Change Patriots name to the Boston Corbetts

(635 words)

I don’t want the Patriots to win, but if they do I hope someone sneaks onto the field and replaces all the Gatorade with vats of boiling oil.

I tweeted that last week and an alarmed reader wrote that, gee, a guy as nice as I couldn’t possibly harbor such malicious thoughts.

The exchange shows there’s a growing gap between my on-line persona and the one that sneaks out when its animal instincts are provoked.

It’s like the title line from great Robert Earl Keen song, “I only use my guns whenever kindness fails.”

Mike Wilbon of ESPN, one of the few non-meathead network voices I respect, said the Patriots should have to forfeit the game. I think he was being hyperbolic, but I love it that serious commentators share my excessive hatred.

Others have said either Belichick or Tom Brady should be suspended.

That, too, seems extreme. Unlike the Patriots, most of us want to see a game where a fair-and-square winner is determined.

But if it is proven they are guilty of cheating — and sensible fans like me and the millions of others who root for the Pittsburgh Steelers and all that’s good and moral in the world — there needs to be some lasting consequence.

Here it is: the New England Patriots should be ordered to change their names.

So what would we call them?

The New England Cheaters? That’s too blunt and would alienate what is a strong fan base, albeit a misguided fan base that for the past 14 years has been cheering for cheaters anyway.

The New England Deflaters? That would likely inspire a slew of dandy mascots, but it wouldn’t sell jerseys and that’s what the NFL these days is all about.

You can think of pejorative options all day and not beat the one I hereby bestow.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you The Boston Corbetts!

This is so joyfully deft, so situationally perfect, it can’t be beat.

See, a Corbett isn’t a thing. It’s a real man.

Well, he was for the first 26 years of his life.

Born Thomas P. Corbett in London in 1832, he eventually moved to Boston, where he became forever synonymous with the city he loved.

Corbett didn’t deflate his balls.

He severed them! With rusty scissors!

I’ve never examined the document, but I have to imagine Roger Goodell addresses the infraction in the NFL player code of conduct.

But let’s not get all snippy.

Corbett is the man who killed the man who killed Abraham Lincoln. He’s maybe my favorite oddball historical character. He grew up with two obsessions: Jesus Christ and Boston prostitutes.

And because the two could not abide, he castrated himself to eliminate corporal temptation from his life. He eventually joined the Union Army which, I guess, was years away from implementing Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.

The full story (first link) was for years my most popular post and it gives all the gory details. I expect it’ll enjoy a burst of popularity April 26, the 150th anniversary of the day Corbett killed Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.

Now, Corbett had been ordered to not shoot Booth, but Corbett said he disobeyed because God told him to. And for this Corbett was hailed as a hero across the nation.

I’d love to see the reaction if Brady says that’s why he did it.

It’s looking like he and the Patriots are going to weasel out of any real punishment for what is looking more and more like a significant infraction.

And if that happens I propose another name change, this one for Roger Goodell and his precious shield he’s all about protecting.

It should be the National Eunuchs League.

Because if he doesn’t punish the Pats, Goodell will be the one without any balls.

Related . . .

Boston Corbett: America’s Greatest Eunuch!

Civil War-gasm for Gettysburg re-enactors

Pro football’s a bore; here are five ways to save it

NFL not rich enough: needs throw-forward jerseys

America needs an all-gay NFL team

The Baltimore Rays & the NFL’s ongoing disgrace

Thoughts on the Super Bowl

I believe I’m deserving of acclaim for having gone the past two weeks and not once mentioning the Super Bowl. In fact, other than a tweet announcing my phone number in Roman Numerals is DCCXXIV CMLXI MMDLVIII, I haven’t really thought about it.

But I fear if I don’t write something about the game, the NFL might revoke my blogging license and I’ll lose out on all these great blogging perks. So let’s ensure that doesn’t happen by filing some scattergun thoughts as the hype ascends to unbearable levels.

• I'm filled with dread knowing something I've avoided for 30 years is bound to happen in scant hours. Yes, I'll watch Madonna perform. Super Bowl halftime acts should be like host cities. We should just go back to the greats again and again. That means Petty, McCartney, Stones, Springsteen each get to play once very five or six years. And I get to pick who performs, which means every two or three years you get a Lucinda Williams, a Todd Snider or Robert Earl Keen.

• Tom Brady keeps making it easy to hate him. This week it was leaked that his supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen had written a sappy note to family and friends asking them all to pray that Tommy does well and leads the Patriots to victory. I'll pray that every Haitian refugee wins their first Super Bowl ring before I pray Tom Brady wins his fourth.

• The high in Indianapolis tomorrow will be about 44-degrees, or about 25-degrees cooler than it will be in New Orleans. Nothing against, Indy, but if I’m going to a Super Bowl, I want to see flowers, outdoor dining and be able to stroll around in short sleeves. The Super Bowl will be in New York City in two years. How long before it’s in Buffalo?

• Why not homeboy John Mellencamp in Indy instead of Madonna? My wife and I saw him with Dylan and Willie Nelson a few years ago. Didn’t know what the expect. The man rocks. He’d be perfect.

• The next step in halftime entertainment will be to project holograms of dead icons. And that will be magnificent. I’m thinking a 70-foot Elvis singing, “Hound Dog.”

• Something tells me this game will be remembered for a really bad call and it’ll involves a Giant defender hitting the Lady Brady just a tad too hard.

• How come Elton John’s never been asked to perform halftime duties? He’s only the most popular and beloved performer on the planet. I’m loving him as much for being so provocative and honest as for all his indelible music. When asked what he thought Madonna should do on Sunday, he advised, “Try not to lip-synch too badly.” A few years ago he described Keith Richards as resembling an “arthritic monkey.” The bitch is back? The bitch never left.

• The only reason I’m happy Pittsburgh got bounced from the playoffs was because it spars us from seeing our idiot mayor participating in those ridiculous inter-city bets the media for some reason feel obliged to cover.

• I’m surprised Bundchen’s note didn’t reveal she spells her husband’s name “Tawmmi” with a little smiley heart dotting the i.

• Other great future hologram performers: Sinatra, Tina Turner, Chuck Berry, James Brown and one day, yes, The Beatles. Mark my words, if there’s a rock ‘n’ roll heaven, one day they’ll reunite on stage at the Bridgestone Super Bowl Halftime Show. It’s bound to happen.

• I hope the Giants so relentlessly and fiercely pursue Tawmmi that he visibly wets his pants and the stain reveals he pees pink.

• My prediction: Giants 27, Patriots 17. Wake me when it’s over.

The forgiveness of forgetfulness

I’m not saying this in an attempt to be funny, but I’d made a mental note to read a Yahoo story last week about memory loss and it slipped my mind.

Completely forgot about it.

Human memory has been on my mind for two months since I danced through the memory minefield that is the 30th high school reunion. I am amazed by the variations of our recollections from those heirloom days.

For instance, one girl, a good friend of mine, said the thing she remembers most about me is that I was never without a big wad of snuff tucked into my lip.

Funny, I said, because I didn’t remember you being insane. I’ve never once in my life had a even a pinch of snuff in my mouth.

Yet, her enduring memory of me is I was the friendly kid with the tobacco spit dribbling out of his smile.

How odd is that?

Then there was the good buddy of mine who’s spent the past 35 years attributing one of my greatest pranks to someone else.

It was Miss Picci’s 8th grade chorus class. We were walking in line from the basement class to the first floor auditorium. She was on DefCon 4 to make sure we all behaved.

Now, there’s a woman who could have used a soothing dip of Copenhagen.

Me, Doug and the other troublemakers were in the front of the line so she could keep an eye on us. It was like a miniature version of one of those perp walks you see on the news.

I waited until we got to the big heavy doors at the stairway. I gave the door a mighty yank straight into my kicking boot. It echoed like a thunderclap.

Miss Picci turned with a look of startled horror in time to see me grasping my head with both hands and moaning, “Why, Doug? Why?” right before I began faking concussion-like symptoms.

I’ll never forget what happened next. She lit into poor Doug like she wanted to kill him. Said she never did like him. Said he was no good. That I was always her favorite. That he couldn’t sing a lick and that she’d see he’d get suspended for a month if what he’d done had ruined my handsome young face.

See, my recollections are crystal clear.

Yet, when I overheard Doug telling the story of this Hall of Fame-worthy prank . . . he said it was Schwartz!

An outrage. The slight made me want to drag him to the stairway hall door and make like Joe Pesci on his head.

That wasn’t even the worst of it.

No, that was the girl I remember from her sexy jungle girl suit.

I was standing alone at the bar when she walked up. I have an indelible memory of her wearing the outfit to her 1980 Halloween party to which she’d invited me.

I glanced at her nametag and said hello.

She looked at my name tag and dismissively said, “I have no idea who you are!”

I’m sure it wasn’t her cruel intention to make me feel like a nobody, just as it wasn’t my intention to make her feel like a slut when I said, “Sure you do. You invited me to your Halloween party our senior year. You wore that skimpy little Tarzan outfit. I wore a diaper and dressed like a big baby. We made out at midnight beneath the pool table in your basement. Remember?”

She did not. In fact, I think the clarity of my recollection upset her because she began backing away without ordering a drink and avoided me the whole rest of the night.

The reason we forget chunks of our silly pasts is because our minds are forever being refreshed by new memories.

Our minds in high school are canvasses yet to be colored.

Back then, I didn’t have things like kids, anniversaries, the complete rosters of five new world championship Pittsburgh teams and the lyrics of 248 songs by Robert Earl Keen and Todd Snider important enough to commit to memory.

You know now that I think about it, maybe I did have a dip or two of snuff back in high school. Maybe it is my memory that’s off because, yeah, that Schwartz kid was damn funny.

And, if memory serves, maybe I was wrong about the girl in the Tarzan suit.

Maybe it wasn’t her after all.

Must have been her mom.

A rooting fan's guide to baseball playoffs

This, my favorite sports season of the year, is being sullied by love. The four remaining baseball teams representing four cities are each appealing in their own ways.

I have no one to hate.

Despite signs of promise, the The Pittsburgh Pirates for the 19th year in a row have failed to make the playoffs (nostalgia note: it was 51 years ago today that Bucco Bill Mazeroski hit the most famous home run in baseball history to beat the N.Y. Yankees in the World Series!).

So without a home team to root for, I need an artificial reason to cheer for a city that is deserving of riotous celebrations and property damage.

It would be simpler for me if the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs were contending because I could reflexively root for their opponents.

I hate the Red Sox because their fans raced from lovable losers to obnoxious winners in near record time. And I hate the Chicago Cubs for reasons detailed in this 2008 post I deftly titled “I hate the Chicago Cubs.”

The baseball playoffs are down to the St. Louis Cardinals vs. the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Detroit Tigers vs. the Texas Rangers. Let’s break ‘em down:

One of my favorite literary characters, Capt. Augustus McCrae was a Texas Ranger in "Lonesome Dove," so they have that going for them. Plus, most of my favorite music has Texas roots. Joe Ely, Steve Earle, Delbert McClinton, Robert Earl Keen, Ray Wylie Hubbard are all Texas true. But despite his preppy upbringings that always makes me suspect he’s a closet Red Sox fan, so is George W. Bush. If Texas wins, it’ll make Bush happy, so they’re out.

They’re playing the Detroit Tigers. What American doesn’t root for Detroit? Detroit welcomed my fellow Steeler fans with open arms when it hosted our 2006 Super Bowl victory. The retro ballpark, which I’ve been to, is a dandy. If they beat the Rangers, it’s likely they’ll have Bob Seger sing the national anthem and I love Seger. Plus, them winning keeps alive my opportunity to tell the story about how Detroit used represent the USA in the world’s only international tug of war. In what should inspire an Olympic competition, they used to string a stout mile-long rope across the Detroit River between the city and neighboring Windsor. If Detroit wins I promise to share my promotional efforts to organize a trans-Atlantic tug-of-war between America and Europe. Go Detroit!

St. Louis is one of the few great American cities I’ve never been to. But my very good friend, Angelo Cammerata has. He’s the world’s longest serving bartender and the folks at Anheuser-Busch rolled out the red carpet for him 2007. They gave him box seats at a Cardinal game and introduced him to the roaring crowd on the Jumbotron. I like it when a city showers the people I care about with cheer and warmth.

But I like it even better when they do that with me. And that’s what happened in Milwaukee. In the fall of 2008, the whole state of Wisconsin treated me like I was Big Cheese -- and that’s something that really matters there. I was there on a travel story (recap here). Over six nights I played golf at all the state’s finest courses (Whistling Straits and Erin Hills) and was wined and dined at all their top restaurants. On my own, I found an outstanding Milwaukee bar that treated me so well I actually considered relocating my family just to be within stumbling distance. It’s Sobelmans. They didn’t even know I was a travel writer and thus felt no unnatural obligation to shower me with warmth and freebies. They were just naturally nice. If I’m ever within 250 miles of Sobelmans I’m automatically going back. Milwaukee also has one of my favorite offbeat tourist attractions, the Bronz Fonz. So I want Milwaukee to beat the Cardinals.

That pits Milwaukee vs. Detroit in my World Series.

This upsets my friends who hate the Brewers for beating up on the Pirates, but I have to root for Milwaukee to win it all. I just met so many friendly people in Wisconsin and had so much free, fine fun. Everyone was just so nice.

So take note, Boston: I can be bought. Prepare the finest hotels, alert the golf courses and start the lobster pots a boilin’.

Chicago, don’t even bother. I think we all need to hang onto at least a little hate.

I wouldn’t want people to start confusing me with Wisconsin.

Now they've ruined jukeboxes

I feel sheepish criticizing something I loved longer and spent more quality time with than even my family, but neighborhood bars are starting to suck.

I know. That’s like worms criticizing dirt.

I’ve loved my family for the nearly 11 years I’ve had them, but I’ve loved being in bars for about as long as I was biologically capable of conceiving a family, or at least since I was able to obtain a convincing fake ID.

What’s wrong with neighborhood bars?

Jukeboxes.

They are one of the man’s few inventions that as they’ve gotten better and better have gotten worse and worse.

Guaranteed, any jukebox from any local tavern or pizza joint even from the 1970s is far superior to any dazzling new internet Tunetown.

An old jukebox would have maybe 100 songs -- 50 two-sided 45s -- from an eclectic mix of top popular artists of the day. Guaranteed, they’d all have something by the Rolling Stones, The Who, Linda Ronstadt, Elvis, The Eagles, Boz Scaggs, Elton John and some of the still-memorable one-hit wonders of the day.

The owner decided what deserved jukebox inclusion. And by doing so he or she was setting an artistic boundary as imposing as any bouncer.

The fortunes of a bar’s reputation rested on the quality of its jukebox every bit as much as the charm or shapeliness of the person pouring the drinks.

Today’s jukeboxes have maybe one million songs on them.

There’s something for everyone.

Please all and you please none.

A jukebox with one million songs puts tasteful people like me at the mercy of morons.

Understand, I love all my fellow man. My fellow babes, too. And I go out of my way to make them all feel welcome when they stranger on into a bar where my frequent over-consumption makes me feel like I have a proprietary stake.

Blacks, gays, Hispanics, Muslims, Orientals, liberals and even sadly misguided conservatives -- at one time or another I’ll bet I’ve bought them all at least a drink or two and sought common philosophical ground.

I welcome the whole rainbow of humanity to sit down and share a drink with me.

Just leave your crappy music in your car.

That’s why the new mega-song internet jukeboxes are such disasters.

Now someone who doesn’t know any better can come in and instantly demolish the atmosphere of a really rockin’ bar.

That’s what would happen if, say, my daughter, 10, came into the bar with her allowance and what would have to be an incredibly realistic fake ID. She wouldn’t play Hayes Carll, Joe Ely, Steve Earle, or any of the Texas troubadours whose music enlivens any really cool tavern.

No, she’d play Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift and other saccharine pap from groups like the cast of Glee.

It would be so embarrassing I’d almost be hesitant to bum $5 off her before ratting her out for being underage.

Now, I love that little girl, more than Tom Petty even -- and Petty’s always been there for me. Sure, Petty’s never called me stupid, told his friends I smell bad and screamed he’ll die if I make him listen to one more Bob Dylan song, but the daughter wins my affection because in between bouts of tweener hostility she’ll still crawl up on my lap for sweet cuddling.

I reserve the right to change my evaluation of the two if Petty ever calls and says he’d like to come over and cuddle.

My point is the tavern owner should never abdicate his or her social obligations to pander to musical misfits who think Van Morrison’s best song is “Brown Eyed Girl,” think Mark Knopfler retired after he folded up Dire Straits, and love Lady Gaga but have never heard of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.

Because I love rock ‘n’ roll. So put another dime in the jukebox, baby.

Here are 10 songs guaranteed to set a great vibe in your local tavern:

• “Piano Man,” Billy Joel -- Look around as everyone starts to sing along and you’ll see each of the characters depicted in the 1973 song in every bar you’ve ever been in.

• “The Road Goes on Forever,” Joe Ely -- This is Ely’s 1992 superior version of the Robert Earl Keen original. It kicks more ass than an impatient mule farmer, as does much of everything both Keen and Ely have ever composed.

• “Highlands,” Bob Dylan -- at 16 minutes, 32 seconds, this is the only song likely to get you your money’s worth in a day when a single juke box song costs as much as a draft beer. It’s so slow and swampy people hate for the first five mintues, become curious during the second five and finally start to dig it during the homestretch. I always play it at least twice in a row.

• “Sultans of Swing,” Dire Straits -- Maybe the greatest guitar song ever written with sneering Knoplfer lyrics about the boys in the corner who “don’t give a damn ‘bout any trumpet-playing band” because “it ain’t what they call rock ‘n’ roll.” This sure is.

• “Change The Locks,” Tom Petty -- From “She’s The One,” the ’96 Petty album known only to the most devout, this was an outstanding rock soundtrack to the forgotten indy movie. Petty’s only twice recorded another’s songs for his studio albums, I think. It’s a pickiness that works well here with this outstanding Lucinda Williams rocker.

• “You Never Even Called Me By My Name,” David Allan Coe -- This list is light on country, which I revere, but I never skip this on the jukebox. It’s classic country and goes out of its way to ensure listeners realize it with its uproarious last verse.

• “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin,’” Rolling Stones -- The Stones have so many indelible hits this great jazzy number often gets overlooked. This opens the ears of innocents who think they know all about the Stones from “Start Me Up,” “Brown Sugar,” and “Satisfaction.”

• “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” The Who -- From the opening chord to Daltry’s final euphoric shriek, this mesmerizes throughout.

• “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,” Elton John -- The first song on the first album, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” I ever bought. At 11 minutes, 11 seconds, it’s one of music’s most epic and eloquent rockers. The virtuosity dazzles still and the song is a surprise reminder that in 1973 when rock ‘n’ roll was at its best, Elton John was among the very best.

• “American Pie,”Don McLean -- This is it, the greatest jukebox song ever recorded. It’s tuneful, mournful, exuberant and tells the story of rock in such allegoric detail that it’ll ignite conversations clear through last call.

Rock on, my friends, rock on.

Zsa Zsa & when it's time to go

I’m seeking friendly subversives who’ll help me start a rumor that Zsa Zsa Gabor’s amputated foot is up for eBay auction.

Hell, I’d pay through the nose for a celebrity foot.

Gabor, once one-third of the most glamourous sister trio on the planet, celebrated her 94th birthday on Sunday.

And I’m again reminded of the cruel indignities of excessive age.

As many people die too old as do people who die too young. I think most everyone who’s ever been born would live conversely more full lives if we all died about 18 months before we actually do.

This puts me at odds with rascally Prince Frederic von Anhalt, Gabor’s ninth husband since 1986. His life philosophy reminds me of a great Robert Earl Keen song, “The Road Goes On Forever (and The Party Never Ends).”

The prince released a horrific picture of him presenting her a “Happy Birthday Baby!” cake days after the amputation, a drastic operation many anorexics might confuse with a novel way to lose weight fast.

The picture shows Anhalt beaming above an expressionless Gabor who with her left hand appears to be pawing at the cake’s pink icing flowers. Her once voluptuous body sprawls beneath a hospital gown.

It’s pathetic and should never have been made public.

He said he released the photo so “people can see that she’s not half-dead,” an odd unintentional play on the old glass half full/half empty debate.

At 94, the woman I remember most for playing Erika Tiffany Smith on “Gilligan’s Island,” looks way past seven-eighths dead to me.

Really, if you’re 94 and the doctors say the most prudent medical thing to do is to start, piece by piece, removing parts of you, I’d say it’s time to close the book.

In my observations the people who seem to enjoy life the least seem to cling to it the most. They go to desperate lengths to add days to lives spent in shadow.

This certainly wasn’t the case with the ever-vivacious Gabor, author of the 1970 book, “How To Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man & How to Get Rid of a Man.”

She flitted from marriage to marriage, role to role, and seemed to enjoy having her life play out on the front pages of National Enquirer. She joked her greatest role was that of housekeeper: “I’ve been married eight times and every time the marriage ended I got to keep the house.”

She made sensational headlines in 1991 when she slapped a Hollywood police officer over a routine traffic stop. She she did a funny send-up of the incident during the opening credits of the hilarious “Naked Gun” sequel starring Leslie Nielsen.

So it saddens me to see her slow death being played out as if its some virtuous sort of testament to an indomitable spirit.

No, it would be far better if she’d have died, oh, probably about four years ago.

Now, the best we can hope for is that her husband the Prince -- and that’s a story too tangled for snappy distillation -- loses control of her chair as he’s wheeling her out to the limo and she zips down the drive and out onto the freeway where, for reasons of slapstick impact, she gets run over by a runaway steam roller.

I swear if the doctors ever come to me and say, “It doesn’t look good. We’re going to have to remove a foot.”

I’ll tell them to forget it. I intend to die with dignity. They’re not taking a whole foot off me.

“Heck, doc, I’m only 5-9. I can’t spare even an inch.”

Maybe they’ll conclude the sensible thing to do is relocate the point of amputation.

Like at the neck.