Savage Remarks from a Tortured Mind

Good news, music fans. I have a brilliant project underway that is going to open up some eyes. It came to me while I was sitting in class (quite miserably) and letting my mind wander to places that only it can go, twisted and dangerously psychotic as it is. I found myself thinking about the bad rap Elvis Presley, the fucking King, gets because he sucked for the large majority of his career. Hey, I don't deny this. Once '63 hit it was pretty much curtains for the King - he sold out like a Lincoln going for a dollar, his voice changed, and his music began a tragic downward spiral into ridiculous pop nonsense. But there was a different Elvis. The Elvis of '56-'62. More to the point, the Elvis of '56-'57. For those first two years, he was doing so much goddamn good shit you'd be shocked if you ever got the chance to hear it all.

Well, you will now. Because while I was sitting in class, contemplating strange and terrible things, it suddenly hit me like twenty-seven tons of bricks - I could make a CD!! I could smack all the Elvis-knockers upside the head with a single disk that would show a side of Elvis few remember. I'm not talking "Teddy Bear" Elvis, or "Don't be Cruel" Elvis - though that Elvis was still pretty damn good. No, I'm talking all the studio shit you've never heard on the radio. Elvis singing the blues. Elvis taking rock in new directions. Elvis singing music that could still be relevant today if they ever fucking dug it out and let you hear it. Songs like "One Night of Sin," or "Fool, Fool, Fool," or "Fever." We're not talking 60's Elvis doing ridiculous movies and singing "Song of the Shrimp" or "Shake that Tambourine." And we're certainly not talking drug-riddled, full blown insane, fat and bloated Elvis practically singing Opera in the 70's. No, we're talking Elvis at the beginning - some of it before he even exploded onto the national scene, some of it after. Elvis screaming into the microphone, not dropping his voice real low which would eventually become his trademark. If you know the song "Heartbreak Hotel" - picture a whole CD of that! Its a terrific combination of blues and early rock, and it shows Elvis unchained, so to speak. Elvis unpolished. Elvis at his very fucking best, and the reason why he truly is the King, and why the Beatles could never touch him. I'm making my own CD first - about 25 songs or so, but for the non-believers (this means you JB, and AO) I'm making an abbreviated disc of the very, very best...maybe ten songs or so. You will be dumbfounded and you will apologize to me for being so naive!!

Congratulations to the Sox. And thank god baseball is over for a few months.

It is now officially official. I am NOT voting in this election. I've toyed with the idea for some time, but decided once and for all to just say fuck it. So ... FUCK IT! People love to try and put a positive spin on all this bullshit and say, "Hey, this is democracy at its best!" Fuck that. This, my fine feathered friends, is democracy at its very, very worst. We the people are being literally bombarded with constant rhetoric and half-truths and misinterpretations (bullshit #1). However ... as if this were not somehow bad enough ... we choose to soak up this horseshit and believe it (bullshit #2). And then the worst part is this - we take all this crap and we repeat it and adopt it as doctrine and actually have the fucking arrogance to get hostile and vicious about it (bullshit #3). Its an angry fucking country, divided irreducably between Bush and Kerry, but lets face the truth ... we're divided between righties and lefties. It doesn't matter whose running any more. It might as well be Elmer Fudd vs. Lear's Fool. Or the cookie-crisp burglar vs. a doberman pincher. With all the coverage these things get in our contemporary network culture, more and more stupid fucks are being given access to a little bit of this and a little bit of that, so instead of having to get some kind of grasp on truths and what's really at stake, they can just repeat what they've been spoon fed and act like they know. I love people who say things like - "I'm against so and so because my big issue is the defecit or spending for education or some other nonsense." Don't get me wrong, there's people who have legitimate reasons to worry about such things, i.e. teachers, and so on, but I get a good laugh when some random bullshitter picks an issue spontaneously and feigns concern over it. Pompous ass!

And what do they know? "I disagree with Bush because he misled us into a war, so I'm voting for Kerry" - I got news for you, Kerry wanted to go into Iraq and take Saddam out as early as '98 - he called Clinton a coward for not addressing the issue, and he's said many times he would have gone to Iraq if he were President. "I'm not voting for Kerry because he's not gonna be tough on terror" - I got news for you, Kerry gets a bad rap for falling on the wrong side of the first Iraq war and for his hippie bullshit in the sixties, but he's no fucking softy. He spent most of the 90's wanting after Iraq bad, and he's not likely to pussy out against terrorists. Social issues? Guess what - almost identical!! They're like twins. The Olsen twins, as it were. So what you have is a country divided angrily against itself over something that really isn't a divided issue. There's not much of a difference between Bush and Kerry when you get right down to it, but I'm sick of all the shit, all the anger, all the rage, the hostility. I'm sick of being insulted by both sides. I'm sick of the shallow superficiality of all of this. So I'm not fucking voting. "But Mike, people died so you could have the right to vote!! Not voting is unAmerican." Don't fucking tell me what's American. People died so I'd have the right to vote, but they also died so I'd have the freedom to make my own goddamn judgments about shit, and my own choices. And I choose not to vote, just like Jerry Seinfeld chose not to run.

Thank you ever so much to Mike Mularkey for making McGahee the starter and putting the ape-ish pedophile on the bench where he belongs. As long as McGahee stays healthy, we should get to see some quality running - not Henry's bullshit interpretation of it (i.e. "I'm going to close my eyes and run straight forward into the defenders).

Good to see Bledsoe defending himself in yesterday's paper. His greatest shortcoming as a professional athlete is his passiveness, on the field and off. Its been painful to watch him take the fall for a shitty team, and a badly coached one at that. His remarks yesterday were only the beginning of what he needs to do.

Hockey's lockout is proving to be the final nail in the coffin that is my belief in god. There is the old cliche' - if God exists, why does he let bad things happen? Well, this is quite possibly the worst of it. Take a depressed, miserable, borderline alcoholic like myself - I don't ask for much ... just some hockey. Just a chance to watch the Sabres for a few months out of the year. That's all. And yet, I've been senselessly deprived of it. The one thing that makes me happy - gone! Woe! Agony! Misery! So ... in the words of Nietzsche ... god is dead! Just a character in a Hebrew novel, and if it comes to that, I'd rather worship Huckleberry Finn.

A list of dead people I'd like to have a beer with, in no particular order:
- Ernest Hemingway and/or Billy Faulkner
- Dean Martin
- James Dean
- Miles Davis
- Ol' Sachmo
- Nicole Brown Simpson (this may surprise you, but it shouldn't. Would you pass up an oppurtunity to ask her who the real killer was?)
- Robert Frost (word is, he was a mean son of a bitch)
- Jim Morrison
- Jean-Paul Sartre (nihilist philosopher)
- Ray Charles
- Jerry Lee Louis (but Mike! He's not dead! Yah, but you know its coming, and that bastard was one crazy mother fucker.)
- William Blake (the writer)
- Rodney Dangerfield
There's a ton more, but no point in going on forever. This, by the way, is a good topic for any comments you might wish to leave. What dead persons would you like to have a beer with and, if applicable, why?

In my previous blog I compared Bush to the elf from Rudolph that wants to be a dentist. I will stick by it, but I would like to additionally posit the notion that Bush bears certain resemblances to the Hamburgler as well. Just occured to me.

Ummm.....aw, goddamnit...there was something else I wanted to address in this blog but I can't seem to remember it. Let me think for a minute. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Uhhh, what was it now? Hmm. Ah, fuck it. I can't remember. It was probably something really good too. Oh well.

Leave a comment, chumps. DON'T MAKE ME BEG!


Arreviderci ...


Il Pazzo


"His genius is not for sale. He is a free man among parasites who hate him and punish him with poverty and neglect."

Low Melodies

This time I'm far too aggrevated to go into any depth about the Bills. Disappointing game by Bledsoe. Moulds drops an easy 7 pts after making one of the greatest catches in the history of NFL football (this is the story of Moulds' career by the way). Then Moulds tips the ball right into the defense's hands when the game is on the line. Josh Reed drops three passes (the story of his career, as well). McGahee averaging only about two yards a carry most of the game (which, by the way, is at least +2, whereas with Henry it would have been -2.) Offensive line sloppy as fuck as usual, Drew gets harrassed and hammered all game, and has to force his passes. Awful, humiliating coaching decisions.

This I will vent about. I've said since last season - there is one difference between Buffalo and New England. Its not star power or talent. Its fucking attitude. Buffalo loves to play like they've all got shrivled little penises dangling like a soggy fucking wad of clam-goo between their legs. They don't ever ... ever! ... lay it on the line. When you've got a fourth and goal situation at the end of the third quarter and you're down 17-3, and you're playing one of the top defenses in the league - you fucking go for it!! You don't "play it conservative" and "take the three points" and kick the goddamn field goal. You shoot for the end zone. Whats the difference between 17-3 and 17-6? Have you reduced your deficit from two TD's to 1 TD and a field goal? No. You still need two fucking TD's. And what, exactly, are your chances of getting those two TD's against Baltimore's defense when they've been shutting you down all game? ALMOST NOTHING! So when you're there, knocking on the door, you go for it. What's the worst that happens? You don't get it, Baltimore's shitty offense has terrible field position, and you still need 2 TD's. What do you accomplish by kicking the FG? Wow. You gain three points. You still need 2 TD's. That is the embodiment in every respect of why the Bills will never be a competitive team until they undergo a massive philosophy shift. In short, if you want to be a competitive team, you have to COMPETE!

By the way, since Drew will undoubtedly take a lot of heat this week (indeed, some simple minded, hot-headed, blame-throwing folks in this crumbling city are already calling for JP, because every bad thing that happens to Buffalo is Drew's fault (sarcasm)) - but since he will take a lot of heat this week, some of it deserved, I will at least point this out in his defense. Three of his four interceptions came off the hands of his own receivers. Catch the ball and the interception never happens. The only one that was really Drew's fault was the second Deion one in the end zone.

By the way, I fucking hate Deion Sanders. The hell with him.

We should have traded Henry before the deadline. He's useless. His stats were terrible again, and they were really even worse than they ultimately appeared because he had a decent run at the end of the game to pad them. The philosophy at this point is to play him so we can get a better deal for him next season. I agreed with this until this week. But I was mulling it over in that fabulous machine that is my mind and I decided a team will only be willing to give up a little bit extra if he does better the rest of the season. I mean, at this point you can basically forget about getting a first round draft pick for him, so what's the point? McGahee's playing great - start him! And besides, whatever draft pick we may get for Travis will be wasted, as is always the case in Buffalo. We might as well pack him a suitcase and tell him to go leach on to whatever team he wants to make worse and forget about getting anything in return for him. What will we use the pick for, seriously? The lineman we desperately need? We seem not to want to improve that line for some reason, and even when we do pick a guy - vis Mike Williams - he's terrible. A fat fuck, not an athlete.

Some more fun statistics:
Before his last run for 19 yards, Travis Henry had 6 rushes for 8 yards.
Michael Vick - 7/21, 119 yds, and 2 ints, 0tds - God, he's so fucking awesome

Jacksonville's rookie kicker gets booed for faking an injury and then immediately runs out onto the field to kick the ball. Then they say he can't kick because he went off injured, so the crowd boos him again as he goes off - and he taunts the crowd with his arms and spins in a fruity circle!! He's a fucking rookie kicker! Then they change their mind and say he can kick - so the crowd boos him again, and again he taunts them by waving his arms. A rookie kicker! Taunting a crowd! Fascinating shit.

- End football -

A pack of wild dogs broke into a zoo and killed six gazelles. I support any and all attacks on anything by "a pack of wild dogs" - I find it awesomely entertaining. I refuse to apologize for this. I wish more things would get attacked by "a pack of wild dogs."

As per my suggestion, Heinz Kerry has been appropriately locked away in hell, where she will presumably remain until after the election is over. That is to say if Kerry plans on trying to win.

Movie review:
"Team America" is one of the funniest goddamn movies I have ever seen. Oh sure, its no Blazing Saddles. But its fucking funny. Even Jeff Simon, whose taste in movies is baffling, described the flick as "fall-off-your chair funny." Interestingly "Rolling Stone Magazine" chose to argue that this movie reveals Matt Stone and Trey Parker's closet right-leaning tendencies. Huh? Why, because the movie has some fun at the expense of loud-mouthed Hollywood actors? They're part of the issue, and Matt and Trey never leave anyone unscathed. But what about the theme of the movie? Namely, America as "the world's police"? Or the fact that they destroy and devestate entire cultures in their attempts to carry out this policing? How come "Rolling Stone" does not see this as revealing Matt and Trey's "closet left-leaning tendencies"? I'll tell you why - because Rolling Stone is no longer (and has not been for many years now) a legitimate cultural force. Its a full-blown stomping ground for hippies and pot smokers who define their entire existence as simply this - "I hate my parents and I hate George Bush." But at any rate - hats off to Matt and Trey for depicting puppets having sex in every conceivable position, including a strange hand-stand pile-driving type of thing.

A Tom Petty biography is in progress. Oh how I wish I had not found out about this. Why, you ask? Because its not due out until the holiday 2005 season. That means I have over a year to wait for this shit. But this will be good shit though. Its going to be a long series of Tom Petty interviews - and anyone who has read a Tom Petty interview before will truly appreciate the significance of this. He's appropriately cocky and arrogant (as every rock star should be), and he's remarkably insightful and almost like a little kid in his awed appreciation of rock and roll as a cultural and artistic force. He also does plenty of sounding off about his aggrevation with a money-driven culture, and a money-driven pop-music industry, which I have an unending supply of respect for.

Despite my above comments about Rolling Stone, you may want to check out the latest issue. It has two good articles, neither of which have I read yet. But anyway - one is by Hunter S. Thompson, and one is an interview with Tom Wolfe. I read part of the Thompson one - he really is a sad, pathetic parody of himself, and his predictions about the future of politics are as wildly off the mark as ever, perhaps even moreso than they were in the 80's when he predicted Gary Hart would be the next President of the United States and that Richard Nixon would make a comeback before George Bush Sr. would get his party's nomination...but nonetheless his scathing, biting, unreserved style of writing is as entertaining as ever, even if he does refer to "W." as a "treacherous little freak" with "no brains at all." And Rolling Stone did not stop at only one left over relic from the hippie-age of literature - no, they interviewed Tom Wolfe as well, who is a tremendously talented writer. Most of you would probably know him as the author of "The Electric Koolaid Acid Test." I have yet to read Rolling Stone's interview, however, so get off my fucking back and leave me alone until I do.

Alright, lets wrap this horse shit up. I got a 25 page paper to write by Wednesday, and so far I haven't typed a word of it. Not that I care. Fuck school.



Arrivederci ...


Il Pazzo

Creeping Evil

"She was pitiful, foul, her smile a jagged white tear in the firelight: waste."
- John Gardner

I found myself unconsciously trying to think of the perfect English word to describe Theresa Heinz Kerry. After much careful consideration I find myself having narrowed it down to "sinister" and "hideous."

Seriously, though. This woman (alien? monster? entity from the nether void? I honestly don't know) radiates intolerable unlikability through and through. She is, to be blunt, a detriment to Kerry's campaign. After the disaster of her early spotlight appearances they managed to keep her locked away for a good two months or so. But no sooner do they let her out of her dungeon gasping horribly for fresh air then she opens her mouth, leaking the noxious odor of rot into the ozone, and says something STUPID. And if you're thinking it won't have an effect on whose voting for Kerry you're kidding youself. It certainly won't swing fifteen or twenty percentage points Big W's way, but there are plenty of men and women with shallow, superficial enough views of politics to be angered and swayed by something like this. "Security Moms" are holding a lot of the cards in this election.

Kerry might stand to benefit if he divorces her the night before the election. Though of course he'd stand to benefit if he divorced her any time, just for his own personal health.

Recently the staff of the "Dominion of Cool" blog was given the oppurtunity to sit down with Heinz and ask her some questions. Here is the transcript in its entirety:

DOC: Good afternoon, woman.
THK: (Unintelligible growls and grunts)
DOC: Do you mind if we put some music on in the background?
THK: Do it, see what I care.
DOC: (Puts ELO's greatest hits in the stereo. "Evil Woman" begins to play softly) There we go. Now Heinz, we'd like to thank you for taking the time to sit down with us, we know you're busy collecting souls - uh - I mean - doing whatever it is you do.
THK: You don't have to be sorry. I collect souls.
DOC: (Laughs nervously) That's terrific. Now. First question. Why are you such an angry, bitter person?
THK: Because I can't write my name in the snow.
DOC: Uh huh. Okay, well thanks for coming today, Heinz. We appreciate this very much and hope you have a good day. Is your flying saucer waiting for you out back?
THK: Its a station wagon (gets up and screetches out of the room without another word).

Charming woman

If you read my last blog you saw that I predicted Bush would win. Again, this is not out of any preference, because at this point I'd just as soon vote for neither of them. But he will win all the same, and here is one major reason why - Kerry, a respectable, likeable, presidential man on his own, has surrounded himself by remarkably unlikeable people:
John Edwards - a smug, arrogant, condecending little poindexter. Reminds you of the kid in your college classes that you just itched to see out at a party somewhere so you could smack him around (but of course you never did because he was home watching politics and solving math equations).
Joe Lockhart - a stammering lunatic who perfectly embodies his party's simplistic media plan (ex. Reporter asks a question about anything under the sun. Lockhart responds - "Oh please. This is all just a scheme by the Conservatives to distract the public from the truth which is that Bush is a liar who misled the American people into a war without having a plan to win the peace, the economy is in shambles, social security is a mess, healthcare is fucked up the ass, and jobs are being lost like a mother fucker," while the reporter interrupts and unsuccessfully tries to bring him back to the relevant issue).
Teresa Heinz - wretched, life-bloated, long suffering hag

Not that Bush doesn't have his fair share of questionable characters around him. Witness, if you will, Donald Rumsfeld. However, if you're at all like me (which you probably are not) Rumsfeld is deliciously evil, delightfully wicked, and marvelously insane. He is that cinematic villain who you can't help but love. He's like the Emperor from Return of the Jedi. Seriously! Can't you picture him sitting on a dark throne in the Pentagon, draped in a black robe, saying something like "Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design." Or, "We are quite safe here from your pitiful little band ... I'm afraid the Deathstar will be quite operational when your friends arrive" (laughs wickedly).

Heinz, on the other hand, is reminiscent of Disney's Cruella Daville. That is to say she is evil ... simply put. Not charmingly evil, not delightfully evil. Nothing. Just evil.

And, of course, while we're comparing politicians to cinematic folks -
John Kerry - the talking tree from Wizard of Oz that doesn't like to have its apples picked
George W - the elf from "Rudolph" that wants to be a dentist
John Edwards - the guy from Billy Madison that wants to take over the hotel instead of Billy
Okay, I can't think of any more for now.

But I digress ... back to Teresa Heinz. Its not just that she accused Laura Bush of never having a real job (which is a shot to the vagina even if it was correct, which it wasnt). She went on to say that she would be a better first lady because she is older. Hmm. Lets think about that. Laura Bush (58). Heinz Kerry (68). Well, she's right. She's older. So apparently B. Arthur would be a great first lady. And Abe Bigoda would be the best! (He's fucking old).

But at least she apologized this time. Last time, even when TV cameras showed her snapping like a maniac on a reporter who asked her what she meant by "unamerican" and she swore up and down she never said it though cameras told a different story, she refused to apologize. Instead she mumbled some garbage about "harrassing her" and "conservative newspaper" and such. Then she dragged Hillary Clinton (our next President according to some people who also think Elvis is still alive and flying Unicorns in Narnia) out in front of the cameras to offer her two cents - "You go girl" (direct quote) which leaves you wondering whether to laugh or get angry. But, again I roam - the point is that at least Heinz apologized this time, which was certainly the correct move. Now hopefully Kerry will put a fucking leash on that beast and lock her up in the earth's core, because if he lets her stick that mug in front of a TV camera one more time before the election he'll really be standing waist deep in Teresa-shit.

"Michael, you are a hypocrite. How can you criticize people for being negative, when you're using such words as "evil" "beast" "sinister" "wretched" and so on?"

Why thank you for asking, blog reader. Fortunately, I am not a politician, nor am I a member of the media. This blog is meant to amuse (or anger, as it were), and as such it is my responsibility - or to use W's favorite word, my "duty" - to speak strongly and colorfully. So fuck off.

Finally - "in summation" - whichever of Kerry's watch dogs that stepped out for some coffee and a sandwhich when Teresa decided to climb out of the grave, crawl up a reporter's leg, and hiss and screetch into the camera, should be fired for gross negligance of duty. Furthermore, Kerry should replace this gaurd with an entire army of security personnel who will watch twenty four hours a day to make certain that his oozing, pussing, farting corpse of a wife stays in her putrid, sweating chambers and STOPS FUCKING UP HER HUSBANDS SHIT!

Speaking of which, the staff of "Dominion of Cool" was able to get into a Kerry press conference. While we were unable to sit down and have a face to face interview with him, we were able to squeeze a question in, which he happily answered.

DOC - Senator! Senator! Why the long ... Senator! Senator!
JK - Yes, over there?
DOC - Senator, why the long face all the time?
JK - Are you serious? Have you seen my festering, maggoty, crusted-over old wife? That's why the long fucking face.
DOC - Thankyou, Senator.


Okay, that's enough. I leave off, as always, with a plea for comments. Don't let me down.


A Presto


Il Pazzo

Peaceful Autumn Reflections

A pleasure to finally see some positive things come out of a Bills game this season. Now, let's keep in perspective its Miami; 0-6 and feeding far below the NFL's bottom-feeders. On the other hand, Miami has a very strong defense and Buffalo has one of the league's worst statistical offenses. Yet, coming into yesterday's matchup, Miami's pass-defense was ranked, take note of this ... 1st in the league. Opponents had squeezed out only a miserable 106 yds per game. Drew, on the other hand, emerged with 212 yards, a TD, and a 90+ passer rating. And the best part was - it wasn't entirely Drew's play. No, it was a combination of an offense that looked, for once, halfway decent! The line gave Drew time - this is by far the most significant development, by the way. But for the first time in like ten seasons a Bills QB had some time to consider his options before throwing the ball. And Drew showed what he can do when given the time - he was throwing into furious wind, as the announcers pointed out several times (and I know because I was fucking working in the goddamn hurricane), and yet his throws were bullets. On target. He's washed up, Buffalo says? Haha, no. Not by a long shot. Though Buffalo itself is, as a city that is. But in all seriousness, lets not get too excited about the O-Line's performance Sunday. Good? Yes. But Miami's defensive line is not exactly a monster of viciousness. They've been soft on the run all year. Miami's strength as a defense comes from its secondary (all the more credit to Drew for finding his receivers). All I'm saying is hats off to our O-line for a good performance ... lets see more of it!! But don't be surprised if we don't. I'm not predicting either way, I'm just saying don't be overly optimistic after one game.

McGahee. Can we just cut the shit and start him already? Henry's a fucking idiot. He's a mutant, a sex-offender, and he's sucked all season. "Well, he's a smash mouth football player, but when you're line is so bad that the whole defense is tackling him, what do you expect?" I expect his ass to get injured, many times, limp off the field, and sit there looking like a sad fucking orangutan who slipped on a bananna peel. Anyone notice McGahee playing finesse, high speed, hit the hole's offense yesterday? No. That was smashmouth football, alright. In fact, almost ALL of his 100+ yards came AFTER CONTACT. He's a fast, finesse player when you get right down to it, but the truly good players can play the style the game calls for. Our line and Miami's linebackers called for a back who can pound out the yardage, and that is exactly what McGahee did. And why? The kid has heart. They said he'd never play football again, let alone at the NFL level. Remember that? I do, because I was in fucking Florida when I read the newspaper article that said it. But he fights his way back, against all odds, gets drafted by a team willing to take a chance on him, and now he's out there. Anyone whose played sports before at a competitive level (i'm not talking about little loop baseball here - try travel hockey or varsity football type shit) knows that it truly is possible to give 110%. Sometimes you want something so bad - so fucking unbelievably bad that you find yourself throwing your body around, willing yourself, pushing yourself, grinding your teeth, and moving and reacting in ways you never had before ... indeed, never thought possible. That's what McGahee was doing yesterday. Thats why you saw him disappear into a pile of fifty guys, but just as you got up to go take a piss cause the play was over suddenly saw McGahee move the entire pile for four or five yards. Or break through and fall forward for five or six. Its called desperation. Its called will. Its called "playing on sheer adreneline." Thats why he could stiff arm a guy so hard that the guy limped off the field and tried to get his thoughts together while McGahee ran on for another fifteen or twenty. People say Henry's tough and he's got heart. Why? Because he comes back from a lot of minor injuries? How about the fact that he GETS A LOT OF MINOR INJURIES? Why else? Because he plays while he's hurt? That's nothing new. Football players play through sprained ankles, damaged knees, and broken arms all the time. Does Travis have heart and toughness? Yes he does. But that alone does not make him a great player. Am I saying bench Henry? No. But they better find a way to work McGahee into the game plan much more significantly when Henry comes back, or they are going to have a lot of unhappy fans in Buffalo, and worse - an unhappy McGahee. Rightfully so.

They benched fat Sam Adams for the second half. God, do I respect that. And why did they do it? They tried to call him off the field at one point to get Edwards in there and Adams refused. He defied his coaches. He thought he was too big a name, too important a player and that he had the ability, therefore, to ignore them. So he didn't get to play the entire second half. I love it. Fuck his fat ass. Fuck his fat, ugly, lumbering, overrated ass. Fuck his fat, flimsy, slob-in-the-guise-of-an-athlete, "I'll let fucking Sammy Morris pillage me for a career day" ass. That's right. Sammy "Fucking" Morris raped Sam Adams and the rest of the Buffalo "top five" defense for some 80+ yards in the first half alone. Excuse me? Morris did that? How is it that we allow this nothing-running-back to smoke our supposedly stud defense? Stupifying. Edwards wound up with 2 sacks. Morris had only about 10 yards in the second half. I say keep Adams' fat, jiggly-puff, Cheese-it resovoir, chicken-skin smelling ass on the bench until he has a serious change of attitude, gets his Jabba-the-Hutt physique in shape, and plays like we pay him to play.

Some quick statistics:
Bledsoe on pace to throw for 3,200+ yards, 19tds, 10ints, with a passer rating of 87.
Moulds - on pace for 1200+ yards.
Evans - on pace for 800 yards on only 32 catches.
Who says our passing attack is awful?

Some fun statistics:
Reed - on pace for 16 catches and 195 yards. Wow!
Peerless Price - on pace for 717 yds and 0tds. By the way, he had 838yds last year and 3tds. He had 1,252 yds in 2002 with Buffalo, and 9tds. Yah, but Vick's great.
Speaking of which:
Michael Vick - on pace for 2,717 yds, with 11 TD's and 11 INTS. Wow. He's the face of modern football. He's the greatest athlete in the game. He's fucking amazing!!!

Enough football.

Politics? Eh, not in the mood. Maybe a little:

First, just remember that you saw it here. Bush will win this election (you actually saw it several blogs ago when I talked about why Edwards will cost Kerry the election, but I'm repeating it here and making it pompous and overblown). Not speaking out of hope or preference. Its just that Kerry, despite making gains after the debates, is slipping again according to several polls. And I think Guiliani said it best when he said "people will be surprised how handedly Bush wins this election." I agree - Bush will get EVERY Republican's vote, and he will also take a small amount of Democrats. Meanwhile, Kerry capitalizes only on the anti-Bush movement; a strong movement, but certainly not strong enough to win the big one. That is why Kerry should have taken a stronger VP. Clarke, as I have previoiusly argued. But he picked the weiner, and the weiner will cost him the White House. Not by losing votes, but simply through not gaining any. So get used to four more years of Bush if you happen to be one of those who hates him so passionately. Cause its coming.

Its been said Bush may again lose the popular vote and win the white house. Honestly, I hope it does happen. I said in a previous blog how fucking ridiculous it was for Puff Daddy and Bruce Springstein and John Fogarty and Christina Aguilera to keep pushing their bullshit "Rock the Vote" and "Just Vote" movements. All its gonna do is rally thousands and thousands of extra New York City and California kids to turn out in droves to vote for Kerry. But guess what. New York and California will already go Kerry's way! The extra votes accomplish nothing! What matters is the electoral college. So if Kerry pulls in a few hundred thousand extra votes and squeaks out a victory over Bush because New York and California youths cast the extra ballots, nothing changes. So why do I hope it happens? It would be the appropriate end result - a slap in the face to unpolitical "celebrities" encouraging mass amounts of uninformed sloths who would otherwise be loathe to vote. Voting is a right, and we should make use of that right - but we also have to be careful to use our rights responsibly. If you don't know the issues, don't know the stakes, and can't state clearly and logically why you're voting for your candidate - DONT FUCKING VOTE!

John Fogarty is awesome, by the way, don't take his name being mentioned above the wrong way. He's written and sang some of the greatest music I've ever listened to. Though Bruce Springstein is free to go to hell and burn along with all his shitty music at any time.

In a recent poll, 12 percent of people responded that they had a favorable impression of Theresa Heinz Kerry. 84 percent responded that she is a "life-bloated, baffled, long-suffering hag." The remaining 4% fled to the hills screaming horribly and bleeding from the ears when her name was mentioned.

End politics

Looking for a book to read? Try Grendel, by John Gardner. I put off reading this one for years, thinking "how could anything related to Beowulf be remotely interesting?" But this 1971 contemporary novel is a delightfully pessimistic book told from the perspective of Beowulf's nemesis - the creature Grendel. It is, in short, a cynic's Bible. And its a quick read. Only 170 pages, and it flies by. Seriously, you could read this one in a matter of several hours. And if you're like me, you'll underline something on every page and run up to total strangers screaming maniacally - "LOOK AT THIS SHIT! ITS FUCKING BRILLIANT, YOU WHORE!"

A suggestion - as long as the NHL is on lockout and hockey fans are forced against our will to lead miserable, substance-deprived lives in the meantime, why not try to commit some good? I'm waiting for the happy day I open up the paper to read the headline ... ALL NHL REFEREES HAVE BEEN RUN SCREAMING LIKE SISSIES INTO THE SEA WHERE THEY QUICKLY PERISHED.

While we're at it, lets do something about NFL refferees as well. It seems like they are far too involved in the game this season. Not only during Bills games, either. I watch other games and I'm completely baffled and frustrated with the frequency with which flags are being thrown. Especially on big plays! Every time I see a big play this year I automatically say "flag" and wait to see it appear on the screen. Now the old response to this was always - "Well, the big play probably wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the penalty." Yah, but this year it seems like the penalties have little or nothing to do with the play. And besides, big plays happen without penalties too. Just cause something big happened doesn't mean a reff has to assume a penalty occured. Take the Bills game Sunday, for instance. Drew Bledsoe stumbles, lumbers, and otherwise barrells like a crippled donkey for ... ELEVEN YARDS! Bledsoe "dashed" for the first down! This is amazing! This is Twilight Zone shit! Of course there was a flag. Campbell for holding. Yet the replay tells a different story. Campbell tries to throw a block and is utterly humiliated by the rushing Miami player, who bowls him over like he was a little girl and continues on his merry way, unhindered. Yet somehow in the "dark-fantasy" world that is a referee's terrible mind, this becomes holding somehow. I think the announcer said it best when he said "that call just adds insult to injury," as Campbell sits on the ground looking dejected and miserable.

Baseball is so fucking boring it makes me want to open my veins and contemplate eternity ... or lack thereof, as it were. But then again ... a televised baseball game is a good argument IN FAVOR of eternity, if you catch my drift. I can't wait til the season is finally over.

Okay, enough's enough as far as I'm concerned. Leave a message, please. There is nothing more frustrating then spending over an hour on this fucking thing and not getting comments. Simply - if you take the time to read it, please take the additional thirty seconds to sign it!

Since my usual "A Presto" was questioned, I'll foresake it this time around.



End Transmission

I Fear All Has Come to Madness

"Which one of you lugnuts broke this tork-wrench?"
- Tim Taylor

Unfortunately my 15 year-old brother has a fetish for old, early to mid-90's, afterschool television sitcoms. Christ almighty. Family Matters. Full House. Basically anything showing on the WB or the Disney Channel. This shit plays in my house with aggrevating regularity - and now, as I sit down to write a new blog, hoping for a little peace with which to focus the full weight of my creative skills, I am forced to listen to the drivel pouring forth from the tube. As it turns out, Tim's tork-wrench seems to have been broken by his youngest who is hiding in a tree as Wilson tries to drop clever hints to a completely ignorant Tim, such as "They say the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree," and "Somtimes to get what you want you have to go out on a limb." Fuck this bullshit, I say.

I read somewhere recently that the boycott of Dixie Chicks CD's is reminicent of Nazi Book burnings during the 30's and 40's. I don't know about that shit. Seems like a stretch to me. No. I take it back. It doesn't sound like a stretch. It sounds like total bullshit. Fuck the Dixie Chicks. In fact, I support any and all boycotts of their music. Not because of what they said about being embarrassed by their country when touring Europe. Cause seriously, who cares what they say about anything? No, I support any boycott simply because ... ITS THE FUCKIN DIXIE CHICKS!! Simply from a musical and artistic standpoint, I would go so far as to say that it is a GOOD thing to boycott them. But back to the original point - how is it even remotely legitimate to compare Nazi book burnings (done publically with severity and frequency for the purpose of destroying certain ideas and notions that might lead to anti-Nazi sentiments) with boycotting the Dixie Chicks? In other words, how is destroying mass amounts of vessels of intellectual and philosophic content at all equatable to certain rednecks refusing to buy shitty music because the bimbo's in the band talk shit about our country to overseas crowds? Let alone the principle difference at play here - namely that we're talking about a government organized, encouraged, and executed imposition vs. a public organization of rednecks deciding for themselves not to buy a CD. I just wish I could remember where I had read this, because I'd like to write a letter to this guy's editor and get it published. It would say simply ... FUCK THE DIXIE CHICKS. THEY'RE NOT EVEN HOT!

Let me start this next section by saying simply -

Women are pigs!!

While trying to go to my 7:00 class on Thursday night, I was shamelessly and inhumanely reduced to a sex toy for a couple of fat chicks. They were walking slow on the sidewalk and I was running late, so I passed them quickly on the left, and after I'd gotten ten or fifteen feet ahead of them I hear the one girl start mumbling something, among which are the words "nice ass." The fat friend then asks ... "that guy right there?" and the friend responds, "yes," and they then share a moment of gleeful giggles. And I died a little inside as a single tear fell from my eye, falling softly to the concrete below in a purplish hue as the dying sun's last rays reflected through it. I WAS OBJECTIFIED!! Those fat girls know nothing about me. They've never laughed with me, cried with me, drank a liter of whiskey and shattered walls and waved razor sharp knives in people's faces with me. They don't care at all about who I am. No, to them, I'm just a medium-rare slice of prime rib. Nice ass, indeed.

Well, its true at any rate. I do have a nice ass. Too bad I can't say the same thing about the fat girls on the sidewalk. Ooh, I'm nasty! Dress me up like a sailor and send me out to sea - wheee ooh.

Sports Section:
Travis Henry is injured ... AGAIN!!! Its become something of a cliche over the years for me to say "Hmm, looks like I was right," but ... Hmm, looks like I was right. I've said it many times before, and I will add another to the long list here - Travis will never last in this league because he has one way of playing the game. Don't find holes, don't run left, don't run right, don't do anything except run blindly forward, throwing yourself against wave after wave of attacking defender, and rely on your legs and shoulders to power you through for the yards. Well, good luck Trav. It works for a while (witness your last two seasons) but your body can't take it. Nobody's can. By my count thats a hundred and twelve injuries you've sustained in the last ten or fifteen games. Which brings me to my next point - FUCK TRAVIS HENRY.

Want to know how to download all the songs you want (CD quality, by the way) for astronomically small amounts of money? To put it in perspective, the first night I did this I downloaded six songs for less than a dollar. The second time I downloaded an entire CD for $1.15. What you do is either put 10, 15, or 25 dollars on the website, and then you download until its used up. Well, so far I've downloaded 19 songs and I have over $23 left having started with $25. Pretty good, aint it? Alright, I'll stop keeping you in suspense. Its called allofmp3.com. Its a Russian site, but it has all the American music you could possiby think of. Its a little tricky to figure out how to actually use the site, but once you do its well worth it. Its not file sharing bullshit like Napster. Its exactly like the ITunes store except that the songs are about 6 or 8 cents apeice instead of a dollar. The CD I downloaded the other night would have cost me $13 dollars on ITunes, but it cost me $1.15 on this site for the same quality shit. Its all the real songs, taken right from the CD and put on the website for you downloading pleasure. But hey, don't listen to me. Keep wasting your money. Keep throwing it away. Or keep downloading shitty shared files from unreliable strange users. In fact, fuck you.

Tonight should be the first night I get drunk in a very long time. Well over a month. In fact, probably closer to two. I can't remember the last time I was laced, to be honest. So tonight its get a liter of whiskey and relive old glories - stumbling around violently, clutching the bottle tightly and slugging out of it every so often, and basically screaming maniacally and trying to destroy shit and start fights. Sounds poetic, doesn't it? Whiskey's great. But what brand do I choose? Something classy - Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Maker's Mark, Ol' Grandad? Something cheap - Imperial, Chymes, Philadelphia, Early Times, Evan Williams Sour Mash, Canadian Leaf?

The CD I downloaded, by the way, was Red Letter Days by - hold your breath, this will shock some of you who knew me in the old days - The Wallflowers. "What? Has hell frozen over? Has your body been taken over by some terrible demon, Sherry?" Okay, okay, calm down. The answer to those questions is I don't know, but for those of you who remember me running around town screaming from rooftops that Jacob Dylan and his band could go straight to hell and perish in the eternal flame, I understand this comes as a surprise to you. But the truth is this - the band has completely disappeared from the realm of pop music. I mean seriously - whose even heard of them in the past six years? So I happened to have caught them on a late show recently, and much to my surprise - they played good music!! So I investigated further by listening to their music sample on allofmp3.com and I found, amazingly, that they've given up their bullshit, sappy, pop rock and they're actually doing legitimate shit now. The entire CD is good, but if you're curious and just want to download a song or two, here's my suggestion - Empire in my Mind, Feel Like Summer Again, and especially, if you only download one ... Closer to You. This last song is awesome. Fucking amazing, and I don't toss this kind of praise around lightly when it comes to music, especially contemporary music. But this song is worth it.

A list of my future hopes and dreams, in no particular order:
1. Complete building the robots in my basement and unleash them upon the world
2. Open a chain of breakfast restaurants called "Donkey Cock"
3. Kill Drew Carrey
4. Get Arnold Schwarzenegger in the white house, cause calm on...how fuckin cool would that be? (Go ahead, answer that question all you fucking bullshit psuedo-intellectuals, or wait - here, let me do it for you ... "Oh, what a naive thing to say. He's no politician. That would be so bad for the country. Not even funny, Sherry.")
5. Learn to fly without coming down, cause that's the hardest thing.
6. Invent a pill that, when fed to pets, will prevent them from licking their own ass ... CAUSE ITS FUCKING GROSS!
7. Stab Teresa Heinz Kerry

A little Political Romantic Tweeking:
First of all - If Bush and Kerry were required to have their wives at their side whenever they appeared in public, Kerry would lose this election by A LOT. Laura Bush radiates likeable, attractive, innocent maternal affection, while Heinz exhumes and embodies wretchedness and proof that there is no god. She would be a much better wife for Cheney, who himself seems rather demonic at times. So who does Kerry marry? Well, I don't know. A willow tree would be a good physical match, I suppose. That still leaves Mrs. Cheney without a husband, but that's easily solved. Since she's proved in recent days to be a bitter, offensive woman who lashes out angrily and hatefully maybe she'd be well suited for ... well, most politicians I guess. Who wants her? Al Gore? Edwards? Or even more interestingly - Hillary? Little political lesbo action might be an interesting twist.

Well, that's my brilliant opining for the day. Now its off to rip into a bottle of whiskey and hope I don't wind up in jail or dead (which is a legitimate concern every time these type of nights come along). Leave a comment. DO IT! Click on the comment link below and type something. Anything! Write me! Write furiously!

Or else go to hell


A Presto


Il Pazzo

Reverberations

Is anyone confused by the sudden complete mutation of the writings of Jerry Sullivan? He's been like a new man the past few weeks. Here are a few examples from last week's paper:
1. "Flutie probably got too much credit for the turn around that year." 10/10
2. "Travis Henry is a good value, but he can't gain a yard when it really matters." 10/10
3. On McGahee - "Who knows what might have happened if they'd used him near the goal line early in the year? The Bills might not be winless." 10/11

Are you kidding? Are we in the Twilight Zone? Are we hearing this from the same Sullivan we've always read? The same "conservative, never throw the ball, Henry is Jesus, and Flutie is God" Sullivan that has been degrading our sports page for years? Well, frankly, I'm not surprised. Go back a few blogs - I said it then and I've said it for years. Sullivan has no position on sports. He just likes to stir up controversy any way he can. Last year he wanted to run the ball constantly because we were throwing it. Now we're a conservative offense. A control-the-ball offense. A smash mouth, run first ask questions later offense - and we're still losing! So Jerry Sullivan has undergone what appears to be a massive philosophy shift. He bemoans Henry's faults. He backs off from his assertions about Flutie. If you read his columns for the past few weeks - he wants to go down field! He wants to open it up! (Coincidentally, so does Ralph Wilson. He had some fascinating things to say about being 0-4 with a "smashmouth" football team. He's fuckin pissed).

But here's the deal with the Bills. (Yes, they need to open it up. Yes they need to throw more. Yes, they need to not be so fucking boring.) But here's what I said last year, and here's what I say this year. OUR DEFENSE IS OVERRATED!!! They put up huge numbers against mediocre offenses. But where were they against Jacksonville at the end when we needed them? Where were they last week against the Jets when we needed them? They allowed a mediocre Jets offense to drive 60 yards in less than a minute for the game winning field goal. Top five? Haha. No. I hardly think so. Top five defenses do not fold under pressure. Top five defenses do not give up nearly 400 yards against the Jets. Mediocre defense? Definitely. Good defense? Perhaps. But top 5? Fuck no. Not even close.

Wilson's comments, by the way - (since I brought it up) - "The fans have to be bored." And later ... "I was hoping we'd come down here and really open it up...I've had enough of this smash-mouth football. Hey, where we are is 0-3. If Drew throws an interception and it's run back for a TD, OK. Then we're 0-4. But I don't like to go 0-4 the way we did." I agree. If you're going to be a losing team, be a losing team with style. Give the fans SOMETHING. Winning with smashmouth football is boring enough. Losing with it is torture!!

Ralph Wilson is 80. The fact he is still concerned about football is fucking awesome. His parents must be proud of him.

Moving away from football ...

Just some very brief politics in this blog:
1. The high point of Friday night's debate came after Kerry's baffling, incoherent, irrelevant, and confused assertion that GW owns a timber company and that "George Bush is a small business!" Bush opens with "I own a timber company? That's news to me!" He then pauses, gets serious, and appears to prepare his response. After several moments he looks at Charlie Gibson and says in a low voice ... "You need any wood?"
2. Bush and Kerry should both be asking some very serious questions about their speechwriters, editors, and public relations personnel at this point. First, Bush says "They never stop thinking of new ways to harm our country and neither do we." Then Kerry trumpets the need for a "global test" and later says he wants to reduce terrorism to a nuisance like prostitution or illegal gambling. How - with the army of writers, editors, and public relation personell these men have - do these types of things creep into the realm of public delivery? Doesn't anyone throw up a red flag and say "Hey, uh, Bush, ya might not want to say we're thinking of ways to harm the country," or "Listen, Kerry ... now, you know I respect you right? But, um, you might want to think about not comparing terrorism to illegal gambling." I don't know. This is just a thought from your average blogger.

The paper does not come until after four oclock at my house. Every fucking day. Is this just me, or is this bullshit? By the way, its not delivered by a middle school kid who has to wait til after school, in case that's what you're thinking. Yet, day after day I walk my astronimically sexy ass out to the mailbox two or three times before the paper finally arrives. Am I asking too much? All I want to do is read the sports. See whats being said about the Bills. See if anything new happened with the NHL. See what the latest Buffalo spin on politics is. But I am unable to do this until almost supper time. BULLSHIT!!

Did anyone see the movie Butterfly Affect? Apparently some DVD rentals of this flick inexplicably show a different ending than the theatre ending. In this baffling alternate conclusion Ashtun Kutcher elects to go back in time to the point where he was in the womb and he strangles himself to death with his umbillical chord! Is that not insane? It was probably for the better that they went with the theatre ending that most people have seen. Besides - if the whole idea is that he gets to these other time periods by reading a memory or watching a video, then what does he use to go back to his mother's womb? I don't know. Very strange, this development.

Apparently a lawsuit has been brought by Disgruntled Song Writer against Tom Petty, claiming Petty based his song "The Last DJ" on a recording given to him by some radio DJ featuring the Disgruntled's own version. Petty's response - "I do not take kindly to such accusations, as the plaintiff and his attorney for hire will find out.” Sounds like Petty is planning something awful for Disgruntled. Frankly, I hope he slices and dices him. Petty's been writing music for thirty plus years with astonishing success. Witness the Greatest Hits - seventeen songs that even non-fans can sing every word to. But apparently he needed to swipe Disgruntled's tune for some reason. The facts just don't add up - Petty has written hundreds of songs - not just for the albums he's made since the 70's, but hundreds upon hundreds more that have surfaced as B-sides, live extras, and throw-aways. Petty has written songs for other artists. Petty is a songwriter as much as he is an artist and a performer. Disgruntled is nothing. He and his asenine lawyer with dollar signs for pupils don't deserve to lick dog shit off of Petty's boots (I do not mean to imply that Petty walks through dogshit). But this will all come to naught for Disgruntled. Petty is a seasoned Vet when it comes having his way. Witness:

- In the 70's, before the HB's truly hit it big, their label was bought out by MCA who changed aspects of their contract. All of the artists under the label fell right into line...except Petty and the HB's. They refused to "play ball" and even declared bankruptcy so that the company had little to fight them with. When the band was court ordered to hand over their music to MCA, the HB's answered honestly that they did not know where their music was. They were not lying - they had given all of their studio recordeded material to an HB roadie to keep in the trunk of his car and drive around the country with! Ultimately, MCA was forced to create "Backstreet Records," a subsidiary that catered specifically to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Petty, not yet of national fame, had risked his entire career to mantain the integrity of his band and their music against the imposition of a major corporation.
- In 1981, Petty's follow up to "Damn The Torpedoes" was to be released at $9.98. The going price for records at the time was $8.98, but Petty's album was to be used to initiate the higher price for big name artists. Petty withheld the album and organized massive fan protests. When the contract deadline approached and Petty was ordered to release the album, he renamed it $8.98. To avoid the embarrassment, MCA caved again and the album was released at $8.98 under the name "Hard Promises."
- Petty has historically demanded that prices for his concerts be kept astonishingly low. Seats that sell for over a hundred dollars go for less than $75 at a Petty concert - or he won't play! He's actually cancelled gigs before because they charged the fans too much. Ultimately, they always give in and drop the prices and the show goes on. Its been observed many times of Petty - bands make a lot more money off of a lot less tickets than Petty does off of a lot more, but hats off to one of the only true rockstars of the past few decades for remembering the fans and saying "fuck the money." Lets not forget Petty as a member of "The Travelling Wilburry's" (Petty, Dylan, Orbison, Harrison, and Lynn). The band famously turned down millions of dollars worth of touring money because it violated the spirit of their "grassroots rock and roll" effort.
....... so, in conclusion ........ FUCK DISGRUNTLED SONGWRITER!!!!! FUCK HIM RIGHT UP HIS HAIRY, SHITSTAINED, SCABBED-OVER, PUSSING, PIMPLY, OOZING-LIKE-TOOTHPASTE ASS!!

Sponge Candy is gross. So is white chocolate and orange chocolate.

RIP Rodney Dangerfield. I said in a previous blog....2004 seems to be the year of celebrity deaths. Another hero falls.

Johnny Depp will supposedly be playing the role of Willy Wonka in an upcoming release of "The Chocolate Factory." I'd like to see Depp knock off the kids-play of late and go back to something "Fear and Loathing-ish," but I have to admit - if any modern actor is more cut out to play a Gene Wilder role than Johnny Depp, I'd like to know who it is. It should be a good flick. And rumor has it - Depp beat out Jim Carrey for the part.

The Funny Papers are no longer funny. They have not been since they got rid of "The Far Side" and "Haggar the Horrible" and since the creator of Peanuts died (Chuck something? - AHH! MIND BLANK!) Anyway, all thats left worth reading is Dilbert, and even that is getting slightly old. Especially since it reminds me of Keybank now and makes me shudder in terrible ways.


Leave comments, chums. Take a second and write a line or two, or the Dominion of Cool will fall into shadow and be forgotten by time. Write me! Write furiously!!



A Presto ...



Il Pazzo

Merciless Spewings

Thankyou to the Venerable Schwegler for leaving a well-developed, articulate, and engaging comment. He is now public goodguy number one in my book. I ask often that people take two seconds to type a line or two, cause why not? If you take the time to read the blog, whats another two seconds to jot down a couple of things and let me feel happy? The Venerable Schwegs went above and beyond, and you should all go to my previous blog and read every word of what he wrote and take notes.

That said - the Venerable's comment was in response to my blog entitled "A Defense of Talent," and in light of certain things that were said I must now offer a brief "A Defense of Sherry." First of all let me say what I do NOT take issue with. I do not dispute the Venerable's position on Bledsoe or Moulds or Henry. Statistics are tools for building whatever conclusions we want, and just as I may use them to praise Bledsoe and Moulds and lament Henry, someone else can use them equally as effectively to do just the opposite. For the most part, the Venerable's argument was logical and well constructed and so I choose not to debate his conclusions. What I must question, however, was the following - the Venerable states: "I think that you supported your arguments with a lot of facts that are wrong." It occurs to me that what the Venerable may have meant by "facts" were certain opinion-charged assertions I make, such as Moulds being a top five receiver, and of course such assertions are only true or false inasmuch as the individual himself interprets them. But insofar as "facts" are indisbutable data, I think the Venerable would be hardpressed to find any such "facts" that are "wrong." Take for instance the statistical data I offer on Bledsoe and Kelly - these are facts, and they are not wrong. Someone wishing to dispute them would be, quite simply, making a hopeless argument. They are the official NFL stats and appear as such within the body of my text. So I think the only issue here is that the Venerable uses the word "facts" when he was intending to refer to opinionated arguments, and if that is the case then he is free to question the latter as he sees fit because, as I said before, they can only be true or false insofar as the individual chooses to agree with them or not. Nevertheless, I feel impelled to beg the question - how can one question my "facts" and say they don't support my arguments when one's own argument makes its appeal to legitimacy through the statistical assertion that "if you give (Henry) 25 carries he'll generally give you about 130 yards." Such a statement blurs reality dangerously into fantasy. Consider the following: In three games this season, Henry's attempts are 23, 21, and 24, for which he has gained 75, 67, and 98 yards respectively. This means that in the first game Henry would have produced some 55 additional yards on 2 carries, 63 additional yards on four carries in the second game, and 32 additional yards on one extra carry in the third. This seems unlikely, and in consideration of the "fact" that Henry is averaging 3.5 YPC this season, a 25 carry game would translate to 87.5 yards, exactly 42.5 yards short of the Venerable's "factual claim."

But I will not press the issue, nor any of the Venerable's conclusions because I must bow to the depth and breadth of NFL superiority he continues to mantain over me. His resovoir of football knowledge exceeds my own, and so I put myself at risk by pressing the debate. I will not surrender the point about Bledsoe, nor will I acknowledge Henry as an asset to this team, but I respect Schwegs perspective and give him credit for backing up his own points wheras most Buffalonians are content merely to attack a player relentlessly and question his "heart" and "toughness" and leave it at that despite all evidence of skill and value (witness Satan as a clear example). And until the rest of you start leaving comments of such engaging insight you can all burn in hell, and me and Schwegs will inherit the earth - along with several thousand babes (with whom we will drink whiskey and smoke cigars and have sex).

Enough sports - "A Defense of Sherry" was supposed to be BRIEF but it was much longer than I intended, and I have so much else to talk about.

(Not really)

I hate to turn to politics, but what the fuck ... Cheney won this debate, can you really argue the point? Two blogs ago I handed the victory directly to Kerry and accepted that the candidate of my choosing was soundly trounced. Why? Because I try not to let my ego get in the way of reality (this is difficult at times). Unfortunately, many Bush supporters were unable to admit this until several days later when retrospect showed time and again that Kerry was the superior debator that night. Now Kerry supporters are doing the same thing. Quite frankly, it was not a contest. Don't get me wrong. Edwards did not lose to Cheney as bad as Bush lost to Kerry. But he did lose. Cheney was articulate as well as substative. He won on style (sound bytes such as the Dean observation) as well as substance. But this only goes to show what I've said all along. Kerry put himself at a serious disadvantage by taking Edwards in the first place. For all the talk about him being "young, attractive, intelligent, and charismatic," the only one of these that holds any sort of truth whatsoever is intelligence. I don't question the man's education. But he is not young (he's in his fifties), he is not attractive (in fact he's creepy and nerdy), and he is certainly not charismatic. Unlike Clinton (who is all of these things), Edwards comes across as a smug, arrogant, self-satisfied little twirp. He reminds me of the blue-haired lawyer from the Simpsons with the nasaly voice. While Clinton's southern accent seemed like a "charming drawl," Edwards' accent makes him sound like a hick.

Which brings me to my next point ...

If Kerry had taken Clark as a running mate, he would have won this election. In fact, it would be over already. Everybody who is voting for Kerry now would still be voting for him, but many other people who have written the ticket off would be giving it strong consideration. I count myself among these people. I think Bush (not Bush personally, but his administration) has done a lot right, but enough wrong to warrant consideration of a better, stronger couple of leaders. But lets be honest - Kerry's most glaring shortcoming is the question mark regarding his ability to fight the war on terror. As Cheney correctly put it - you're looking at thirty years of falling on the wrong side of every major military and defense issue. Now you all know I respect Kerry. He's an intelligent man and a good politician. But his ability to fight terror is suspect - so how in the fuck do you settle on Edwards as a running mate? In what way does Edwards inspire the confidence that Kerry fails to? He's a fucking trial lawyer, and he's been a liberal senator for one term - is this supposed to inspire the country to feel this is a guy who knows how to fight Osama? This is why Edwards brought no bounce to Kerry initially, why he disappeared off the face of the earth for so long, and why he continues not to help the Kerry cause now. Clark has a lot of what Edwards does not. For those who buy into the superficial shit - he is much better looking than Edwards, and I would argue that he is far more "charismatic" though I wouldn't go so far as to say that he is a charismatic person. But most importantly, he is a man that would inspire confidence in his ability to fight terror (after all, he's designed and executed military operations most of his life). He would appeal to the people that Kerry is missing out on - the people that aren't completely satisfied with Bush, but figure he's a safer bet. People like myself would have taken a good, long, careful look at the Kerry ticket if he'd picked a better running mate. But he picked the weiner and it is costing him severly.

But seriously, fuck politics...

Another reason why I hate the world of academia:
Today in class, a student actually began a response with the words "from an equestrian standpoint ... " From a fucking equestrian standpoint? Are you fucking serious? For those of you who don't know what that means, it means "from the perspective of a horse." These are the types of things our nation's "intellectuals" discuss.

Today I received my first speeding ticket ever. The cop, after accusing me of driving 70 mph on the 219 (which is false), then rushed away with my liscense before I could make an appeal to the old man's name. He came back with my ticket, at which point I interrupted him to name drop and was told it was too late to do anything about it now. Its not the ticket that's bothering me here. Its this - I've been pulled over twice in my life. The first time I was accused of doing 57 in a 40, which is a phsyical impossibility considering I was driving my dad's old four-cylendar standard Ranger and had just turned off of Bussendorfer onto Armor. At the point where the cop passed me and supposedly got me on radar, there is no way that truck could possibly have already gotten up to 57. Was I speeding? Yes. But it was more to the tune of 48 or 49. And now in this case, I am told that despite the fact that my spedometer clearly said "64" I was apparently doing "70". So evidently, the spedometer on my 2003, 21 thousand dollar vehicle is off by 6 mph, while a state trooper's paltry, insignificant toy radar gun is the inescapable dispenser of truth and light. I told the officer I was only doing 64, but he told me this simply was not the truth. I informed the officer of Nietzsche's argument that "there are no facts, only interpretations." He was unimpressed, so I was forced to take his gun away from him and pistol whip him all over the 219.

(Some of the facts of the above paragraph have been exxagerated or fabricated entirely - I'll leave it to your discretion to decide which ones).

I have not been drunk in about a month and a half. No wonder I'm going completely insane.

I think I need a girlfriend. Anyone know any classy dames? Or any hookers?

FREE WILLY, MOTHER FUCKERS!!

Thats it. Leave a message.


A Presto


Il Pazzo

PS - if anyone else should feel the need to take issue with my blogs, just remember who you're dealing with. As my name itself stands for - "One who is like God"

A Defense of Talent

Here's what we have - a city full of bitter, hostile snowmen with chips on their shoulders. Men who readily read and absorb all the words of Jerry Sullivan, taking them for doctrine rather than what they are - one poindexter little journalist's cranky opinions and sad attempts at creating controversy. Nowhere in the NFL, across the entire national football watching community, is Drew Bledsoe so villainized - so utterly maligned and demonized - as he is in the town he plays for. Were he to leave the Bills today, many teams across the league would happily take him as their starting QB. So why is it in Buffalo that he is "washed up" "a thing of the past" "not in it" and "on the verge of retirement"?

Here's why - its the same reason Jim Kelly was forced into early retirement. Offensive line? Well, yes, that's the short answer. The long answer is this pathetic psuedo-city's bitter, crabby attitude toward everybody and everything. Jim Kelly is a legend, people say. He was a warrior, not like Bledsoe. He was a true hero. How quickly we forget how we lamented his "soft arm" and "floater throws" during his time here - during his prime. How quickly we forget how we so often called for Frank Reich to come off the bench and start. How quickly we forget, most importantly, how we loathed the man's "slow feet" and "lack of mobility." Of course, it was never as glaring in his prime because he had a phenomenol line blocking for him, but where did it go his last two seasons. It went to shit - and so did Kelly's career. Rather than say "he can't play behind that line so lets fix the line," we did to him what is being done to Bledsoe. I remember it exactly - its passion, its fervant, its fury - the area wanted Kelly out, and it wanted him out bad, and why do I remember so well? Because I was one of the few who defended Kelly, much as I defend Bledsoe now. But this area called for the star-crossed future as represented by Todd Collins - the young man who was able to do what Kelly could do no longer. And we never wondered why Marino played well for several more years. We never wondered why Elway played well for several more years. We just said, oh well, Kelly got old.

Ten years later - Bledsoe stands behind that line, ready to play. His arm strong as it ever was. His physical skills in no way diminished from his prime. The difference? They're on him in three seconds flat. Even when he has time, he's forced to play scared because he doesn't know when they're coming and from where - or how many for that matter. Eerily similar to Kelly's final seasons here. And the fans reaction? Essentially the same, only perhaps a little more intense in Bledsoe's case because he did not have a long, memorable career here. But once again we forget the true problems - we have the most undisciplined, most utterly brainless team in the NFL. Penalties are killing us. Miscommunications, missed blocks, and incorrect routes are killing us. The coaches let a young, developing talent (McGahee) rot on the bench while they continue to run the ape-ish pedophile (Henry) who can't keep his footing, can't block, can't catch a ball, and has poor statistics and no TD's after three games. And yet, in Buffalo, we continue to say "lets be a running team. Lets be conservative."

For the record - Bledsoe - the same Bledsoe who is being trashed and torn apart while the fans call for Shane Matthews to take over the reigns - has a passer rating in the mid-eighties. This, by the way, is higher than his career rating which he built during a hall-of-fame career that saw him become one of the most successful passers statistically in history. His passer rating for this young season is precisely what Jim Kelly's career passer rating was. Furthermore, he is on pace to throw for over 3,000 yards this season, the mark of any good QB in this league. He has thrown only two INTs, and it should be noted that only one of these was his fault (the responsibility for the other resting squarely on Henry's shoulders). His completion percentage this year is 60% - can't argue with that. After all, that's what Jim Kelly's career completion percentage was, and its higher than Bledsoe's career mark of 57%. So what exactly is Buffalo's problem with Bledsoe?

"He makes bad decisions and he's not tough. He's not a warrior like Kelly was." I don't even want to hear this. How is he not "tough"? It takes a fucking warrior to stand in behind that offensive line every fucking game - knowing damn well that every single play could be the play that ends your career. In what way is he not "tough"? Watch the games. Why do you think teams blitz us relentlessly? Why do you think Bill Bellicheck refers to (exact quote) "Buffalo's horse-shit offensive line"? Bledsoe is not mobile. Can't argue that point. But guess what. Bring Favre in here. Bring Manning in here. Bring almost any QB in the league and put them behind our offense and see how well they do. Bledsoe still has the tools to be a top ten passer in this league, and you also cannot argue with that. He's got a cannon, and more dangerously, he's got an accurate cannon. But between dropped passes and blitzing linebackers, Bledsoe is taking the fall for a team that does not deserve him as a QB. More than that - a city that doesn't deserve him as a QB. Its the same shit we did to Kelly when we harrassed him right out of the NFL. We're making the same mistake again. Perhaps Bledsoe's greatest virtue is that he has the strength to keep his mouth shut through all of this. He puts his neck (literally) on the line for this team week after week, game after game, and the appreciation he receives is a pissed-off city that makes a peice of shit out of him. But lets face it - its a city in ruins. Its a city on the outs - a dying, desolate place where the leftover inhabitants are angry, pathetic little people with a massive chip on their shoulder. People who see the world in their own unique way. A city that is strangely similar to a pissed-off little midget after a fifth of Irish whiskey. Its a small, pathetic thing. Loud and fiery, but not to be taken seriously. Its a laughing stock in the eyes of the country, and its pissy little attitude only makes it more deserved. Best fans in the world? Not by a long shot - and indeed, only a city-full of Buffalonians would make an assertion like that.

But I'll tell you what. I'll make this deal with you. You can take your Doug Flutie's and your fucking Travis Henry's. Your ridiculous little psuedo-stars. Pathetic men who'd be put in their place quickly in other towns (witness Fluties desperate attemtps to reclaim a starting role while the city laughs him back to the bench after continual 4 of 12 for 60 yard performances such as early in the season). Or guys like Vaclav Varada, to use a hockey example, who are the greatest thing since Gretzky in the eyes of your quintessential Buffalo "tough guy underdog" citizen. Where is he now? Riding the pine, unheralded, unappreciated, and appropriately so. You can take these kinds of guys, Buffalo, and I'll do what I've always done. I'll take my Jim Kelly's and Drew Bledsoe's. I'll listen to guys like Eric Moulds (top five receiver by the way) when he says we need to pass the ball downfield more. I'll take a career star like Mogilny over a two-season phenom in Buffalo to be turned useless and injury riddled punk cry-baby Peca any day of the week. Want to know why Buffalo has no Superbowls or Stanley Cups? We're not unlucky. We're not jipped. Its because the Buffalo attitude and philosophy is WRONG!!

You want the Bills to start winning games? You want a Superbowl in Buffalo? Grab a couple more receiving threats (like a tight end who can actually catch a pass) and figure out how to protect Bledsoe and give him time to use the pistol he's got for an arm. Get McGahee off the bench and let him run wild (this would, naturally, require admitting that Travis Henry is not so good - tough, yes, but remember, we're ditching our old Buffalo philosophy here and letting the good players play. Travis Henry is the Bills' version of Vaclav Varada). McGahee is fast now, and as his confidence builds and he becomes his old self more and more, he's one of the fastest guys in the league, and he has something else Henry lacks - moves, skills...a fucking brain helps too, and he's got that over Henry as well. Ah, but don't listen to me. Don't listen to pro-bowl receiver Eric Moulds. Don't examine the statistics and the facts. No. We just want an under dog. We want another guy like Flutie - a guy whose position as an athlete mirrors Buffalo's position as a city - counted out but fighting for respect.

The Bills will never win the Super Bowl. And it breaks my heart, but the Sabres will never win a Stanely Cup. We're an angry, brainless little city, and we cause most of our own problems



A Presto



Il Pazzo