High Times and Green Grass

Baseball is days away and I hate it. I would like Florida to starve Barry Bonds to death. Even my hero, Bleeding-Socks Curt Schilling, turned into a lying pussy in front of Congress last week. Mark McGwire is in hiding somewhere in California with homeless 14-year-old boy prostitutes and failed movie producers.

The biggest scandal in football is that Jim Haslett admitted to taking steroids in the late 1970s, and declared it was rampant back in the day. That’s like standing across the highway from a flaming 40-car pileup and shouting about the dent in your bumper. No fucking kidding, Jim, but who cares? We all remember Lyle Alzado, we know all about Mike Webster. Keep your mouth shut and focus on your team, the one you’re lucky to not have been fired from, yet. Before you know it, people are actually going to be paying attention to you, and no one cares about 25 years ago. They care about next year’s playoffs, and we all know you’re not going to be in it, again.

Yes, football is fast approaching. I’m a big fan of Haslett. He played for the Bills and even coached for a brief time at the University at Buffalo. But the Saints are going nowhere fast.

What is coming up, quickly, is the draft. Miami will have to decide how far they can throw Ricky Williams, because they have the second pick in the draft. They can either pick a running back or a quarterback. They’d better pick a running back, because Ricky is about as reliable as my neighbor’s ’88 Fiesta, which hasn’t moved in six months.

I don’t blame Ricky for choosing the easy life, stealing all that money, and letting football fall in between his cushions. Football is hard, and not made for pansies or dope smokers. Football is made for speed freaks and demons. The reason for Ricky’s recent wavering is simple: he’s stoned 100% of the time. He cant hold a thought together for more than 15 seconds, so his true intentions are bound to be misunderstood, especially during phone conversations, which he can engage in while lounging on empty pizza boxes in his underwear and flipping through channels on his stolen satellite television. Everything in Ricky’s life is stolen; he’s certainly spent his honest money on weed and first-class airline tickets to Germany and the Bahamas. He’s on illicit cash right now, which is every pothead’s dream. He doesn’t have to work as long as he can keep the bullshit up long enough for people to cut him the slack he needs to draw this thing out until the money is gone. And it will be gone, be sure of that.

I can make some picks about this weekend, if you’d like. But you’d better not bank on them, because my history during the past week is one of laughable failure. I’m losing in my office pool to a 300-pound, overperfumed divorcee who wouldn’t know the top of the key from the tips of her toes, which she hasn’t seen in years. Never bet basketball or your poker hand against rank amateurs. They don’t know enough to recognize a bad bet, and their river will always kill you. That is a fact of life. If you don’t know what a river is, then you should be avoided by all knowledgeable gamblers. Please stand up and be seen.

With that said, here are my picks for the next two rounds of the men’s NCAA tournament: Louisville will beat Texas Tech after each gets past their weak 3rd round matchups, against my wishes to see more Bobby Knight press conferences. It would make me exceedingly happy to see him at the table in the Final Four next week, but it simply isnt going to happen. He’s a great coach, but he’s not there with that team yet. And Pitino is a sneaky little shit, and not a half bad coach himself. Lest you forget the Kentucky dynasty he walked away from.

Speaking of Kentucky, they’re going to lose to Utah. Duke will beat Michigan State, but just barely, and then they’re going to lose to Utah. America is falling apart and there is no better sign of this than an Australian superstar playing in Utah. The metaphor will continue.

Illinois will beat UWM, and then they will beat Oklahoma State. It pains me to say it, but UNC is going to beat both Villanova and, then, NC State. But don’t worry, folks, the road in front of Roy Williams’s ill-fated team drops off quickly and in the near distance.

I’m leaning towards a Utah-Illinois championship game, but let’s take one weekend at a time, okay?

- posted by seanmh @ 9:00 AM