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ball pads and helmets and so on through every sport. Each time technology has found a way to improve equipment it has done so. So why shouldn’t a person treat his body the same way? In the context of sports, the body is nothing more than one more piece of equipment, anyway. So why not improve it with new technology? Athletes use weights, why shouldn’t they use chemicals?
Consider the Greek Phidippides, a professional ru
IT’S NOT POLITE TO POINT
I don’t care for athletes who point to the sky after they’ve accomplished something on the field. Even worse are the ones who kneel down, bow their heads and make a big show of being “believers.” You know something? God doesn’t like that shit. He’s not impressed with spiritual grandstanding; it embarrasses him. He says, “Get up, you phony, showoff bullshit artist and pay attention to the fuckin’ game. I took the points!” Imagine the conceit of these people who think God is helping them and is looking for their acknowledgment. I say, play now, pray later.
ATTITUDE CHECK
Let’s straighten out this whole “attitude” thing. Someone on TV said the sports anchor guys on ESPN have a lot of attitude. Let me tell you something, what these guys have is not attitude.
Here’s attitude: One day, when I was about eighteen, I was standing at the bar in the Moylan Tavern with a couple of guys from my New York neighborhood. The Moylan had big windows, so if you were standing at the bar, you could easily see the people walking by on Broadway.
One of the guys in our group was a little older than the rest of usan ex-convict named John Cooney. All of a sudden, in the middle of the conversation, he looked out the window and saw someone walking past. He reached behind the bar for the baseball batthe one the bartenders used for settling sports and political argumentsand he went outside, walked up to the guy on the sidewalk and just started smashing him with the baseball bat. The guy fell down, John walked back into the bar and put the bat away. He said, “The guy owes me money.” That’s attitude.
The guys on ESPN don’t have that. What they have is a kind of smart-mouth, white-boy, college mentality. They’re snotty, superficial white guys. Even the black anchors on ESPN are nothing more than snotty white guys. Snotty is not attitude. Snotty is just bad ma
John Cooney knew attitude. He also knew more about how to swing a bat than any one of these blow-dried, never-were-athletes sitting safely behind their fruity little desks.
GOOD CHEER
Twenty-five years ago, two lovely girls in San Carlos, California, were kind enough to perform this football cheer for me, and in 1984 I used it on an HBO show. I’m passing it along now and would like to point out that it’s actually quite useful at sporting events of any kind. In fact, I’ve found it to be a big crowd pleaser at weddings, baptisms and first communions, as well. Here it is. Chant it in good health:
Rat shit! Bat shit! Dirty ol’ twat! Sixty-nine assholes Tied in a knot! Hooray! Lizard shit! Fuck!
Lets go over that again, this time with a few comments:
Rat shit! Bat shit!
(How nice to begin with a reference to nature.) Dirty ol’ twat!
(A perfectly normal sports reference, as far as I’m concerned.) Sixty-nine assholes Tied in a knot!
(No, I don’t know what that means, either.) Hooray!
(There’s the cheer part.)
Lizard shit!
(Back to nature once again.) Fuck!
(And we end on an uplifting note.)
Now here’s the happy postscript: About ten years later, I met a guy named Michael who gave me the second verse to the cheer. I hope those San Carlos girls will see this and accept it as my way of saying thanks:
Eat, bite, fuck, suck! Nibble, gobble, chew! Finger fuck! Hair pie! Dick, cunt, screw! Hooray! Bat fuck! Blow me!
Let’s go over that again:
Eat, bite, fuck, suck!
(Once again, off to an excellent start.) Nibble, gobble, chew!
(I notice verbs are more prominent this time.) Finger fuck! Hair pie! Dick, cunt, screw!
(More good sports references.) Hooray!
(Can’t have a cheer without it.)
Bat fuck!
(Truly an interesting thought.) Blow me!
(Once again, ending on an uplifting note.)
Cheers!
ONE AT A TIME, PLEASE
Never buy two different garments of the same type at the same time, such as two sport shins. Inevitably, you will like one better than the other and you will choose to wear it every time. The second one will always remain second choice and it will stay in the closet, coming out only occasionally, when you hold it in front of you at arm’s length and decide not to wear it. Here’s how you handle this problem: Exercise a little discipline at the store and buy just one shirt. Then, if you like it, wait a month and buy another. That’s it. Next, Tm go
KEEPIN’ IT REAL IN THE RING
Another area of speech that could benefit from a bit more realism would be those a
“Ladies and gentlemen, the main event of the evening: twelve rounds of heavyweight boxing. In this corner, from Cornhole, Mississippi, weighing two hundred pounds and wearing soiled white trunks, an utter and complete loser who is wanted in six states for crimes against the animal kingdom. Considered
a complete scumbag by his family, he once fucked his sister at a church picnic and forced her to walk home alone. Also, on at least four occasions he has taken out his dick at the circus and waved it at the trapeze lady. Here is, He-eenryy Gonzaaalez!
“In the other corner, wearing a pair of lame, out-of-style zebra-skin shorts that he found on the street, from Sweatband, Arkansas, an unattractive and disturbed young man who, by court order, is not permitted to be alone for more than two minutes at a time. In and out of sixteen mental institutions over the years, he is a dangerous sociopath who once killed a nun for blocking his view. He has been legally barred from more than fifteen hundred bars in the New York City area, and recently, while visiting a supermarket, he forced a fat woman to blow him in the meat section. Here he is, Ma-a-a-tty Muuuurphyyy!”
The fighters move out to the center of the ring to have the boxing rules recited to them.
“All right, boys, you know the rules: No biting, scratching, clawing or tripping. No yanking dicks. No grabbing the other guy’s testicles and snapping them up and down. No using a small screwdriver to punch holes in the other guy’s neck during clinches. And if you’re go
WELLWISHING
When taking leave of one another, we often say, “Be well.” Perhaps we should be more precise and a bit more practical. Reasonably, we can’t expect everyone to be healthy all the time. Good wishes should be more realistic: “I hope you re
main reasonably healthy during the next eighteen months or so, and if you have a stroke, I hope it only paralyzes you on one side, leaving you free to take phone calls.” I think people would appreciate such thoughtfulness and precision.
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
We Americans love our prepositional phrases.
Out of sight, off the charts, in the groove, on the ball; up the creek, down the tubes, in the dumper, out the yin-yang; off the wall, round the bend, below the belt, under the weather.