Fire Over The Drag

In political news, Republican Senator Norm Coleman (MN) couldn't have been pleased when he perused the local papers this morning.

It seems his 81 year old father was arrested Tuesday night for "lewd conduct and indecent exposure" while getting his freak on with 38 year old Patrizia Marie Schrag in a parked car. According to the Star Tribune story linked above, the geriatric father of the Senator and his younger paramour were found outside a pizza place on "on the eastern edge of downtown St. Paul" in flagrante delicto.

Now, I'm not one to rush to judgment or make assumptions, but reading between the lines here, I'd wager a few bucks that Ms. Schrag has a few priors for prostitution related offences. Just a guess.

Still, as The Strib reports:

Sen. Coleman has often referred to his father, a veteran of the Normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge and a former businessman, as one of his personal heroes.

Given the persistent Lance Bass like rumors that swirl around the Senator, I suppose that's still, in some sense, the case.

I await The Smoking Gun mug shots with barely contained glee.

Broken Bottles Under Children's Feet...

Oh, thank you Ayelet. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

A Just War

I don't speak Dutch--I think this is in Dutch--but, come-on, for an anti-war PSA, this sucks.

I mean, really, who doesn't take secret glee in Smurf body parts being strewn about amongst the blown-to-bits mushroom houses? Who doesn't wish that Gargamel and Azrael had access to WMD's and cluster bombs?

Notes Fizzy a Forma New Gangsta

Via, Ami, I present you with Gizoogle, the Snoop Dog translation version of Google.

See what it makes of my site here.

It does wonders for George Will columns too.

Further Evidence That I Own, and Sometimes Wear, A Hat

Happy Birthday Briar!

I was going to look for an image of something festive, perhaps a candle on a cake. And then I thought, no, maybe something cheesy.

And then, well, I thought, fuck it, I'll be sincere for a change.

Have a great year, Ms. S. I hope it brings you and your family joy and happiness and a new addition I can someday tell things that will make you blush.

From this corner of Tejas, I'm holding you and yours in my version of the light.



I could not hope to find better friends.

My Mixology Gift To You

Many of you know that while I wait for the day when the fiction can support the lifestyle, I earn a good portion of my keep by pouring drinks. It is an honorable profession and one that runs in my family. Yes it is often trying, but I generally like it. And it gets me out of the house.

Lately, Quality Restaurant and I have been experimenting with infused liquors. We’ve had quite a success with our Blackberry-Lemon-Sage Infused Vodka. The Ginger-Orange Infused Rum is quite popular as well. The Saffron-Orange Zest Vodka is tasty. But nothing has come close to the sublime flavor of the Blueberry and Vanilla Infused Bourbon.

So, as you look forward to summer gatherings, I offer you, faithful readers, the top secret formula so that you can create this nectar for yourself.

Step One: Acquire one (1) Big Ass Mason Jar. For the quantities below, you’ll need 3 liters at a minimum.

Step Two: Acquire two (2) one litre bottles of Decent Quality Bourbon, but be sure to keep it around 90 proof. We’ve been using Maker’s Mark. If you opt for something with a higher proof, the mellowing of the infusion process will take longer.

Step Three: Acquire five (5) pints of fresh blueberries and five (5) whole, fresh vanilla beans. The vanilla is important. It is expensive, but it is worth it.

Step Four: Wash and pat dry four (4) pints of blueberries. Dump into Big Ass Mason Jar. Take four (4) vanilla beans and, using a sharp knife, slit along entire length. Add to Big Ass Mason Jar. Open two (2) bottles of Decent Quality Bourbon and dump into Big Ass Mason Jar. Seal Big Ass Mason Jar. Store in a cool, dark place for seven (7) days. Resist opening Big Ass Mason Jar with all your strength, but wash and save empty Decent Quality Bourbon bottles and caps.

Step Five: After seven days, wash and pat dry one (1) remaining pint of blueberries. Take one (1) remaining vanilla bean, and using sharp knife, slit along entire length. Open jar and add both berries and bean to Decent Quality Bourbon, Blueberry and Vanilla Bean mixture. You are permitted to take a small sample taste at this point (not to exceed two [2] ounces), but be aware, the full impact of the flavor has not yet arrived. Seal jar and return to its cool, dark place for seven (7) more days.

Step Six: Your patience will be rewarded. Retrieve empty Decent Quality Bourbon bottles and, using a funnel, pour infused bourbon into jars. It will have acquired a beautiful, deep purple color and smell startlingly like aged Barolo. Do use some sort of implement to prevent wayward, flavor extracted blueberries from ending up in bottles.

WARNING: Do NOT be tempted to sample said fruit. It is nasty.

Cap bottles until ready to serve over ice. Serving size: One and a half (1.5) to two (2) ounces of tasty liquor.

Depending on weight and constitution of drinker, exceeding three servings in a sitting may result in a) waking up next to a blueberry-bourbon breath scented stranger and/or b)a hangover of epic proportions.

Blueberries are noted for their anti-oxidant properties. Consumption of Blueberry-Vanilla Bean bourbon may or may not ward off cancer.

Do not be tempted to half this recipe. It will work, of course, but two weeks is a long time to wait for more.

You will want more.

According To An Email That Landed In My Spam Folder Today

Holy Grail enthusiast Ian McKellan makes his living defending the rights of smokers.

I thought you should know.

Mondale, This Bug's For You

Dear Former One-Term Vice President, Distinguished Senator from the Great State of Minnesota, and Selector of Our First And Only Woman Vice Presidential Candidate:

I hear from our mutual friend over at Unwellness, that you are feeling a bit neglected in the Brit Love department. She reports that the occasional shout-outs on these pages to a certain Intelligent Garden Pest have left you feeling neglected. I assure you that I, in no means, wish you to feel slighted.

So I present you with: Cicadas Robertus Charltonus Emerging From Hibernation:



Often confused with the common Cicada or Locust, the Cicadas Robertus Charltonus appears only when a striker with English citizenship, astonishing creativity on and off the ball and a nose for goal walks the Earth. Accepted amongst scholars as a portent of future England victories in the World Cup, the Cicadas Robertus Charltonus has not been seen since 1966

Special For Ms. Mouse-Weasel

Seeing as you displayed admiration for the force of "The Head Butt" on Mr. Weasel's blog, go here and feel what it's like to butt from in Zidane's shoes.

Thanks to O. for the link.

When It Rains, The Creek Beyond My Yard Rises, and I See Lots of These

A Great Read

David Hirshey takes a look back at the Cosmos during the Studio 54 era.

I have my own memories from those years. We had a family friend who worked in the Cosmo’s front office. He used to give us tickets. Great tickets. I remember an exhibition game, “Europe vs. The Rest of the World,” when we were in the front row, dead on the center line.

And, for soccer mad me, best of all, were “Stadium Club” passes for after Cosmo’s matches. It was a dark paneled bar and grill, imbued with a terrible glamour in my eyes, and I’d sip Cherry Cokes and wait for a glimpse of Pele or Beckenbauer or Chinaglia or Carlos Alberto or Shep Messing.

Those stars, we didn’t know that many were past their primes. For us kids, they were as golden as ever, playing the game we loved best on a big stage. We didn’t understand that the NASL was on financial tenterhooks. We didn’t know they’d come here to play for silly money in a league with silly rules (the 35 yard offside line?!?!?!). We just knew that they were the same as Reggie or Willie. The Pele poster could, and did, hang alongside the Guidry. We could hate Johan Cruijff the same way we hated Yaz, the loathing tempered by admiration or even awe.

We didn’t know that we were the first generation. We didn’t realize until later that we’d been encouraged to play because our upwardly mobile parents didn’t fancy the injury rate or equipment costs of American football. We didn’t realize until later that the dads and handful of moms who coached knew next to nothing about the game. We didn’t realize that the game we could play anywhere, with just a ball and a patch of grass wasn’t the same here as baseball or football. We had the NASL and game tickets were equal to Yankee tickets. You could dream, in the backyard, of the pros.

I don’t think it’s coincidence that American teams started to qualify for the World Cup with players made up of my contemporaries. We grew up playing and we grew up with dreams of going pro in soccer, dreams as tangible and real to an eight year old as pitching for the Yankees. World Series or Soccer Bowl? I played both those fantasies in backyard games.

We all wanted to heel pass the ball like Pele, to bicycle kick on goal like Cruijff. I played left fullback then, the right field of American kiddy soccer in the late 70s, and I wanted to tackle like Beckenbauer, to slide on to the ball, clearing it away and sending a forward sprawling with no whistle.

Ten years behind us, kids got better coaching; every suburban town in the country has its own complex of fields, the white goal posts like sentinels of unfulfilled promise. The kids coming up, those playing in the under 17s and under 21s now, have never known a United States where soccer wasn’t a major sport, at least through college. But they don’t have what we had. MLS is a pale imitation of the glamour of the NASL. It feels like tickets should be given away on the back of Coke cans the way Six Flags hawks cheap entry to its theme parks.

But, I hope I’m wrong. I hope there’s a kid out there someplace, bored in his backyard on a summer afternoon, stepping over the ball and pushing it past an imagined defender, angling towards goal and pretending he’s Landon Donovan in the closing minutes of a tied San Jose Earthquakes match.

Viva La France!

Sometimes, right wing nut jobs make your choice easy:

France has also received criticism from the far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the anti-immigrant National Front. Le Pen, as he has done many times, has accused the team of using too many black players. And he has said the squad was not sufficiently respectful in singing the national anthem.

And, I'm with Mondale. Let the Germans dispatch Italy and the French triumph over Portugal. When they bring the Cup back to Paris, Thierry Henry and his mates can take turns on Le Pen's skull with that knobby bastard of a trophy.