that Hillary Clinton, a politician running for president, dared suggest that politics and presidents played a key role in passing the Civil Rights Act. You mean Martin Luther King didn't float down from Olympus on a zephyr and personally carve the CRA into marble with Zeus' lightning bolts? Get the fuck out!

Is this our new discourse, "Civil Rights belongs to black people and when you talk about it, you damn sure better mention black people first and foremost"? Some people will wonder if Kennedy's assassination, alone, would have been enough to get Johnson to push the Act, regardless of MLK. But then, I can speculate on that because I'm not running for president.

GOP Catfight

This debate is awesomely sucky. Huckabee is a moron, clearly. Romney is going down in flames, and his facial expression makes it look like he's got something sharp sticking him in the ass. Ron Paul makes sense, so he must be a loser. Poor guy. Giuliani literally cannot finish a sentence without saying "9/11". No surprise. Thompson is a nonstarter. McCain is a wiener and has a black bastard daughter (or at least George Bush told me he did).

All these bozos effectively denied that the President works for the American people. Many said things to the effect that they, if elected, would not pay attention to public opinion--in other words, this is not a democracy, but a dictatorship and they're running for dictator. Mitt Romney said that the government wants to take "your money," in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and give everybody healthcare--and that's baaaaaaad!! Except, most Americans favor government health insurance. So, what Mitt's saying is, "the majority of Americans have agreed that 'their' money should be used for this purpose. But, fuck 'em! Free market! Wooooooo!"

The punchline is that not one of these retards knows what a "free market" is, or should be, or has been. They only know they're supposed to say "free market" a lot, while giving the all-knowing knod and a thumbs-up sign to the camera (and the supposed legion of Reaganite mouth-breathers hanging on every word and coded reference). Mitt Romney said that banning reimportation of cheaper drugs from Canada is the free market in action!

I love that all these guys spent the whole debate tearing into one another, with no clear winner (except Ron Paul, who kicked ass but is a joke, so no one noticed his ass-kickery). Then, when some A-hole asked them all why people shouldn't vote for Barack Obama, none of them had an answer. In fact, most of them said what amounted to, "Obama is cool with me." This is a joke, right?

Clap. Clap. Boom!

I Grow Corn, I Pick Presidents

Iowa: an irrelevant or the most irrelevant US state? The simple fact that anyone gives a shit about Iowa at all in a presidential contest proves that Americans are fundamentally retarded.

Lethal Passage

I'm 50 pages into a book called Lethal Passage, by Erik Larson. It concerns a school shooting in 1988 and the central conceit (non-fiction) is that Larson traces the production, marketing, sale, and history of the gun used by a black teenager to kill one of his teachers at a Christian school in Virginia.

The book was first published in 1994, I think, and a large part of the early going concerns the ease of obtaining a firearm in the United States. As I read the book, I think I'll check to see how much of what struck Larson in 1994 is still true.

#1, in order to go to gun shows and get access to insider gun literature and discourse, Larson obtained a federal firearms license. He was a bit rattled by how easy it was to get the license, and to keep it despite not actually buying or selling any guns.

Turns out, getting and keeping the license is ridculously simple still. Stupid easy.

Also, Larson notes that the Consumer Products Safety Commission does not and never has kept statistics on gun injuries and fatalities--odd, since guns are the only consumer product not so monitored and are (obviously) the only consumer product intended specifically to cause injury and death. And today? Oops. And double oops. Good thing gun makers are so responsible and don't, like, sell guns that go off when dropped and stuff like that.

After not-too-careful thought, I can't think of a reason to own a gun, except, like SUV's, if everyone else has one and you can't trust people to be responsible (and you can't), then one almost has to get one, too, just to protect against the possibility of other people's recklessness. That makes no sense, but there it is.

Not Punny

Should have been titled, "Stumpin' Ain't Easy." What's with H. Clinton's frequent mentions of gender in contexts wholly irrelevant to national politics (caucuses being asinine and useless--the same being true of Iowa in general)?

Ryan Miller

No one but Scary Gary cares, but the SI article linked in the previous post actually says Ryan Miller, goalie to the Sabres (and they can keep him) is "the game's finest netminder." Now, maybe the writer of that column meant, "the best goalie in that one game," in which case bravo, Richard Deitsch, for noting that Ryan Miller is better than Ty Conklin (YouTube). A large cardboard box with a taped-on stick and a colander for a catching glove is better than Ty Conklin (print).

Ryan Miller, by the numbers:

17 wins (tie, 8th-best in NHL)
14 losses (tie, 2nd-most in NHL)
35 games played (tie, 3rd-most in NHL)
88 goals allowed (22nd among the 25 goalies with at least 25 games played)
2.52 goals-against average (19th)
.910 save % (21st)

There's no point here, really, except that I hate the Buffalo Sabres and Ryan Miller.

You can't spell "fucking debacle" without "NHL"

Maybe you could, but why not add the "H" somewhere? "Debac-hle" has a certain Scottish gruntiness. "F-uh-cking" is like puking and swearing all at once, with the hiccups. This would be better if it was spoken and not written, is the point.

If you were at home yesterday (and you were), you may have been reading a book or kicking your dog, or whacking it on an old Kerri Strug-cover TV Guide, but at 1pm, EST, you no doubt snapped to attention and said, "Oh. My. God. Hockey on now!" and ran to the TV and put on NBC, because you remembered, apropos of nothing, that the first-ever outdoor NHL game in America was about to start. And then, no doubt, you turned the TV off again, because you either remembered that hockey is not a sport anymore or you happened to be more than 5 seconds early tuning in and caught the end of the foundation makeup infomercial NBC was running before the hockey game. That's not a typo. Ten minutes to gametime and what are we seeing? Live shots of the stadium? Interviews? Those gay, "meet the man behind the man, you know, the gay one that all you women would like, if he wasn't so fucking gay, like Mike Bacsik" profiles of the players? No. It was an infomercial for women's cosmetics. Surely, though, all the curious viewers sat through that to get to the game. Surely.

And then, the magic: Buffalo. 30 degrees. Big, fat snowflakes. 70,000 people in a football stadium, with the nearest seats only 50 yards from the ice. (Wait...what?). Problems. Uh oh. F-uh-ck.

Oh, Mike Emrick and Eddie Olcyzk (vybrny) are calling the game. Emrick may be NBC's top hockey guy, but he has a voice like a cat whose tail is caught under a rocking chair; Eddie O. is just a doofus who can't keep a thought going. And, for extra fun, Darren Pang will be rinkside for analysis and observations--all of which you have heard before if you've played EA Sports' NHL 2002, 2003, or 2004. ("Oh, Doc, I thought that one was going in!" "That was a water-bottle rocker, there, eh!" "The post is the goalie's best friend!")

But before we can get this thing underway, there's the little matter of the anthems. We begin with that of Canadia, our whitest neighbor, because--wait a minute, neither the Buffalo Sabres nor the Pittsburgh Penguins is a Canadian team! Why are we doing this one? All the players, who were worried about keeping warm, have their helmets off and are standing still, losing heat. Good plan, NHL.

But the coup disgrace came next. This big, fat, Irish drunk fuck named Ronan Tynan waddled his drunk, fat ass up to the microphone and rambled something like this to the equally drunk crowd of Buffalonians: "A'm here ta do 'Gooooood Bless Amerdica,' an ah'v jus bean tew Af-gan-isss-dan ta see ar trups." (He meant "our troops"--"OUR"?? You're from Ireland, you stupid, jingoistic fuck!) He continued, "an ah jus want ta seay, thur ta best bunch ah trups in the hull wurld, an ah luv 'em, an ah'd be chuffed ta get fucked by enny wunuffem, ennytaym! Gooooo Buffalooooo! Kill, kill, kill!!!" This is the exact transcript of Ronan Tynan's remarks, and I dare him to sue me.

And then, Ronan Tynan, it turns out, is a famous singer of jingoistic, moronic pap, and he warbled out "God Bless America" as Blackhawk helicopters flew overhead. The crowd--once again, mostly stupid, drunk, fat, Buffalonians--loved it, and never once did anyone so much as wonder what black, military helicopters, God's blessings for our wars, or Irish, Mike Bacsik-esque queens have to do with a hockey game. I assume that, if the helicopters would fit inside, we'd be treated to this same dumbass display prior to every event in Buffalo. "And now, to honor America for no reason, without context, and unironically, here's Ronan Tynan and the US Army's 'Death from Above/Babykiller' unit to sing 'God Bomb the Brownies' before we open the Bedpan-liner Manufacturers' Convention of 2008!"

But back to yesterday. Whiskey McBeer finished slobbing America and handed over the mic to the actual anthem-singer who then did "The Star-spangled Banner"....no, he didn't. Instead, they just started the game. There was no US anthem at all. Don't you find that weird? It's like somebody said to himself, "Goddammit! If the Canadian anthem says, 'God keep our land glorious and free,' then we have to have some kind of God song for the US of motherf-uh-cking A! Screw the real anthem--FS Key didn't put the word 'God' in it, so it's out! Do we have a song that goes, 'Jesus and I used to dock our foreskins, now come on, SCOTUS, end abortions?' No? OK, how about something that rhymes 'hockey' with 'Rocky,' Rocky was played by Rambo, and so hockey = foreign wars and US awesomeness? No? What the fuck?! What DO people write songs about??! Oh, fine, we'll just do 'God Bless America'...but I want a big, fat, Irish drunk up there, somebody who'll make Mike Bacsik look respectable!"

But enough about Mike Bacsik. He's a loser, but the real loser here was the NHL. Contrary to what this Sports Illustrated columnist thinks, the game itself was a debacle. The ice needed major repair every ten minutes or so. The game, as a consequence, went an hour over its allotted time and by that point it's doubtful anyone was watching at all. The officiating, as usual, was bad (nice to know weather makes no difference), and just for extra "what??" factor, the NHL actually assigned local officials to work the game. As in, the refs were from the Buffalo area. Fair's fair!

So not only was the game up against 4 bowl games, not only was it preceded by an infomercial for women's face makeup, not only was the rink poorly-built and unsuitable for good hockey, not only was the city of Buffalo involved, not only was the game marred from the get-go by an inexplicable effort to tie militarism and imperialism to NHL hockey, not only was NBC's coverage poor and boring, but...well, actually that just about sums it up.

Hockey will always be a niche thing in the US. But it does all right as such. Showcasing the sport once a year is a fine idea--it might even draw new fans if done right. But yesterday's event was bullshit on its face and it pissed off this lifelong fan enough to turn off the TV. I'm pretty sure that's the opposite of what the NHL wanted. So, what the f-uh-ck?