Letterman Does Yankees

A few Dave Letterman jokes about you-know-who, taken from the MLB site:
“Long season, brutal season, 162 games, 40 or 50 playoff games, and then the best of 30 in the World Series. Finally, now, they get a well-deserved rest, and then on Monday they report to Spring Training.“
“The Yankees, your world champion Yankees, they have [...]

Baseball Posts on Dirty Laundry

Maybe I’m overly obsessive, but I feel compelled to write this note for the edification of my readers–so here goes.
Predictably, Dirty Laundry gets a lot of hits to the baseball topic at this time of year. From what I can tell, people go searching under players’ names–Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, etc.–and they’re led to my [...]

Cagney & the Dykes

I feel like the Dean of Students at freshman orientation. Every couple of years when I venture into SF Lesbian Nation, I’m older but the girls aren’t. The older ones have moved across the bridge and are busily raising babies, so I seldom run into anyone I know here. Today I did; Valerie’s a doctor [...]

Song for Mariano

It took me years, but I finally hit on a song dramatic enough for one of my favorite players. It should be sung almost operatically.

Mariano Rivera
(To the tune of “Maria”)
Mariano—
I just saw a pitcher named Mariano
And suddenly I see how wonderful a pitch
Can be.
Mariano—
I just saw a closer named
Mariano
And suddenly the game
will never ever be [...]

Halfway to the Stars

You can buy a copy of my novel, Halfway to the Stars, at Scribd, for a mere 5 bucks. I’m trying this out. If anyone else has used Scribd I’m interested in hearing your stories.

Slumming With the Poor: Welcome to My Universe

“The mantra is cut, cut, cut — magazine and cable subscriptions, credit cards, fancy coffee drinks and your own hair.”
So noted an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago, one of the endless stories about how Americans are “coping” with hard times. To immediately dispense with apologies and caveats, let me say [...]

Euphemism of the Year Award

I am hereby instituting an annual award for the best or most obvious or most full-of-shit Euphemism of the Year. It was inspired by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the first recipient. Speaking of whether or not to put on trial those responsible for the policy of torture at Abu Ghraib, Holder said:
“I [...]

The Great Potato Pancake Fry-Off

Since ’tis the season, I thought I’d reprise this perennial favorite.

According to my friend Rita, the invention of the blender spelled disaster for the potato latke. She insists that the blood dripping from our grandmother’s knuckles as they grated the potatoes is what made their latkes so delicious.
My friend Larry swears that skimping on oil [...]

Be Old Now

I must be the only member of my generation—the Baby Boomers—avidly courting old age. Everyone else is trying like mad to stay young and live past 90, but I want to be old now and die before I’m decrepit. It’s not that I want to die sooner rather than later—it’s that I don’t believe I’m [...]

Yankee Song Updates

Regular readers may recall that last year I wrote new lyrics to old tunes, one for each Yankee player. Below are a few more, written for new players, plus one for Melky Cabrera, for whom I never came up with anything last season. Also, Robinson Cano’s song has been changed from “Anything you can do [...]