Norman Sugrue

I reacted to the news that Norman Sugrue had passed away in much the same way as he would’ve reacted to similar news.  I cursed audibly in a crowded room full of strangers. He didn’t hide his passions, he embraced them. It made him a special person in a world full of mundane people.

Norman Sugrue was my Little League coach. Some of his players were very talented competitors – I was not. How he mustered the patience to deal with me is a mystery for the ages. For three years, I didn’t get a hit.  I’d like to repeat that, because it’s a statistical miracle. For three years, I didn’t get a hit. I got a ton of walks, because I was pocket-sized, but I was of little use to my team. Still, twice weekly, Coach Sugrue would send me out with a smile to right field and pray that I didn’t screw things up. Once, when I wet my pants from drinking too much Mountain Dew, he gave me his jacket to tie around my waist so I’d be less embarrassed. In my fourth year, he was there to see my first “hit”, a triple that I can honestly say had about four errors from the defense.  I think he was excited as I was.

As I grew into this stage in my life that vaguely resembles adulthood, I became closer with his children. Previously acquaintances, I grew to have much closer bonds with them.  This allowed me to interact socially with someone who had been an authority to me for the first time in my life.  He was still “Coach” – he would always be Coach – but he was also this friendly man with a deliciously vulgar sense of humor, who loved his grandchildren so passionately, who spoke volumes with a smile, who was fiercely loyal to his friends, who could own a room without standing up.  His children share those qualities, and they are blessed for it.

Toward the end of his life, as disease robbed him of his vitality, Coach Sugrue wasn’t the same man. This does nothing to diminish my sense of loss though. While I know that he is at peace now at last, my heart aches at his passing. I miss you Coach, and I always will.  Godspeed.

In defense of the environment

I made an important decision today.  Despite my personal feelings of responsibility to our planet, I will NOT be boycotting BP gas stations.  BP as a corporation is flirting with bankruptcy as it stands, so my actions would only serve to jeopardize the small businesses who were unfortunate enough to have the wrong sign in front of their shops.

This was not an easy decision to make – I actually conveyed my concerns and explained the pros and cons of any action with my local service station owner.  Is my patronage a tacit endorsement of environmental cavalierism?  Would the strain of my small business boycott serve only to further upset a dizzyingly unbalanced local and national economy?  Isn’t solidarity with a small businessman solidarity with every man?

He said “¿Que?”

In defense of frozen drinks

“Blender’s broke.”

You sir, are a liar.  I am poigniantly aware that your blender is fully operational, but that you dislike using it.  If it was just for my frozen drink, maybe; but frozen drinks spread like gonorrhea, and you don’t want to unleash patient zero on your bar.  I get that – I feel the struggle.  Here why “f*** you and make my drink” though.

• Frozen drinks are delicious.  About this, there can be no debate.  I like pineapple and I like coconut, and piña coladas are, as a delivery system for those two flavors, as cruelly efficient as a German prostitute.  Build a better mousetrap and we’ll talk.  Until then, we are at an impasse.
• Frozen drinks are adored by women.  We all know this to be correct, and yet no one acts upon it to their advantage.  Next time you see a group (gaggle?  flock?) of women huddled at a bar, order them a round of Strawberry Daquiris.  You?  In.  Meanwhile, the guy who was going to get them Miller Lites will be on a street corner kicking a tin can.  No one denies this.
• Frozen drinks are deceptively strong.  To wit, here is the recipe for the Frozen Rum Runner:  equal parts pineapple juice, orange juice, blackberry liqueur, banana liqueur, light rum, and dark rum.  That’s four against two, favoring the schlockered side.   And we haven’t mentioned the “floater”.  Oh yes, the floater.  A shot of 151 in the straw.  You know what a floater is in another drink?  It’s a double.
• Frozen drinks have a limited window of opportunity.  When it’s balls hot and sunny, I will mess up a Frozen Mudslide.  Cool and refreshing.   No one drinks frozen drinks at midnight in February, so sack up for the Summer season.
• Frozen drinks are not as difficult as you purport.  I’m looking at you, twenty-two year old bartender.  When I was your age, we didn’t have an Island Oasis machine premeasuring our ice into a special blender, with special mixes in little cartons.  You don’t even have to scoop ice.  I’m not asking you to drill a hole in a fresh coconut (Although that would be awesome.  Have you ever tried that?  It’s like having sex with a unicorn.), so your reluctance boils down to not wanting to rinse out the blender.  That’s lazy, even by my estimable standards.  (To say nothing of the bars with the Slurpee machines full of intoxicants.  You guys have no excuse.)
• Frozen drinks are self limiting.  I have, on several occasions, gone into the double digits in my evening beer consumption.  This is also true with mixed drinks, wine, cider, shots, grog, mead, port, and shandies (I have a problem).  Not so with frozen drinks, because of the brain freeze.  So even if I am a pain in your ass, I will only be so three or four times.  Tonight.

In conclusion, your mother is a whore.

Opportunity Knocks On My Open Barn Door

“Hey, Slick.  Your fly is down.”

And thus, my morning began.  I was fixin’ to get lattéd up, so I actually left the house.  Lo and behold, the barista at Starbucks pointed out a pantular flaw in my groinal region.  Hurriedly, I spun away from him to address the issue, since it was mildly embarrassing.  Slightly more so now, since my pirouette has alerted the line of customers to my wardrobe malfunction.  Anyhow, up goes the fly, and I’m out the door.

Not much of a story, huh?  So a dozen people saw my manties.  Big whoop.

“Hey, your zipper’s open.”

Funny how, as I’m walking away from the coffee shop, I’m not only remembering the embarrassment of the situation, but I’m paraphrasing the guy who shamed me, and in a different voice.

“I said your zipper’s down!”

Ah, crap.  It’s busted.  My zipper is busted.  In many ways this is like losing a child, only much, much worse.  Like a bad haircut.

I’m a rock solid mile from my destination, and no less than fifteen people alerted me to my predicament on that lonely walk.  Men and women, old and young – it didn’t matter.  Strangers felt the need to point and shout at my man zone.  It got so bad that I pulled into Hot Topic for a pair of pants.  Hot Topic!  Fortunately no one will read this.

It was in that angst-ridden dressing room that I came upon a realization – an epiphany, if you will.  In less than fifteen minutes, over two dozen people looked at my junk.  Unsolicited eyes focused upon one thing.  Eyes from every demographic group.

That’s prime advertising space right there.

I would have to be judicious about who I sold ads to, of course.  The last thing I want is for my crotch to be involved in something distasteful.  I don’t want to rule out any products, but I want the whole thing to be classy, you know?  Like a steakhouse.

The ads themselves should be spellbinding.  Basically, I want people to say, “Your zipper’s down.  I GOTTA GET ME SOME OF THAT!”  This is no easy task, because the space is very limited.

Well, not that limited.  I would guess that my space would be less limited than the average space, if the figures I’ve read are correct.  Not that I know these figures offhand.  This enters the realm of market research, in a way.  Let’s just say that my advertising space hasn’t gotten any complaints.  Quite the contrary.  Not trying to brag, just stating facts.  It’s just biology, nothing to be proud of, or ashamed about.  The good Lord dished it out, and I took my serving, that’s all.

In any case, if you and/or your business would like to advertise on my underpants, you can reach me in the comment section.  Special rates for non-profits.

Free to Good Home – All the Snow in My Driveway

Parents – Do your children like snowmen? Would they like an eleven-foot snowman in their front yard? Of course they would – but where would anyone get that much snow?

Meet my driveway.

16 feet wide and a staggering 80 feet long, the professionally sealed asphalt of my driveway is currently home to 19 drifting inches of the finest snow on the East Coast. And it’s yours - for free.

Folks, I’ve been alive for forty years. My father’s been around longer than that. And we both agree, this snow isn’t going anywhere unless someone gets up off the couch and shovels it up. That’s where you come in. As long as you can haul it, it’s yours.

Snow of this quality is rare. Take the snowballs – normally making a snowball is a crapshoot. Either the snow won’t stay together, or the snowball ends up like a chunk of ice. This snow is different. The snowballs are so perfect that you could hit a neighbor’s child from across the street, but they break apart enough so that there’s no mark on him to prove you did it. Three times.

This snow is perfect for snow angels. When my dad was walking out to the mailbox, he fell flat on his back about ten feet from the door. There remains a perfect Dad-shaped hole in that field of white, a solemn reminder of the hilarity of an old man falling, and a testament to winter’s bounty.

You might ask me, “Hey, if this snow is so good, why don’t you just keep it?” That’s an excellent question.

It really is.

I go to church, and I believe the Jesus said to share your bounties. Jesus or a disciple. Not Judas. Anyway, I couldn’t keep all this glorious snow to myself, and I truly believe that so much good could be done with it elsewhere.

Ever want a snow fort? Boy howdy! Build one to your heart’s content – there’s enough snow here to build a snow town! I wouldn’t build an igloo though. Getting that roof right is tricky. You almost have to buttress it for structural integrity. If not, some jerk might jump on your igloo and cave it in. Who does stuff like that? Me, that’s who. I run down the street when it’s snowy, and when I see an igloo, I yell “Igloo Inspector!” and I jump on top of the igloo. For safety.

To answer the obvious question, of course I’d like to see all of the snow go to the same home. I also know that it’s probably not going to happen, because you’d need a dump truck to get all of this snow out. I doubt you have a dump truck, and I know I don’t. That would be pretty sweet, though.

Also, you have my personal guarantee that the snow in my driveway is not “yellow snow”. Any snow along the borders of the driveway is not guaranteed, though, and almost certainly will contain my urine.

On an unrelated note, I was at the grocery store checkout line behind this smoking hot girl. She was like that girl who used to be on Melrose Place, but with awesomer breasts. She looks at me and says “You know what sets my loins on fire?” And I said, “I don’t know. All that asparagus?” And she says “No. A full sized toboggan run in somebody’s yard.”

It would take an awful lot of snow to make a full sized toboggan run.