RRS: "Oh, Man(dy)! My night with Manilow"

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I once took a Mexican girl who barely spoke any English to see U2, an Irish band, in the Dixie town of Nashville.

It was a diversity extravaganza.

It was 1987. I remember meeting her at a party where the music was loud enough to mask our difficulties communicating. I remember doing a lot of smiling and nodding. She was very pretty.

Eager to spend more intimate time in her company, I told her I had two tickets to see U2 on “The Joshua Tree” tour. Did she like U2?

“Si!”

I don’t know if the party music and my attraction to her had exaggerated my impressions of her English, but whatever fluency she had vanished the instant I opened the car door for her.

In fact, the only word of English I remember her speaking the entire evening was at the very end when I asked if I could kiss her good night.

“No!”

I felt used.

It was the second time in six years a pair of tickets to a popular concert left me feeling that way.

And while U2 was a multi-cultural affair, the previous one was anything but. In fact, I remember it as the whitest night of my entire life.

Yes, in 1981 I attended a Barry Manilow concert at Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena.

My date was my father.

Manilow was here again on Friday for a well-reviewed show that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called “an escape into some kind of soft pop time warp.”

He played, “Old Songs,” “Can’t Smile Without You,” “Even Now,” “Trying to Get the Feeling Again,” “I Write the Songs,” and a score of other catchy hits from the 1970s.

And I love them all.

My musical bona fides are unimpeachable. My first album was Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” My first concert, Joe Ely opening for Tom Petty. I rocked back then to Seger, the Stones, Dire Straits and the Kinks. Still do.

But when Dad was driving us to early morning hockey practice, we’d often listen to Manilow. Had any other lip-reading motorists been paying attention, they would have spied us singing, “At the Copa! Copacabana! The hottest spot north of Havana!”

They were good times. My old man was the greatest.

But I was cool enough at the time to know Manilow wasn’t.

That’s why I was shocked to come home on Thanksgiving break from my freshman year at Ohio University to see that Dad had bought his young hockey fan two tickets -- not to a Pittsburgh Penguins game -- but to the Barry Manilow concert.

I still wonder if he was cunning enough to foresee exactly how it would all play out.

I remember sitting by the phone and coming up blank trying to think of the girl I could ask that wouldn’t respond with hysterical giggles. Manilow’s not exactly a great first-date icebreaker.

I certainly couldn’t ask any of the guys I know. The would all laugh me off the planet.

Well, all but one of them would.

And he was at that moment sitting in his recliner across the room immersed in “Bowling for Dollars.”

Uh, Dad, I was thinking . . .

“Sure! I’d love to go!”

There were many, many other male couples there that night, but I’ll bet out of the 17,532 Pittsburgh Fanilows, we were the only father/son duo.

Dad didn’t care one bit. In fact, he was euphoric.

Leaving the building, he kept gushing about how much he loved Manilow and how it was one of the greatest nights of his life.

I wish I’d have anticipated that reaction when he’d parked the car. See, Dad hated to pay premium prices for parking. This wasn’t a problem at many suburban venues.

But at sold-out Civic Arena shows that meant parking deep in the crime-ridden neighborhood known as The Hill District. That’s where Dad found a freebie spot amidst the abandoned vehicles and burned-out tenements.

I remember looking in the shadows for parolees ready to pounce. It was late on a school night, but no one was sleeping.

I know this because I kept seeing them look out their windows to see the middle-aged white man bouncing down the sidewalk singing:

“And it’s Daybreak! If you wanna believe!

It can be Daybreak! Ain’t no time to grieve!

Said it’s Daybreak! If you’ll only believe!

And let it shine! Shine! Shine! All around the world!”

As I said, I believe there’s a place for Manilow and his music. I just didn’t believe it was at midnight in the Hill District in 1981.

Of course, maybe I’m letting my prejudices get the better of me.

Maybe those young hoodlums were transformed by the sound of my Dad warbling Manilow’s greatest hits.

Maybe they set down their crack pipes and said, “Damn! You know, that old white dude’s right. It CAN be Daybreak!”

Whether or not it happened that way, I can not say.

But of this I’m certain:

If my date that night had been anyone other than my own Dad, I’ll bet I’d have gotten laid.

Related . . .

My 25 most played songs

Turn the Page: A Bob Seger salute

Cool/uncool music judged by . . . me!

“Hey Hey Johnny,” songs for dead celebs

Stones 50 best? ForGRRRt about it

For Boss fans only: A Springsteen career retrospective

RRS: This Easter, let's resurrect the name Judas

“Walking Dead” finale tonight and I thought about re-running one of those but, geez, what do zombies and the Easter season have in common? Besides, those zombie stories are just gross. So I opted for this '10 one about why it’d be advantageous for parents to name new males Judas.

Happy Palm Sunday!

Easter is the season when I’m always chagrined we didn’t have a son. By God, I’d have named him Judas.

One of the keys to succeeding in this life is simply to exceed expectations.

Being called Judas in the 21st century would ensure this. No name in history is freighted with worse connotations than Judas and that would forever work in the kid’s favor.

Fair-minded evaluators would say, “Naturally, I had my suspicions Judas was going to be a real turncoat, but I find him to be very trustworthy. I recommend we give him a raise. Let’s start with 30 pieces of silver and see if he counters.”

I’m always fascinated why some Biblical names -- Noah, Joshua, Samuel -- endure, while others do not.

I’ve never met an Obadiah, a Nahum or a Habakkuk and that strikes me as strange. The world is awash with so many religious fanatics you’d think at least a few of them would honor the obscure Old Testament prophets rather than name yet another child Bob or Pete. 

When Mr. and Mrs. Pilate named their son Pontius they had no way of knowing they were passing along a handle with would terminate with his historic misdeeds. I feel for them. They must have been busting with pride that their son had risen to be a powerful Hebrew governor.

Here in America, we’re always harping at politicians for doing what Pilate did: he slavishly followed the polls. Of course, our president with two Old Testament-sounding names is in trouble for doing just the opposite. Sometimes you just can’t win.

With Pilate, they should have just term limited the guy, not the name. Because when you think about it Pontius is a great sounding name. It should be in play. 

I think it would be fun for a family that was really into aviation to name a son Pontius and steer him into the airlines just so one day our routine flights from Pittsburgh to Charlotte could be enlivened by hearing the speaker crackle: “Hello, my name’s Pontius and I’ll be your pilot today . . .”

I’ve always loved the Elton John song, “Levon,” and am stirred by the line, “He called his child Jesus, ‘cause he liked the name.”

Levon’s Jesus aspires to go to Venus on a balloon. I try to never let the senselessness of the lyric interfere with my enjoyment of a really great tune.

There has to be scores of men named Joseph who’ve married women named Mary, but I wager not a one of them had the playful audacity to name a son Jesus. 

Too bad. A trio like that could start a dandy end-of-days cult and that’s where the real money is. Sex, too, from what I hear.

People of Spanish descent have no such sheepishness about naming males Jesus. They pronounce it with a joyful sounding “Hey! Zeus!” which always sounds like an informal shout out to a remote and powerful god with a human weakness for mortal women.

Kind of like Tiger.

Major League baseball is littered with Jesuses. The lowly Pittsburgh Pirates organization has a bunch of them, including Jesus Brito whom we acquired in January from the Cleveland Indians.

And, get this, Jesus Brito was born in 1987 on December 25. I’m not kidding.

I don’t care whether this Jesus can walk on water or not. I’ll be happy if he can bat a measly .280 with runners in scoring position.

I like to think one day I’d be at the ballpark when some Jesus turns water into wine, but I know cheapskate owner Bob Nutting would spoil the miracle by charging $7.50 for a 4-ounce plastic cup of the stuff.

I have so little faith in the Pirates organization that I know if this Jesus ever gets good my buddies and I will scornfully recall the day we traded a guy named Jesus who was born on Christmas Day for two has-beens and a player to be named later.

But back to Judas. He’s enjoying something of a renaissance. Biblical scholars are saying Judas was really Jesus’s BFF and the only one the Nazarene could trust to fulfill scriptural destiny.

How they divined this, I have no idea. Maybe Judas had a Facebook page no one’d ever bothered to check.

Of course, my name has a powerful Biblical connection.

I am Christ-opher.

Before I’d bothered to look it up, I’d always assumed the “Christ” meant “Messiah” and “opher” meant “who toils in blogger obscurity,” and I was only living up to half the bargain.

In actuality, it means “one who bears Christ in his heart.”

That pleases me.

Still, I think I’d have done better associated with the worst name in the Bible, rather than the best.

And, hell, it’s been ages since anyone’s offered me a cash equivalent of 30 pieces of silver to do anything.

RIP Maya Angelou & the world's greatest poem

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I made a joke to my buddies when the news came on that Maya Angelou, 86, had died. I said, “Is she the one who wrote the poem that begins, ‘I once knew a man from Nantucket . . .’”

It was a very cheap and tasteless joke at the expense of a revered woman of tremendous international consequence.

Still, I made it because it’s funny and that’s the whole point of making jokes.

I always feel bad any time a famous poet dies because I have no appreciation for famous poetry.

Of course, a famous poet dies only once every 25 years so the occasion rarely troubles me. It’s not that being a famous poet guarantees one near-immortal longevity, it’s just that so few poets ever become famous.

Now that Angelou is gone, can anyone name another famous poet?

I tend to think of poets as being lyricists too lazy to learn guitar.

Try this punctuation-free poem:

Madmen drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat

In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat

With a boulder on my shoulder feeling kinda older I tripped the merry-go-round

With this very unpleasing sneezing wheezing the calliope crashed to the ground

If my 13-year-old daughter read that aloud to me for an honest critique, I’d gently advise her to seek career opportunities in the math or science fields because as poems go that one just kind of sucks.

Of course, fans know those are the first four lines from the first song of the very first album Bruce Springsteen ever released. It’s “Blinded by the Light” from 1972.

It makes me feel utterly joyful. Not so much because of the haphazard slapdashery of the words, but because I instinctively hear the guitar melody that is going to propel me through the whole song until it is finally revealed to Mama where the fun is.

It’s 5 minutes 4 seconds of pure euphoria.

But try reading it without the music skipping through your head. As poems go, it’s a mess.

One of the things I sense many poets like about writing poetry is that there are no rules. You can say what you want how you want.

That’s going to change if one day I’m every put in charge of poetry, a position that, I’m sure, would pay only slightly less than hometown blogger.

First of all to me a poem must rhyme. If it doesn’t rhyme then to me it’s just talking without discipline and even toddlers and mumbling drunks can do that.

And a good poem should be short and easy to remember.

That’s why to me the greatest poem of all-time is by an unknown savant who was probably paid minimum wage by some mom ’n’ pop operation looking for a way to remind its customers to be do their job for them.

It is . . .

Be kind, rewind

Bask in that for a moment. It’s concise. It’s informative. It’s memorable. It suggests action.

And, boy, that son of a bitch really, really rhymes!

I swear nothing Shakespeare’s ever done comes close.

The fact that convenient advances in home movie viewing has now made it incomprehensible to two generations of tech-savvy kids does nothing to diminish its impact.

Angelou’s death did give me an opportunity to look up what I’ve been missing and it’s been a lot. Check out some of these magnificent lines: 

 • “The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”

• “Try and be a rainbow inside of someone’s cloud.”

• “I’ve learned you shouldn’t go through life with catcher’s mitts on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.”

• “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but no one will ever forget how you made them feel.”

Aren’t those beautiful? I particularly like the last one.

Isn’t it a pity I didn’t know they existed until the day after she’d died? I should have been following her on Twitter instead of former SNL funnyman Kevin Nealon.

But don’t blame me. She’s the one who decided poetry was the best vehicle to spread her ideas.

Imagine her renown if she’d have years ago attached her soulful gifts to someone who could compose a snappy tune?

I’m thinking of the guy famous for singing often inarticulate lyrics like these:

Oh! Candy and Ronnie! Have ya seen ‘em yet? Oh, but they're so spaced out!

B-B-B-Benny and The Jets

Oh! But they’re weird and they’re wonderful. Oh, Benny, she’s a really keen

She’s got electric boots! A mohair suit! Ya know I read it in a maga-Zeeennn!

Oh, ho! B-B-B-Benny and the Jets!

Cut me open and I’ll bleed Elton John/Bernie Taupin songs. It’s a key part of my musical DNA. But Taupin’s a very mediocre lyricist whose reputation is elevated because he happened to pair himself with a genius.

But the honors that will flow forth when Taupin dies will in some ways equal those bestowed on the truly great Angelou.

Lesson?

Kids, if your soul yearns to compose poems, take the time to learn how to at least plunk out a tune on a piano or a guitar. Give yourself a chance at glory, acclaim, adulation and a decent living.

Or maybe get your hands on a book by the great Shel Silverstein and see how one of the most under appreciated poets/artists of the last 100 years did it. And he’s one of the very few who did it all.

That’s enough from me today. I’ve got to start planning next week’s blog topics.

There once was a man from Latrobe

Whose blog was ignored ‘round the globe

He took a shot at a poet and wouldn’t you know it

The remark made it clear he’d been intellectually disrobed

Related . . .

My absence/their fonder hearts

The Springsteen show and when music mattered

Daughter, 7, says God is dead: Is Elton to blame?

Weeping for big box bankruptcies

My wife for president

Youth hockey league in hot water over icing anthem

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Disclaimer: I posted this and immediately heard from a disgruntled friend who hates this one. He doesn't like the Nazi reference or the contention that too much patriotism can be, as I say, tedious. He said this one wasn't one of my best. I agree. I appreciate any reader who holds me to a high standard and will try and keep his or her fair complaints in mind. I hope you'll stick with me through low spots like this. So . . . you've been warned. Read at your own risk. CR

A western Pennsylvania controversy has erupted that is defying the laws of nature. Yes, there’s a firestorm on ice.

A local youth hockey league is trying to save money by telling its teams to cease “Star-Spangled Banner” pre-game performances. They want to eliminate the anthem because ice time is expensive and overly long anthems have meant games ending with time still on the clock.

People are furious.

This is especially important to me because I was once a participant in that very league. Hockey was our game. I played on all the traveling all-star teams and was captain of my high school team.

Yes, when I was a boy, I was the man.

When I heard the news I was surprised they were singing the national anthem there at all. They never did it before games when I was a kid.

In fact, the song I remember them playing during our warm-up skate was Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” which really psyched us up. We teenagers loved the song and all believed, man, that Elton John kicks ass. He must be one really macho dude.

Here’s what I think I’d have thought if they’d have swapped the ballsy rocker for the national anthem: “Man, this is so boring. Nobody’s even singing. I don’t know why they make us do this. Just drop the puck so we can play.”

I’m always wary of what I call patriotic creep. We’ve seen it with flag pins, the pledge of allegiance and various patriotic ditties.

The world becomes awfully tedious when you spend your time trying to out-patriot the next guy. Since 9/11, baseball for instance added the singing “God Bless America” to many games during the 7th inning stretch.

The controversy is occurring while I’m enjoying Erik Larsen’s outstanding “In the Garden of the Beasts,” about William E. Dodd’s tenure as U.S. ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937. It was an era where the Nazi seed began to beanstalk and inflict its insanity on every aspect of daily life in Berlin.

It became mandatory that everyone greet one another with the “Seig Heil!” salute and any display of patriotic devotion had to be observed with joy and reverence. If someone turned their attention from a storm trooper parade to smile at a beguiling bird, the storm troopers would break ranks and without fear of repercussion smash the nature lover over the head.

Soon, people were being judged on their patriotic fervor and secret police were making midnight visits to those who’d been deemed by neighbors with grudges as being insufficiently patriotic.

Of course the two have nothing to do with one another, but I thought I’d mention it to show my historical gratitude I wasn’t a smart ass blogger in Berlin 79 years ago.

If I had to pick, I’d come down on the side of my old league ditching the anthem. But I sense an opportunity for compromise. How about this?

Focus on the singer, not the song. Each singer must agree to sing the song in under 30 seconds.

I just timed myself and on the first try made it through in 23.7 seconds.

Too many anthem singers believe they are auditioning for a big record deal. Loved ones film the performance for YouTube posterity and the singer is encouraged to  emote, pout and extend every note beyond its melodic stability.

It should be played like a polka.

Or maybe instead of pretty young singers, we could use crusty barn auctioneers sure to keep it snappy.

I think that’s a great compromise and would be acceptable to the traditionalists, more so than my secondary proposal, I’m sure. That being sing only every other word:

“Oh! can see the early

What proudly hailed the last

Whose stripes bright thru perilous

O’er ramparts watched so streaming

And rocket’s glare bombs in

Gave thru night our was there

Oh! does star-spangled yet

O’er land the and home of brave?

That would cut in half the time of every single rendition, and the mind has a way of filling in the blank spaces, an exercise that would help increase the mental agility of the your typical boneheaded sports fans without forcing them to do things like Sudoku or Jumble.

Or how about this? Let’s go back to the original intent. 

Woodrow Wilson in 1918 ordered it played when the flag was raised during military ceremonies.

I like the idea of changing tradition and having the flag raised prior to games. It would be dramatic. Plus singing the song could be a way of saying, “Hello flag! You look great! Nice to see you!” which I think would make the flag feel good.

And let’s have a rule where the anthem won’t be played at any sporting event where the players outnumber the spectators.

So please help spread these common sense solutions so we don’t have to go through this again.

I wouldn’t want to have to go all Elton John on anyone's ass.

And that threat would have had a vastly different meaning back when I was playing hockey.

Related . . .

• I pledge allegiance to the pledge of allegiance

• C’mon America! Let’s all sing the national anthem!

Randy Travis & the perils of driving while naked

News that Randy Travis was arrested for driving drunk and naked had one reporter wondering if “he’s hit bottom,” an interesting turn of phrase about a man ready for a good spanking.

It had me thinking, man, there’s something I’ve never done.

And I’m talking about the driving naked bit.

In fact, there’s more. It turns out the country singer -- and I’m a big fan -- tried to buy cigarettes naked.

That’s something else I never dreamed of doing. Don’t you need pockets for that sort of thing?

At the minimum, he’d be holding keys, a wallet, a lighter and probably a smart phone. Even people like me who often consider pants a nuisance have to admit pockets add a certain utility to daily life.

I have some great memories of being naked in a car, but none of them involve driving solo to fetch groceries.

Or I should say “nekkid,” the difference being, according to the late great Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard, that “naked is being without clothes; nekked is being without clothes and up to something.”

The best of it was in high school some 30 years ago. Me and my friends were avid skinny dippers.

We weren’t the most popular kids, but we always managed to find a few young pretty girls reckless enough about their reputations to want to hop a fence with us and sneak into someone’s backyard pool for a little illicit fun.

Some of the happiest times of my life involve being a proud father. Some of the others involve trespassing naked in the backyards of vacationing strangers.

Cruel age can steal my wits, my mobility and all my earthly possessions, but I hope it never robs me of my memories of what happened during those adolescent romps. I’ll be a happy old man, a happy, dirty old man.

So as you can surmise I bring a sympathetic point of view to Travis’s escapades.

But I’m having trouble understanding what kind of fun you’d have driving around Texas nude and looking for smokes.

I try to put myself in his shoes. Understand a strict constructionist would say for him to be truly naked, he wouldn’t even be wearing shoes.

Not me. I think sensible footwear is a necessary part of doing many fun things in the nude, other than the obvious ones that are done nude and mostly horizontal.

I can see myself walking into a Texas mini-mart nude, maybe on a dare, but I can’t see myself walking fully-clothed but barefoot across the gum and butt-studded parking lot of one. I have sensitive feet.

Then there’s this: Travis threatened the arresting officers saying he would “shoot to kill.”

Was he packin’?

Again, a pocket would have probably enhanced the threat. Either he was wearing an unreported holster or else he was using his finger gun, which would make it one of the world’s most entertaining dash-cam videos ever.

Anyone remember my stories last summer about National Nude Recreation Week?

I learned a lot about nudie fun and much of it stayed with me. For instance: a game of 8 Ball played between two naked men is still called 8 Ball.

I also learned that nudists like to say they’re most comfortable in their own skin.

So, given my personal and professional experience, I know a thing or two about public nudity.

None of R.T.’s episode strikes me as recreational fun.

As I said, I’m a big fan. He was king of Nashville in the late 1980s when I was a young reporter there.

He raised eyebrows in 1991 when at 32 he married his manager, Lib Hatcher, a woman who was 16 years his senior. The pair divorced in 2010.

The speculation may be rash of me, but I believe Travis might be what I call a “slomosexual,” a person who devotes his or her life to the self-proclaimed virtues of public heterosexuality before finally coming to grips with their true sexual identity.

I suspect Travis’s troubles stem from a fear his mostly conservative fans will turn on him if he’s honest about what’s bothering him.

I suggest he seek advice from Elton John, another popular entertainer who in the mid-1980s participated in a sham marriage that lasted just a bit longer than “Benny and The Jets.”

It saddens me when someone like Travis, who’s made so many people, can’t find happiness himself.

Let’s hope with this he has hit bottom, so to speak.

And that a man who’s now enduring ridicule for being naked will find a way to finally be comfortable in his own skin.

Steelers lose; Tebow amazes

The Scriptural implications of the Steeler loss are too immense for me to tackle here, especially in the wake of an afternoon full of poor tackling.

So instead of a typical post, I’m going to open the floor up for questions.

And wouldn’t it be fun if anytime anyone said they were going to open the floor for questions, the floor actually opened up and all the questioners fell screaming to Hell?

Anyhow, the floor is now open for questions: watch your step.

Q: How depressed are you over the Tim Tebow-led Bronco upset of your hometown Steelers?

A: Hardly at all. It was an outstanding football game. The Steelers have won six Super Bowls in my lifetime and will surely win again. As a fan, my cup runneth over -- and so do the three Stanley Cups and I’ve seen the Penguins win. I refer you to last year’s take when the Steelers lost to Green Bay in the Super Bowl if you’re interested in my thoughts on disappointment.

Q: Your thoughts on Tebow throwing for 316 yards, a numeric reminder of his favorite Bible passage, John 3:16?

A: Love it. It’s a nifty reminder of the Bible’s most beautiful promise: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Let me be the first to point out that the final score could refer to Proverbs 29:23, “A man’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.” I interpret that to mean monster Iowa offensive tackle Reilly Reiff will still be available when the Steelers draft 24th.

Q: Do you have any opinion on the complicated new NFL overtime format?

A: It’s my understanding that it’s no longer sudden death and that both teams get a shot at scoring unless they don’t. The format took four times longer to explain than the actual overtime took to play. It proves once again the NFL is ruled by people who love rules.

Q: Are there any historical precedents for Tebow’s feat?

A: Yes, two. The first is Franco Harris’s 1972 Immaculate Reception; and the 1984 “Hail Flutie” pass that allowed Doug Flutie and Boston College to beat the University of Miami. The Tebow play has the same sort of indelible wow feel. It’s the heart of what makes watching sports so special.

Q: What about the Tebow naysayers? None has been more critical than one of your favorite old Steelers, Merrill Hodge. What would you say to him?

A: His mea culpa should be public and along the lines of an obscure old Don Schlitz country song called, “Six Words.” It’s about what a married man should say when he’s been caught redhanded making a terrible mistake: “I’m an asshole. It’s my fault. I’m a worthless slug in deed and thought. I’m so grateful deep down I got caught . . . ‘cause I’m an asshole and it’s my fault.”

Q: A little harsh on Hodge, aren’t you?

A: No, harsh will be what he experiences when he walks through every restaurant or airport for at least the next four months. His criticisms of Tebow seemed bitter, petty and somehow personal. What good would sports be if we didn’t allow for the possibility that sometimes magical things can happen?

Q: Are you saying what happened with Tebow was magic or miraculous?

A: What I’m saying is the Lord moves in mysterious ways. And so does Tebow whenever he’s flushed from the pocket.

Q: Still don’t think he’s a skilled quarterback?

A: There are times he looks with a football like I look when confronted with a question involving math: he’s confused, he looks like he needs help, he acts as if he’d like to toss the thing in the air and run the other way. But that just makes it that much more entertaining when he completes an actual pass, sort of like when I can calculate a tip without electronic assistance.

Q: Did Tebow beating the Steelers inspire you to hum any spiritual hymns?

A: No, but I can’t get “Pinball Wizard,” the Elton John version, out of my head. I think we can all agree when it comes to football, that deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.

Q: Still think there’s a chance that Tebow might be Jesus, as you wrote two weeks ago?

A: I’m not saying one way or the other, but I hope my graciousness in defeat will be something he’ll remember on Judgement Day.

Q: Well, that’s a surprisingly Scriptural take from you on a football game. Anything else?

A: Yeah, remember that John 11:35 verse, “Jesus Wept?” It has me wondering if He bet the Steelers.

Q: So I’m to take it you’re rooting for Tebow and the Broncos to beat the Patriots?

A: Certainly, and for ironic balance I’m hoping in victory he throws for precisely 666 yards.