Some Random, Surreal Musings

It's winter, it's New York, and it's night. It's fucking cold.

Not the kind of cold that makes you go "brrrr," mind you...rather, the kind of cold that hits you where you stand, pervades your body and makes you wonder how many steps you can take before you say "The hell with this, I'm going back inside." I made it the block and a half to the store to get "provisions" -- water, DC, soup and a loaf of bread -- and holy christ, I swear I dunno how the eskimos do it.

I stopped by CNN.com earlier and read about a man -- Patrick Something-or-other (no, he's not a Native American) -- who weighed over 1,000 pounds -- 1,072, to be precise -- and he apparently was so obese that they couldn't perform stomach reduction surgery on him until he got stronger. But his nine-person medical team -- yep, you read that right, nine people -- finally saw he was improving and now, praise the lord, he's down to a svelte 610 pounds -- and, to quote the CNN article at http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/21/half.ton.man.ap/index.html -- "[he] is healthier."

Okay, now, before I wind up and let 'er rip, we really have far too many fucked-up stories in the news these days. There...I just needed to make that statement.

Here goes: nine people had to help a man who weighed over one thousand pounds become healthier (jesus christ) by dropping almost half his body weight? The guy doesn't need stomach reduction, he needs stomach removal. Let him subsist on Flintstone vitamins and Cracker Jacks for a month.

I guess this story should be filed alongside all those stories of imbeciles who get trapped in wells, falling into remote parts of canyons after their handgliders fail, or the couples who become lodged in the backseats of their cars after a bit too much strenuous "activity." It just seems to me that nine doctors trying to help a man that far gone is disturbing. When is enough enough? The half-ton man didn't get that way overnight...so when did he realize, "Hey, I have a serious problem...maybe I ought to seek professional help?" Three-fifty? Four hundred? Hint...once you hit 500 pounds, it's time to pick up the Slimfast and pass on the Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet.

What do you say to someone who loses four hundred pounds? Going from 1,072 to 610..."wow, Bob, you're starting to really look trim! Way to go, dude!"

What you should say: "Bob, you are halfway there. Why the hell did you let yourself get this heavy? And what the hell do you think you're doing with that box of Twinkies?"

The futility facing hockey fans and the NHL Lockout has become more troubling: this past week, the Players' Union representative, Trevor Linden, appealed to the League to meet in order to re-start the process of negotiation in the hopes -- a last-ditch effort, really -- to save the 2004-05 season and, perhaps, the sport's existence in North America. After two days of the higher-ups, minus the head of the League, Gary Bettman, and the Players Union Rep., Bob Goodenow, meeting and trying to get something started, it's nearly official. No progress was made and none is in the immediate future.

Unfortunately, what was clear three months ago -- that the NHL can't continue without some sort of salary cap -- is still the case, and will likely erase the 2004-05 season, and perhaps part of next season as well. What part of the statement "There are teams who lose less money during a lockout than when games are being played" is unclear? The league as it is currently constructed can't continue to operate. The Players Association has offered up several worthwhile concessions, including revenue sharing and salary tax benefits: and the NHL, each time, has responded with "We can't continue to operate as a League without some sort of salary cap."

Whoever said hockey players are, for the most part, stupid, was not a hockey player.

Doesn't change the fact that he was right.

A (former) judge in Oklahoma was recently charged with using a penis pump, in court, on three separate occasions. In addition, he is also suspected of masturbating while on the bench -- during trials. All I can say is this: if I'm Rusty The Bailiff and I see Judge Wapner "pumping up" during a trial, I report it. It doesn't happen again, let alone a third time.

The former judge has also been suspected of "dispensing" seminal fluid as well as urine into a wastebasket while cases -- murder cases -- were being tried.

You know the United States, as a nation, needs help when a suspect on trial for murder eyes his judge pumping himself up and says "That dude's fucked up."

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0121051judge1.html

Um...forget drug testing, the right to bear automatic weapons, and abortion -- Washington, Jefferson and Adams are, right this minute, turning over in their graves.

Absolutely unreal.