A letter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg

(Note: As the NYPD and FBI tracked down Pakistani-born Faisal Shahzad on an Emirates flight from JFK to Dubai, the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, was saying the following:
KATIE COURIC: Law enforcement officials don't know who left the Nissan Pathfinder behind, but, at this point, the mayor believes the suspect acted alone.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody-

COURIC TO BLOOMBERG: A home-grown?

BLOOMBERG: Home-grown, maybe a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something.

Mr. Mayor:

I am writing to you today, as I am sure many of my fellow Americans already have, to register my indignation at your foolish, misguided and bigoted comments made to Katie Couric regarding the Times Square bomber. It is unfathomable to me that you, the head of government for the largest city in the United States, would be willing to go off half-cocked and make a disgraceful political statement a mere nine years after nearly 3,000 people died on Manhattan Island in an act of foreign—dare we say Islamic?—terror.

For you to make such a transparently partisan statement after an incident that could have killed hundreds of city citizens and tourists is, simply put, brain dead. I understand that many citizens of New York place themselves on a higher intellectual level than the rest of the nation, but those of us who disagree with President Obama—and, it would appear, you—still have the best interests of this nation at heart. Two previous attacks on New York should be sufficient for you to eschew political correctness in favor of a full investigation. Sadly, you lack the intellect to take this approach.

While this guy's trying to kill New Yorkers...

I am happy the New York City Police Department and the FBI were not as closed-minded as you and were willing to investigate the possibility of a third act of Islamic terror against your city. I understand we are all innocent until proven guilty, but you have defamed millions of Americans as part of a cheap political stunt. Your words were slanderous, arrogant and stupid.

Mike Bloomberg has found the real threat to American security.

My wife turns 30 this July and I had planned on bringing her to your city to celebrate. Feel free to bet a quarter those plans have changed, courtesy of your big mouth.

The letter would have been longer, but New York City's Web site limits you to 300 words.

Striking a blow for awkward teenagers everywhere

(from the "I wish I'd known this shit 20 years ago" files)

I was never what you would consider "cool." I wasn't in middle school, junior high and certainly not in high school. At Lehigh I had a group of people I hung out with, so it wasn't until I got to A&M that I was remotely popular (and that may have been because I was older and people thought I'd buy the beer. Who knows).

Net result: I never went into Abercrombie and Fitch.

Even when I was in high school, A&F was the supposed epitome of cool. And, even then, their shit was overpriced and their customer service blew. I didn't understand why the very California concept of wanting to be like the people who shit on you went nationwide, but this store is evidence that it did.

And you have these snotty asshats blowing you off if you aren't as beautiful as they are. I think this is by company policy.

Or, so I've been told.

We're sexy, flat-abed douchebags. We're too cool for you. Buy a shirt.

Today, for the first time, I went into an Abercrombie and Fitch. I was at the Galleria, sore as hell from a left leg injury and in a really bad mood. But hell, I liked the smell of their cologne and wanted to see how much it cost. So in I went--grouchy and praying for someone to ignore me.

And, lo and behold, there was a guy, probably about 20, who looked like he spent a lot of time at 24 Hour Fitness and not a lot at school working the place--which was empty. I walked in, he made eye contact and walked to the other side of the room. Since I have a short haircut right now that hides the gray hairs, I still look like I'm in my 20s, so I guess that meant, to him, I was subhuman.

(By the way, A&F--great company policy, telling your employees to treat customers like shit. I'll be your visitor breakdown is 20 percent looking, 25 percent humiliated, 50 percent 'fuck you very much, you jizz-burping scumbags' and 5 percent buyer.)

So, the stories in Forbes and Money Magazines about A&F's eat-shit service are true. Well, homey ain't playing that today.
(NOTE: All you awkward, pimply-face teens who got blown off by the jackholes, take notes starting NOW.)

"Hey, Chachi, get your ass over here," I said, snapping my fingers.

This appeared to be a new concept for AFD (A&F douche), because he actually came over on command. Or, maybe he just as the mental capacity of a poodle. Either/or.

"Tell me something," I said, leaning over the counter. "You act like a snobby asshole naturally or because they tell you to? You think you're going to get pussy acting like this?"

"I have a girlfriend," AFD replies.

"Really? You tell all her friends she gave you head while she was drunk? Because that's the only way I can see you ever getting any. Unless you're rich--and, judging from the fact you're making $7.50 an hour acting like a snot-nosed shit at a clothing store gives me a real good idea you're not."

AFD appears to have no response to this, but turns pale.

"Let me tell you something," I continued. "That girlfriend's going to leave someday, probably soon. And if you keep acting like a jackass, whether it's because it's how you roll or because you're told to, one day it's just going to be you, your computer, some lube and your right hand, wondering how it all went wrong."

No, I didn't buy the cologne. Burberry was just downstairs and they had some good shit on sale. And their employees actually liked it when you entered the store.

The negatives I can think of about ACORN's going out of business

The death of one man's bracket

I’m a stickler for tradition, especially traditions that have served me well in the past. When it comes to the NCAA basketball tournament, my habit is gotten me all four Final Four teams two of the last three years and the national champion four straight.

So, with five minutes before the opening game Thursday, I took a quick look, made spot judgments and filled out my brackets. I was done with two minutes to spare. My rules are simple: pick the best team I’ve seen all year to win it, the most athletic team (if possible) to come in second, be logical when it comes to A&M’s chances and pick against Texas in the first round.

I'd rather my players be in the NBA than win in your bracket.

And ignore Dick Vitale's favorite conference, which means shun the Big East.

Net result: Kansas to win, Kentucky to lose in the final, A&M to the Final Four and Texas fan worried about football recruiting by the start of the weekend.

I did take a few risks, of course: I liked New Mexico State and Cornell as my 12-5 upsets, thought Georgetown was playing well enough to make it to the Sweet 16, picked Vanderbilt to be a surprise entrant in the Sweet 16 and thought UTEP was still good enough to beat Butler in the first round.

I feel good about things.




(By the way, I think A&M is a totally logical pick for the Final Four. If they beat Purdue tomorrow, they get Duke--probably--in Houston. They have a stronger defense than anyone Duke’s faced and there will be 50,000 screaming Aggies at Reliant Stadium. I will be one of them, and I WANT DUKE. Ok, moving on.)

2 p.m. Thursday: BYU has just finished off Florida in double overtime. Ok, good; got that one. I figured the 30-year-old white guys had a chance against a young and only partially talented Gator team. But Villanova had trouble with Robert Morris? Sure am glad I picked Baylor to win that one. Puke.

3:35 p.m. Thursday: Old Dominion has defeated Notre Dame. Oops, didn’t have that one, but I can’t stand Notre Dame anyway. It’s time to go get the missus, so I’m listening to the end of the Vandy--Murray State game on the radio. Jaime’ has already warned me that Vandy has assumed the role of the suck, but they’ve got the lead with 6 seconds left. Murray State takes care of the with a jumper at the buzzer.

I throw my hands up in dismay, hearing the brakes squealing and the crash of my West bracket. Or maybe it was the guy in front of me who just drove off the road. Guess he had Vandy too. Or maybe he had just heard that Washington had beaten Marquette at the buzzer. I had Marquette in that one, too.

8 p.m. Thursday: By this point, things are beginning to look a little odd. St. Mary’s has beaten Richmond--no biggie, even though I had Richmond--and Butler has just smoked UTEP like a Lucky Strike. I should have remembered one of my old rules: “If you lose to the University of Houston, you suck harder than Elton John during pride week.”

Kansas is having trouble with Lehigh, or alma mater #1 (or, as some people I know call it, alma “don’t” mater). One of the guys I know from Lehigh posts “THEY’RE SHUTTING DOWN THE BRIDGES IN LAWRENCE, KS!” Of course, Lawrence has no bridges, but what the hell. I refer to Lehigh as “we,” feel dirty and decide not to again. There can be only one.

But KU’s problems pale to Georgetown‘s, another one of my surprise Sweet 16 teams. They’re getting buried by Ohio University.

WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON HERE?

11 p.m. Thursday: Wake Forest beats Texas at the buzzer. The despised scum from Austin have gone from #1 to first round out in less than three months. I jump up and down and scream like a 7-year-old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. My wife, already asleep, is not quite as enthralled. But tradition has held.

11 a.m. Friday: A look at the brackets indicates they’re still standing, though certain parts of them look like they’ve been hit by a JDAMS. A few upset specials, like Cornell over Temple and Siena over Purdue, and we’re back in business.

3 p.m. Friday: I wish the Air Force would stop using my brackets for target practice. Cornell does pull the upset, but Siena and Minnesota are gone. What the hell was I thinking supporting two Yankee teams? Foolishness. Looking at my brackets is now as desirable listening to “The Very Best of Air Supply”.

oh...MY...GOD!

At least Missouri beat Clemson. Thanks, Big 12!

6 p.m. Friday: A&M has opened up a can of country whoopass on Utah State, much to my relief. I was worried that the refs in that game (who have a history of screwing the Aggies) would…well, screw the Aggies. Well, the Aggies pounded on the Aggies so soundly that the Aggies (our Aggies, not theirs) had nothing to worry about.

9 p.m. Friday: I took Florida State to beat Gonzaga. And Oklahoma State over Georgia Tech--thanks for nothing, Big 12! Net result: staring blankly at the screen with a glazed-over look like a 40-year-old straight male at that same Jonas Brothers concert. It gets worse when New Mexico State loses to Michigan State on a lane violation. Who screws NMSU (the Aggies)? The same refs I was worried about earlier.

Oh, the humanity..

2:30 p.m. Saturday: I’m awoken from a nap by Jaime’, mocking Villanova’s loss…to St. Mary’s. Didn’t Dick Vitale say the Big East was the best conference in the nation, bar none? WHADDYA SAY NOW, DICKIE V? Now an Elite 8 team, an A&M victim, is gone.



8 p.m. Saturday: Baylor has won. Puke. Tennessee has beaten Ohio and Butler beat Murray State, neither of which matter to me because I HAD NONE OF THEM. Washington has beaten New Mexico, scrubbing another Sweet 16 team with one I had losing in the first round. And the Fighting Honkies of Northern Iowa have eliminated my champion, Kansas.



But hey, my Aggies are still alive. AND I WANT DUKE.

Don't think east coast bias exists?

Let me cure you of this misconception. I am living proof of it.

In October, I started work on a book. It's a heck of a good subject and I've gotten a lot of help with it. The subject: the 1999 "Bonfire Game" between Texas A&M and the University of Texas. The game took place a week after the collapse of Aggie Bonfire on Nov. 18, which killed 12 Aggies and injured 27. I've talked to everyone from kids who were hurt in the collapse to EMTs, to reporters covering the event to the guy who called the game on ABC. I've gotten an awful lot of support from guys who played in the game on both sides, which is truly remarkable.

For those who aren't familiar, the Aggies were supposed to be a national championship caliber team in 1999 but had three losses; the Longhorns were supposedly a year away, but needed a win against A&M to have a chance at playing for the national championship. The Aggies had been in that spot the year before and lost on the last second in Austin. After the Bonfire collapse and the heartbreak Aggieland suffered, nobody expected A&M to put up much of a fight.

Instead, after falling behind 16-6, the Aggies mounted a comeback and won a stunning upset, 20-16. It was one of the most memorable games in the history of the rivalry--and nobody has written about it in a decade.

So I've got a chance to write about one of the best-known games in college football in the last 25 years. I wrote nearly 150 query letters, trying to get the interest of some book agents. And, lo and behold, I'm actually represented--by a guy from New York!

So what's the point, right? How about this--for all the letters of interest I got (about 20), I got E-mails back from New York-based agents saying, "Yes, I remember that game. And you did a great job with your query. But since it happened in Texas, I'm not interested."

Ok, let's get this straight--we've got a book about one of the worst tragedies of the 1990s combined with college football in an emotional story of overcoming true adversity. The two schools involved are among the five largest in the nation and, oh, college football is king in the south!

I've got a pretty good idea that, if I don't screw this up, it'll sell well. Hell, Aggies alone would probably buy 10,000 copies. So why doesn't it have a release date yet?

Because five out of the eight major publishers have also said that "it's too regional."

Ok, fine. So what if that "region" includes Texas, the second-most populous (and coolest) state in the union. So what if people across the south will gobble up the story because of their love for football? It happened in flyover country, therefore it's just dull, not hip enough and just oh-so inconsequential.

Pathetic.

Oh, well. Someone's going to pick it up and it'll sell well. And then I'm going to fly to New York and laugh.

Why's the media afraid of Sarah Palin?

In case you didn't know, Sarah Palin's autobiography, Going Rogue, comes out on Tuesday. The media has gotten their mitts on advance copies (of course) and (also of course), have decided to savage her.

The headline on this week's Socialist Newsweek (what, they haven't renamed it yet?) reads, "How do you solve a problem like Sarah? Why's she's bad for the GOP (and for America)." The AP assigned 11--11!--half-brained reporters to "fact-check" the book (remember that when you hear the AP bitching about how they just don't have enough staff to cover the news) and the New York Times, in shocking fashion, slams her -- and her supporters -- by bemoaning "just how thoroughly colorful personal narratives overshadow policy arguments and actual knowledge."

(In other words, she's stupid and has nothing to say.)

Judging from these obvious and slightly more subtle digs, Sarah Palin's a threat to the future of the republic. Which begs the question: compared to who? Compared to Barack Obama, whose "colorful personal narratives" in The Audacity of Hope were lauded by the media? The same Obama who has run up the deficit with no benefit to the economy, the guy who has stomped on personal freedoms with his nationalization of the auto industry and his push for nationalized health care? That guy, the one who has made the U.S. a joke internationally as he attempts to "make up" for the Bush Administration's defense of the nation?

Or maybe she's not as big a threat as chronic liar Joe Biden, who hasn't met a dumbass comment he doesn't like? Or perhaps John McCain, who is a brave man filled with courage and principle except when he's in the halls of the Senate, where he's been for the past 20 years selling out the Republican Party?

So she's a bigger threat than an overrated loser who's lost popularity faster than any political figure in modern history, a bloviating fraud and a spineless twerp with an attitude problem? Do tell, media.

What gets your goat, guys? That she speaks simply? That she's not from New York, Chicago, or L.A.? That she believes in her family and doesn't believe in abortion? That she believes in the military and national defense, not cowering to those who would do our nation harm? Is it because she's more experienced a politician than Barack Obama, whose "personal narratives" seem to be about all he brings to the White House?

Is it because she's smoking hot?

Whatever it is, the press treats Palin with an irrational hatred that is breathtaking to watch. Honestly, they're like a bunch of snot-nosed high school brats who are going to do anything they can to pick on the kid they don't like. But, like those kids, they're the ones who come out looking like a gaggle of idiots.

Hey, talking heads: we get it. You don't like Sarah Palin. So what? Overwhelmingly, the American people don't like you. At least 40 percent of the American people like Sarah Palin, so maybe you could take some notes.

My first suggestion would be to get the hot members of your community to dress up in spandex and pose for photos. That would be a start--we'll give you a few minutes to remove your heads from your collective backsides and freshen up.

Just keepin' it real

So just a few minutes ago, I went over to our local Chic-fil-a (also commonly known as the Single Greatest Fast Food restaurant EVER) to get dinner, since the Missus is under the weather. Business for the evening rush really hadn't picked up yet, so I walked straight up to the counter to place my order.

The girl who was taking my order had a co-worker, maybe 17 years old, jabbering in her ear. Apparently, they'd been having a conversation about another co-worker before I showed up. Instead of doing the smart thing and shutting up, the kid kept talking.

"See, one of my homeboys was there, so I know she was keepin' it real, you know what I'm sayin'?"

I looked at him quizzically for a second, then motioned him over. Being that customer service truly does come first at the local Chic-fil-a, even in a situation that could be to the employee's physical detriment, he walked over the counter in front of me.

"You don't have homeboys," I said, leaning over the counter and speaking softly. "And I don't know what you're saying, she doesn't know what you're saying and, really, you don't know what you're saying."

For you see, the 17-year-old in question had a small problem that made it a little tough to believe he could keep it real: he was the whitest kid you've ever seen.

How white? White enough that I felt soul within me when I looked at him.

The kid had super blonde hair, blue eyes, and a complexion so pale that his cheeks really were red. This kid was so nordic that Hitler would have popped a Woodrow at the sight of him.

So here he was, the postcard for Der Fuhrer's Master Race, talking like he had Master's Degree in Thug Life. Uh, no.

To his eternal credit, he stiffened up, said "Yes, sir," and went in the back ignoring the stifled giggles of his co-workers. Whether he busted out his Kanye CD to figure out how to respond to such criticism is unknown.

Dinner, by the way, was quite good. CFA kept it real, you know what I'm sayin'?