Italy's New 'It' Boy...

    The decision to leave London was pretty easy, although no one would blame me for sticking around until The Pats/Giants game. I could have busied myself with some theatre in the West End, or a fox hunt or two; but frankly, I was getting sick of British teeth, and the game will suck anyway. The Giants will be lucky to put together 8 wins this season. They are already complaining that the beds at Giant‘s training camp are too uncomfortable and want ownership to supply them with softer mattresses. No wonder Justin Tuck had to be talked off the ledge. How can you expect a professional athlete to put up with a lumpy mattress used by, shutter, a college kid…
    Actually, that’s partially a lie. The decision to flee came shortly after Nadzeya Ostapchuk, the ‘female’ shot putter from Belarus who was just stripped of her Gold Medal for doping, ripped a sink out of the men’s room wall and chucked it at my head after an off-hand observation that women don’t normally pee standing up. But that’s a story for another time. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

    Perhaps the biggest news of the day is that Kelly Clarkson has co-written a new anthem for the Dallas Cowboys called ‘Get Up’, and honestly, nothing would get me out of my chair faster than a Kelly Clarkson song. Every day it becomes more and more apparent that the NFL is sick and tired of being America’s Number One Spectator Sport and are doing everything in their power to wussify the game for that rare level of mass acceptance available only to the most mediocre of entertainment options.
    Reality TV shows at training camp, a shirtless Tebow in GQ for God, The Falcons’ Harry Douglas refusing to return punts in the pre-season (of course, The Falcons hold camp at a place called Flowery Branch, so what do you expect?).
    I just received a call from the Grammar Nazis that I am not allowed to use commas inside parenthesis, but I’m not going to fix it. I told them I had to catch a train to the dedication of the memorial to Mussolini’s buddy Rodolfo Graziani just outside of Rome and they were OK with that. Heck, even the Pope is OK with that. The Vatican is sending a representative too…

On The House

    The Pat’s are getting about 20,000 fans daily down at camp this pre-season, so I figured I had better go down and check it out before Bob Kraft wises up and starts charging admission. He’s going to need that injection of fresh cash to help him keep shoveling coke up the noses of the pelt to which he’s become accustom since Myra passed.
    We’re talking pre-season workouts, and not even real workouts; but those lame-ass, ‘don’t even look at the quarterback or you’re back on the bus to Penn State rookie‘, workouts. The only thing these camps prepare you for is an early season hammy that will linger until Easter. Even still, the Pat’s are getting so many fans coming to watch, they’ve had to replace the turnstiles at the gate with Matt Light just to get people into the stadium quicker.
    I stopped by the press area to see if there was anyone there who owed me money, but rightfully, they had the radio people shunted off in their own pen with razor wire fences and Stacey James manning the door (when he wasn‘t busy metaphorically knob-gobbling the national press). Interesting side note: they tricked the radio people into the pen with promises of five minutes alone with Mark Hannon, where you could either beg for a job or stick a Nike Vapor Pro up his ass, depending on your pride level. Naturally, very few Vapor Pros were needed.

    Like every other moth in the dump, I was drawn to light of Tom Brady over near the end zone, playing toss. He was wearing what we used to call ‘pennies’ in gym class, so the other players knew not to hit him, and in case that didn’t work; he also had two large black men in ill-fitting suits on either side and a personal Foxboro cop on stand-by, ready to shoot or talk your ear off about all the over-time he just got screw out of because the casino is going to Taunton. To be fair, the extra security was needed because the Pat’s are sharing camp with the Saints, and who knows how many of those bounties are still active.
    Also standing with Brady was former Red Sox pitcher, Tom House. House is now a quarterback ‘coach’ because… Well, I’m not sure why. House was the gink in the bullpen that caught Hank Aaron’s record setting 715th home run and then ran all the way to home plate to give the ball to Aaron. House had to dough pop then Dodger’s left fielder, Bill Buckner and step over the crumpled body of Al Downing to get there, but House made sure the historic ball made it to Aaron. And what did Hammering Hank, always the gentleman, give House for his efforts? Not one red cent. Of course, this was in the days before eBay, so maybe they didn’t know what the open market value of the ball would be; but Aaron might have cracked the wallet a little for the effort. Hell, he's toss the ballboys a hundred just for shuttling the hookers away from his locker when the press would come in for a post-game presser.

    Anywho, rather than find out; I’m going to take a wild guess at why Tom House is working with Tom Brady and predict that Brady will have his best season ever! See, House was also one of the first major league baseball players to use steroids back in the 70’s. He didn’t just use them, he took college classes to study the long-term effects of human growth hormones during the off-season. Now why would Bill ‘Any Competitive Advantage’ Belichick want a man with 40 years of steroid experience on his staff? Hmmmm…
    I was going to ask Bill that very question, but he wasn’t at practice today. He was off at the funeral of another drug abuser, Garrett Reid…