H - E - Double-Hockey-Stick (and a Handbasket)

Hockey, much like MxPx, is slowly going the way of the buffalo. I for one don't weep. As a portly young lad, I learned quickly that ice is a fickle mistress and something to be avoided at all costs. Though I did, for a time, feel a certain affinity toward Zambonis, as I thought they were a kind of Italian pastry.

But that, I suppose, is besides the point.

For those of you who worry about this kind of thing, and I have serious doubts that our readership includes many of you, I'll offer a suggestion or two about the prospects for filling those modestly-sized skates.

If our aim is to stick as closely to the spirit of hockey as possible, then it seems to me we ought to replace it with a sport I've tentatively called "kicking-the-shit-out-of-mulleted-Canadians". Its rules, I take it, are self-explanatory. Its potential, enormous. It'd no doubt be the biggest thing in Yank-on-Canuck action since the Aroostock War.

Alas, our legal department tells us that's not the way to go. So what else? Well, I care a great deal for backgammon. Unfortunately the WBA would murder us on the television-rights. But speaking of games which don't require a speck of athletic ability, what about poker? Seems nowadays every teenaged prick with a piggy bank and the rough capacity for abstract thought fancies himself a cardshark (here's where I tell you I was so ahead of the curve on this whole poker thing: I was so ahead of the curve on this whole poker thing).

Now, I happen to get a kick out of watching the ESPN coverage of the World Series, and apparently, so does every asshole with a remote control and optical nerves. The good news is these same kids pay me off when I'm at the casino, cuz they get it into their heads that they ought to try everything they see on TV (these are the same fuck-o's who shave each others asses and skateboard of their roofs; think "Jackass" without the production values). Now I'm not saying I'm a great player, but I respect the game enough to know my role, unlike every assclown with a dollar and a modicum of hand-eye coordination. I was at a low-limit hold-em table the other day and I'll be a tipsy-showgirl if there wasn't some little shit with a "NO LIMIT TEXAS HOLD-EM" t-shirt on. Now, I've seen a lot of great ball players at Yankee Stadium, and wouldn't you know it that not a ONE of them wore a shirt that said "PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL" on it. Anyway, bottom line is that the bubble has got to burst on the poker fad. Its only a matter of time before every fuckface with a pair of 3s and an opposable thumb gets tired of subsidizing the careers of middle-of-the-road players like myself. And once they realize they can't DO it, I'm thinking their interest in WATCHING it will wane.

Here in the Her Majesty's United Kingdom, they've got cricket. But let's get back to our discussion of sports. We've got to keep our audience in mind: what would satiate the hockey fan's puck-cravings in the absence of his fix? What's essential to hockey's hockeyness? Is it the rule structure? Dubious. Nary a Bruins fan will make the trek to his local middle school field hockey match to watch the girls duke it out in plaid, and any one who DOES is probably required by state law to inform you of certain things. Is it the ice, then? Unlikely. Few Philiadelphia Flyers fanatics shed a tear when Michelle Kwan took her last figure eight around the rink. But, come to think of it, they all probably got their rocks off watching the Tanya Harding take a lead pipe to the Kerigan's kneecap. Which brings me back to my original point: Hockey is about hurting people, preferably uneducated foreigners.

And thanks to Adam Smith and the Amazing Technicolor (R) Free Market, we've already got a substitute good which offers just as much xenophobic sadism, one that's waiting to sweep in and pick up the hockey fans once the NHL finally folds:

War.

That's right, I'm talking America's passtime. No, no. Not the Bud Selig one, the Donny Rumsfeld one. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, peace is what made sport necessary. Don't try to deny it--you know the pessimistic anthropologist in you agrees with me. But there's certainly no shortage of the stuff these days, so who needs hockey? I challenge the NHL to produce something as awe-inspiring and entertaining as the M1A2 Abrams tank, with its smoothbore kinetic shitstorm of a main gun. Step right up and get your tickets, war's got everything you could possibly ask for in a sport: high stakes, favorites and underdogs, zealous fans, controversey, live broadcasts, no slaughter rule.

Pfft. And you voted for Kerry?

Pissing In The Wind: What kinds of sticks, what kinds of balls?

So, hockey's over. I mean, yes, for the season. But, let's face it, hockey was barely holding on as the "fourth sport" anyway. If they do come back, it's not going to be because of puck-handling, it's going to be because they amend the rules so every goalie is now a gorilla without further equipment and you're allowed to engage in fights on the ice. With katanas. Katanae?

So, commentators, I put it to you: what sport will emerge from the icy ashes of the NHL's corpse to grab mindshare among American audiences? Ice skating? Tonsil Hockey? Steroid-testing? Inform us, O Enfranchised.

Haute Cuisine

Well, there I was, in a restaurant. A fancy French Restaurant. db Bistro Moderne. And after five years of New Providence High School French... I was able to pronounce the ingredients I didn't know about.

No, really, my meal felt like a game show: Merv Griffin presents "Garnish or Ingredient": swallow this or leave it on the plate? But, I never would have made it to Final Jeopardy, as after two courses I was definitely in the hole money-wise. Oh being fashionable, why must you be expensive?

-Dan "why did I think artichoke ravioli sounded like a good idea?" Bentley

...This is Bat Country...

The States are in danger of losing every last voice of dissent to the Great Beyond; and this blog is in danger of disintegrating into an a meta-obituary for recently deceased American literary figures. But, alas, Hunter S. Thompson (better known to some of the younger generation by his pseudonym Johnny Depp) has taken his own life with a gun that---perhaps ironically considering his long-standing NRA membership---was torn from his cold, dead hands.

Miller wrote with insight, dignity and meloncholy, and we here at The Enfranchised did our all to incorporate the same into our collective drop-in-the-bucket of a tribute. Unfortunately, to attempt to incorporate the elements of Thompson's literary genius into a blog obit presents a seemingly insurmountable logistical problem: Even if we could give you the address of a place to get the Benzedrine, Marlboro Reds, Wild Turkey, and .357 magnum (which, for legal reasons, we can't), it'd be near impossible to arrange the licentious polar bear, the seventeen year-old whacked-out blonde or the psychopathic attorney-accomplice.

My favorite piece out there so far is Tom Wolfe's. No doubt other worthwhile tributes will follow.

Pissing Into The Wind

Pardon my tardiness: I decided to take a last-minute jaunt to New York City. My hotel and office are both in Times Square. I mention this neither to brag nor to elicit your pity. Instead, it has informed my opinion: we ain't done nothin' yet.

New York is the kind of city that hands immigrants a dream, an Anglicized last name, and then starts selling you things.

Every side of any building is covered in billboards. You only know you've truly entered Times Square when the neon goes from bright to blinding. The strippers here wear pasties and g-strings not because of any sense of decency but because those particular pieces of fabric have the most impressions (read: eyeballs) to offer.

No, so long as we're merely exhuming corpses and not spray-painting them with our messages, I think we'll be all right.