Obama vs. McCain II

The second presidential debate has come and gone, and though neither candidate landed any haymakers we do know one thing: John McCain is OLD. Not "Lethal Weapon" Danny Glover "I'm too old for this sh**" old. More like William Hickey as Don Corrado Prizzi in "Prizzi's Honor" crypt-keeper old.



As I watched the two men on stage I couldn't shake the image of 60 something year old Sylvester Stallone crabwalking around the ring with Antonio Tarver in the unfortunate sixth installment of the Rocky saga "Rocky Balboa" (see publicity shot above). Maybe it was McCain's animatronic arm movements, or maybe it was his lack of any indentifiable neck (my wife swears he had a neck in 2000), but this guy looks worse than old. He looks like he could check out at any moment.

And he doesn't do himself any favors when he actually speaks. His attempts at humor are so utterly unfunny that it is a stretch to call them attempts, and impossible to call them humorous. Hairplugs? Are you serious?

Through two debates his favorite line is his description of how when looking into Vladimir Putin's eyes he "saw three letters, K-G-B". Woooo! Zinger! And I'll bet Putin looked back at McCain's grizzled, washed-out mug and saw four letters, "A-A-R-P". Then he probably laughed and thought to himself "I could knock over this so-called war hero with a wet rag, smother him with it, and feed him to my dog Nikita".

And he could do it, too.



America simply can't afford to elect John McCain. He'll get his ass kicked!

Paul Newman 1925 - 2008

Thanks Paul. Thank you for giving us Fast Eddie Felson, Butch Cassidy, and the unforgettable Reggie Dunlop.



Thank you for over 50 years of great movies. And the pasta sauce. You will be missed.

Happy Birthday Leonard Bernstein

This week the San Francisco Symphony and its' FABULOUS conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, will open New York's Carnegie Hall with a fantastic tribute to MTT's mentor, American music legend Leonard Bernstein. Lenny, who passed away in 1990, would have been 90 this year. Cat and I had a chance to see the performance last weekend before MTT and the SFS took it out on the road. They are going to knock it out of the park in New York. This show has everything, from the orchestra snapping along during the Jets versus Sharks prologue from Westside Story, to MTT joining in and singing(!) during the terrific finale, "Ya Got Me" from On The Town. Too fun.



Yes, I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for musicals and showtunes. Go ahead, laugh. I'll be doing the MAMBO!

Jeff Getting That "College Experience" He Missed Out On

As a graduate of one of America's great commuter colleges, San Francisco State U., I received the best education $1200 a semester could buy. I got a well-rounded, liberal arts degree and a spiffy diploma that sits on a shelf in my office next to my softball trophies.

One thing I didn't get though, was the College Experience. No Animal House fraternity parties, no sneaking kegs past the nosy RA on the fourth floor of the freshman dorm, no sabotaging of the toilets on the girls' floor----you know, all those things that you look back on fondly years after leaving school. Me, all I have are books on Gamal Abdel Nassar and the Suez Canal Crisis and that little diploma.

That all changed this past Sunday. I was bouncing around Ninth and Irving with my brother Jon AKA Giovanni looking for a place to catch the 49ers game. We settled on an Irish pub (shocker!) called The Blackthorn. It had several TVs and the Sunday Ticket package, and they take credit cards (woohoo!).

We settled in for some ciders and beers and had a nice time with a hearty group of locals to watch the games. And by "locals" I mean people from Philly, New York, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis who live here in San Francisco and gather at sports bars to watch their hometown teams. They even had a little grill out back and fired up some hot dogs for everybody.

As the afternoon games wound down, Giovanni and I were hanging out back having hot dogs, beers and cigs, when our little afternoon idyll was completely shattered. First a huge group of singing (badly) Irish soccer hooligans came in to celebrate a big victory. A woman with a thick brogue slurred to us that County Kilsomebodyorrather beat Kerry. Gio and I hunkered down as the songs got louder and less intelligible. I could make out a few place names and a few "IRAs" but not much else.



Then, things got real hairy. I looked inside as literally dozens of college age kids in matching "team" T-Shirts moved the pool table aside and started setting up long tables with tons of plastic beer cups and huge pitchers of domestic beer. "What is this?" I asked my brother. "Flip Cup" he replied. I guess Gio really DID get a better education at UC Santa Cruz, because I didn't know the first thing about this game.

And really, I still don't. It involves a lot of yelling, flipping plastic cups, more yelling, and chugging huge amounts of beer. Several of the combatants stumbled outside for a "break" taking slugs of a grandaddy jug of Wild Turkey. Soon people were stumbling all over the place, falling onto our table, into our laps, etc. When one celebrant dropped and shattered an entire pitcher of beer we decided we'd had enough of college and matriculated to Clement St. to catch the Packers-Cowboys game.

Global Warming Forecast

After yet another scorcher of a day here in the Bay Area, I decided to do a little research on this global warming thing. No, I didn't watch Al Gore's "Incovenient Truth", I did something better. I found a forecast for the world.

Two Guys Making Out In Front of Lehman Brothers

McCain-Palin campaign moves to blame financial crisis on "the degradation of American Family Values"

Five Reasons Why Manchester United Sucks

Reason #5. Bacon Face - AKA "Sir" Alex Ferguson.


Is there a bigger prick in football? Probably, but this player-tampering, ref-bullying, sanctimonious blowhard makes Mike Ditka look like that Neil Whatever Warren dude who founded ****ing EHarmony. I can't wait till he retires. He's been threatening to do so for years now. Please. Stop teasing us and just quit already.

Reason #4. The ManUSA fan phenomenon.


Why is it that EVERY American who follows European football is a Manchester United fan? Do they have ancestors from Manchester, or are they just lazy and support the team on top at the time? They don't know the first thing about the game, and they spend gameday watching "their" Devils and yelling stuff like "GET HIM!" and "COVER THAT DUDE!"
Look at these c***suckers in their brand new ManU shirts. They've been fans since at least 2007! Well done! "Quick, name me two players on 'your' team!"

"Uh, David Beckham....and Christiano Ronaldo! Yeah! He rules!"

OK. You get half credit for that answer, you douchebag. Which brings me to:

Reason #3. Christiano Ronaldo carries a purse.


Sure, go ahead and tell me about all the models he's banging, and all that crap, but just LOOK at him! WTF!?!? I know he's European and all, but c'mon. The pink shirt is one thing, the jeans are pretty *%@#ing bad, but then he tops off the sissy ensemble with a goddamned purse! What, you couldn't find your tiara? I think I hate him.

Reason #2. Nani's mullet.


Ole!

Reason #1. This guy.


Way to go, Wayne. You a$$hole.

Go Arsenal. Go Liverpool. Go Chelsea. Go Wigan, hell, go anybody. As long as it ain't Manchester United.

Maryland Knocks The Puke outta Cal

"That's what we do in Maryland! Crabcakes and football!!!"

As a Maryland native and rabid Terp fan who has lived nearly his entire life in California, I had dreaded this day ever since the matchup had been announced. THE University of California was to play a home-and-home series with my beloved Maryland Terrapins.

On the Saturday before the Bears' visit to College Park, two things happened. First, Cal dumptrucked Washington State SIXTY SIX to THREE. Later that day, the Terps sh** the bed against Middle F*cking Tennessee F*cking State. You can look it up. MTSU (because I ain't gonna type the whole name again) plays in something they call the Sun Belt Conference and unless YOU play in the Sun Belt Conference or are a degenerate gambler, you'd have to look that up too.

And now we're supposed to play Cal? Aren't they supposed to challenge USC for the Pac-10 title and a BCS berth? I prepared myself for the worst.

But a funny thing happened on the way to our a$$ kicking.





Yeah, great hit. But it gets better.




At that moment I KNEW Maryland was going to beat these turkeys. When I saw Cal's "Heisman Candidate" Jahvid Best losing his breakfast on national television, it was OVER. The Terps just took a dump on Jeff Tedford's clipboard. Maryland cornerback Kevin Barnes had this to say about the hit. "He's not permanently hurt, so I'm fine with that," Barnes said. "Had he died, I'd have felt bad. He can probably play next week."

Suck it, Cal. You AND your sh***y Pac-10 conference can kiss my a$$! Yeah, take your golf, tennis, and women's water polo titles, but when the rubber hits the road...

Scoreboard. Maryland 35 Cal 27. And it wasn't even that close. See you next year in the Yay Area. I'll be there. And I'll have plenty of my Terrapin brothers and sisters with me. You might want to wait until after the game to eat this time.