I'm in a forgiving mood

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I don’t know whether it’s spring, fresh memories of holy Easter or my optimistic disposition, but I’m in a forgiving mood.

I forgive Michael Richards. Me and my sweetheart were watching him play “Cosmo Kramer” on his coffee table/coffee book tour for maybe the kajillionth time and it was as hilarious as it was the first time. He’s done so much to make me so happy so I forgive him for in 2006 calling a heckler the n-word. He’s withdrawn completely from performing and is said to still be haunted by the slip. It makes me sad that one rash moment has cast such a long, sorry shadow. Do you know he’ll be 70 in July? 70!

I forgive Kate Smith (1907-1986) for singing two tuneful ditties about “darkies” when she was a kid just trying to catch a break, as her defenders contend. And while I forgive her, I support the removal of her statue in Philly and the cessation of her taped recording at Yankee Stadium. Just because she’s a mere circumstantial racist doesn’t mean those sensitive to those meaningful issues should be taunted by the recollections.

I forgive you for pointing out how my first two acts of forgiveness involve me, a white man, exonerating two fellow white folks for offending millions of black ones.

I don’t forgive Tiger Woods. I thank him. Watching him win The Masters is something I’ll never forget. I love a great comeback. I don’t believe he needed my forgiveness for his cheating scandals. It’s none of my business and honestly there are many men who live vicariously through sex scandals like Tiger’s.

And I hope my wife is in a forgiving mood if she mistakenly believes I’m one of those sorts of scoundrels.

I forgive my darling daughter — and forgive me if the designation leads you to believe one daughter is more darling than the other — for saying I’m closed-minded. She wants me to, like the rest of this Marvel-mad nation,  go ga-ga for the “Avengers” movie. I just don’t like superhero movies. I tried sitting through my share and found them all tedious. I like stories about human beings being human. You know a movie I’m eager to watch again? “Nebraska” with Bruce Dern. I’d take that over any superhero film. So don’t bring it up again. My mind is made up. Hmmm … I guess my daughter is right. My mind is closed. Whoops!

Speaking of ga-ga, I forgive Lady Ga-Ga for wearing that stupid meat dress in 2010, and while we’re at it, I forgive Kanye West. I pay zero attention to him or his music, but I’m aware enough of him to be convinced he’s already today done something stupid that needs forgiving. So be it.

This one won’t be easy, but I forgive you, my friends, for insisting on putting your stupid political opinions on Facebook. It is utterly obnoxious. You’re losing friends every time you do it. So you’re forgiven, but cut it out! And please forgive me next time I fail to practice what I preach.

I don’t forgive O.J. Simpson nor any literary agents or publishers who so blithely promised they’d take steps to elevate my career then vanished. Now, I’m not equating a killer with professional promise breakers, but … but … Okay, I am. Killing someone’s dreams is pretty serious stuff.

I forgive David Chase for the finale of “The Sopranos,” Jim Leyland for October 14, 1992, Mick Jagger for “Primitive Cool,” “The Simpsons” for Poochie, and I forgive Pringles for getting so out-of-control with exotic flavors (Screamin’ Dill Pickle Pringles!) that it’s becoming near impossible to find Pringle-flavored Pringles.

You know who else I forgive? John Walker Lindh. Remember him? He was the “American Taliban” who in November 2001 was part of an Afghanistan prison uprising that led to the death of CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann, and more than 300 of the rioting enemy combatant prisoners. Lindh today is 38 and has spent nearly half his life in the Federal Corrections Institute in Terre Haute, Indiana. I’ve for the last few years believed he’d done enough time. Lo and behold, he’s being freed May 23. I feel neither elation nor fury, but hope he can use his experiences to positively influence other lost youth.

And what started light ends somber. I hope the abrupt shift hasn’t unsettled the serenity bestowed by true forgiveness, a graciousness we should all encourage.

If it has, I’m sorry.

Please forgive me.

Related …

I’ve forgiven Ben Roethlisberger

America needs snitch prayers

The radioactive n-word

Still waiting for an Iraq War apology

RIP James Gandolfini

Our new purse puppy

I knew we were going to get a dog. I just never dreamed we’d be getting the dog we did.

Surrendering to the inertia of a child pleading for a puppy is inevitable. A 9-year-old girl is so earnest and tells such sweet, convincing lies.

“I’ll be responsible. I’ll take care of it. I promise!”

We’ve had the dog four days and I’ll bet I’ve already spent a combined six pre-dawn hours standing outside encouraging an animal I barely know to move its bowels.

That’s a big part of pet ownership. You stand outside in all kinds of weather urging the dog to poop. And when it does you feel one of the oddest surges of true happiness.

Good doggie!

When the girls and their mom called and said they found a farmer who was giving away really cute puppies, I tried to picture the bright side, the side that didn’t involve hours waiting for a dog to poop or get done sniffing stuff it finds fascinating.

I thought of the companionship, the warmth, the wagging tale when you walk in the room.

I thought of our last dog, Casey, a sweet, loving golden retriever, with whom I spent countless joyful days playing frisbee. That dog could have joined the circus. He was a sturdy fellow and loved to lounge beside us in the front of the fire.

I certainly didn’t think of Snickers.

He’s part pug, part chihuahua, a parental pairing that sounds like the screwball premise for some canine rom-com.

He’s a purse puppie, the kind Paris Hilton uses as a fashion accessory.

This is a dog whose fangs will never seize a soaring frisbee. 

I keep referring to him with female pronouns. I can’t believe we’re the same gender. French poodles could bully lunch money from a dog like this.

Right now, we’re collectively failing at house training. We have the crate, know the ground rules, and are ever vigilant to its every twitch.

The problem is the dog does nothing but twitch. I fear it’s going to be high strung, not the kind to sit by fires, but the kind that starts them.

My wife’s upset the puppy doesn’t seem to be taking to house training. Every accident sends her into a frenzy of wipes, disinfectant and alien admonishments to a dog that still doesn’t really speak dog yet, let alone English.

Me, I practically bark with laughter, “You call that a crap!”

Right now, its tidy little turds and its thimble-sized bladder spills are to me the dog’s most endearing trait.

Everything about it is diminutive. Casey used to bolt from the yard and could be gone for hours.

Snickers could bust loose during the catchy theme to “True Blood” and I wouldn’t bother to pursue her, er, him, until the show’s bloody conclusion.

It would take him 20 minutes at a full sprint to make it to the curb.

I’m sure I’ll grow to love it. I made many of these verbatim complaints about Josie and Lucy when they were born, and I’ve grown to love them very much.

But right now he’s just a nuisance. I can’t stoop low enough to pet him without tipping over. 

He bites our toes. If any hoodlum breaks into house we have to hope he’s barefoot.

He’s so insubstantial I fear I’ll sit on him and confuse his death struggle for a mosquito bite I’m too bored to scratch.

(Another HBO plug: That very thing happened with Christopher Moltisanti on “The Sopranos.” He came home high and crushed the life out of Adrianna’s annoying little dog when he passed out on the couch, an ass-whacking which led to a comical intervention among the mobsters.)

So it’s just another layer on our summer of discontent. Good news has been evasive, we’ve warred over family functions, house projects and have spent this entire, scorching summer without air conditioning.

And now we’ve added a dog to our hot house.

I guess that makes Snickers the perfect fit.

This is one dog that will never be cool.

I’m so #@*%! sorry

It’s come to my attention that a certain number of impressionables are occasionally checking in on this blog and that means I’m going to regretfully have to renege on a previous promise.

When I was sketching out the likely future of these writings, I’d broadly hinted that they would contain lots and lots of profanity. There’d be, I’d said, ribald references, double and triple entendres, and the kind of straight blue profanity you hear in foxholes and on construction sites.

Not now.

I don’t want to risk corrupting any of the youth with language they’ve been warned repeatedly against using by austere authority figures at home, school and in their churches. Corrupting morals in the cyber way is such a tawdry business.

Especially as long as I still reserve the right to enjoy doing so in person. One of the great thrills of corrupting an innocent is seeing an alarmed and electric look steal across their faces when they realize that always being good isn’t always the only option. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to drop an unexpected f-bomb in an inappropriate place like, say, a classroom of higher education.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been asked to teach undergrad and grad journalism students at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. One of the first things I always do -- right after urgently advising them against having anything to do with journalism -- is to announce that the class will include profanity.

I do this because you can see the jolts of increased enthusiasm ripple through their postures. I may only do so two or three times the entire semester, but the announcement gives me a license to swear, sort of making me agent “Double Oh S---!”

I don’t know what it is about forbidden words that makes them so deliciously enticing, but that’s simply the case with so-called swear words and any of the other fruits we forbid. Just try watching the sanitized version of “The Sopranos” on A&E.

I cringe for the franchise whenever I see an enraged Paulie Walnuts about to ventilate some hapless bookie and having the puritanical censors dub in place of a stream of vicious profanity, “You bad stupid man!” before he commits a more ballistic sort of obscenity on the person.

Val and I are enormous fans of Seinfeld-creator Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” It’s loaded with wonderful, over-the-top profanity that always keeps us cackling.

Alas, it’s a topic with which our 8-year-old daughter, the product of two profanity-spewing parents, is beginning to struggle. She’s forever narcing on one or the other of us for saying words she’s apparently heard forbidden in the second grade.

For me, it’s been fun watching her learn about rudimentary profanity from her mother in traffic, her mother at card-gobbling ATMs, her mother running late and her mother whenever her father’s too hungover to do simple household chores like brush his teeth.

Two years ago she enlivened the Thanksgiving Day table by matter-of-factly announcing “The f-word rhymes with Chuck.” My white-haired mother’s reaction was as compelling as anything ever produced for “The Waltons.”

But I didn’t flinch. I’ve told her many times there are no bad words. There are only bad times to say some words like, for instance, right after the Thanksgiving meal blessing. Still, it dismays me to see our societal revulsion of some of these great, colorful words is so formidable that she is being coerced into thinking that some words are too powerful, too awful to ever be uttered.

To that I ask the universal question (but will paraphrase in keeping with my pledge to sanitize this forum), what the heck?

A perfectly timed blast of profanity is always a welcome addition to any otherwise stoic conversation. It frees up the minds. It expands the boundaries and bestows a sort of democratic camaraderie that brings noblemen and peasants to the same level.

For my part, I will continue to shout profanities from the rooftops, in the classrooms, on the golf courses, from atop my bar stool and anyplace where a single well-timed profanity might jar free men and women everywhere into realizing that we all lose when language is shackled to a caste system of good or evil.

Because the judicious use of profanity doesn’t denigrate man, it ennobles him.

I swear.