It’s been a while. And that’s on me. For a multitude of reasons. The games that are supposed to be dirty had either peaked, gotten so filthy that it wasn’t fun anymore or were … well, just too depressing for words.

It’s pretty hard to top the combination of vacuous journalism, political intrigue and stump-dumb citizenry that was the 2008 election.

I’ve forced myself to try and ignore the fallout from baseball’s steroid scandal, because the 12-year-old kid inside me that thought he was going to join Jose Canseco in the 40-40 club one day wants to curl up in a ball and cry whenever I get too deep into that stuff.

And the media … well the media is dying the kind of slow and ugly death that brings to mind an MS patient, diagnosed with terminal cancer while battling full-blown AIDS. So I kind of felt like I shouldn’t kick the industry when it’s down, crying like a bitch for any semblance of mercy.

So yeah … I took a break.

(Also, I was writing stuff that was, you know, for publication. Which is okay, I guess, but you can’t fucking swear.)

And now it’s over.

Anyway, we’ll start by discussing the unusual honesty of Charles Barkley, because I used to like him a great deal. And I still might, though I feel that I really shouldn’t.

Chuck is funny. He’s smart and insightful. He can talk about things that aren’t basketball and he doesn’t feel the need to pump up the NBA or any of its stars. Barkley found himself a huge following by telling it like it is, while managing to make fun of Kenny Smith while he was telling it.

He co-wrote an excellent book — which is more of a series of interviews than a book, but whatever — with Michael Wilbon called Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man?

It’s about sports, but it’s also about race and class and education and all sorts of relevant things, and it’s well worth a read. It shows off the side of Charles that his NBA on TNT gig only hinted at — that there’s some real thought behind a lot of those wisecracks and that the world could do worse than hear him out when he says he wants to run for governor of Alabama.

And then he went and got himself arrested for driving drunk. Which is a whole different kind of stupid.

I lost a little bit of respect for him, and so did a lot of other people, but mistakes happen. Chuck apologized, profusely, plead guilty and took his lumps like a man — a drunk driving idiot of a man, but he was at least took responsibility for his actions.

He served a few days in jail — literally, a few days, and got out this week. Whatever, right?

But the problem is that Chuck can’t give a disingenuous answer. It’s a gift and a curse.

Here’s Barkley on a Philadelphia radio station yesterday:

You never think about until something bad happens. But seriously, I can’t sit here and lie or BS you, I’m never going to be like that. But I’ve probably been out drinking and driving 100 times a year when, you know, you just eat and you drink or whatever, and you just get behind the wheel of a car and you don’t even think about it. This was, to me, I’m glad…it was a very valuable lesson for me. Because people never even think about that..I mean, I’m just going out drinking with dinner, or just going out drinking with you and the boys, and just like, “Let me go home.” It’s like, don’t even think about it. But this gave me, like, “Man, you could kill somebody!”

Yeah man, you could kill somebody, or something.

I don’t know whether I respect Charles more for being honest about some incredibly stupid behaviour on his part, or whether drinking and driving 100 times a year is so monumentally stupid that I don’t ever want him to open his mouth on television again.

It’s the quintessential problem with turning retired athletes and the like into commentators and public personas.

One the one hand, if they’re fake, most of us se right through it, and mock them accordingly for spewing platitudes to garner a paycheque in their twilight years.

If they’re real, and they talk about anything other than sports at any point, they’re inevitably going to say things — whether it’sabout public behaviour, drugs, women, race, homosexuality, etc. — that reflect how sheltered a life they’ve led and how out-of-step a lot of their behaviour and values are with what is socially acceptable for the rest of us.

So yeah, Chuck is a drunk driver, and he’s a fucking idiot for it, but how many other NBA, NFL and NHL talking heads have gotten into their car after having a few on several dozen occasions and would never, ever mention it, even after serving a three-day jail stint and displaying their stupidity to the world? Probably quite a few.

I’d say ‘Here’s to Chuck for being honest, even if he is a fool,’ but raising a glass to him seems wholly inappropriate.

At the very leas, however, I think any citizens of Alabama who were Afraid of a Large Black Man Running For Governor can probably rest easy.

There’s surely going to be a final act in this damned play, so let’s get on with it already.

I understand too much about the nasty rules of life’s overarching narrative to believe that the third presidential debate is over, Barack Obama has a large enough lead to coast home and that Senator John McCain — who has sadly managed to turn himself into the villian of this piece — will not empty his bag of tricks in a last-ditch play to find at least one thing that can stem or reverse the tide.

These are important times and the muse of history demands a fitting conclusion. This story doesn’t end with a slow run up to an unsurprising vote while the world just kicks it and waits for an inevitable verdict. Can’t happen like that. Won’t happen like that. Good guys don’t triumph that easily, and if they do they don’t end up being the good guys.

So what happens now? When does the other shoe drop? What kind of shoe is it? When will the Republican masses get their long-awaited October surprise?

As it stands, here’s what you will be looking at for the next two-plus weeks: A McCain campaign hunting desperately for a silver bullet will be throwing anything and everything at the wall in the flailing hope that something, anything will stick to Obama.

If you want to get a true sense of what’s out there that might actually be considered as ammunition in the home stretch, you have to delve into the depths of the Republican strongholds.

I felt brave on a cold Tuesday morning, so I went there, and these — according to those who are desperate to bring about the downfall of Barack Obama — are the issues that need to be raised before America votes, Obama wins and the rest of the world breathes an enormous sigh of relief:

TREMENDOUS ISSUE NO. 1: Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Apparently Mr. Hussein is not an American citizen. Even though his birth certificate has been posted on factcheck.org, the Republican masses would like to see the “real” birth certificate. Which is not this one. This one is a fake. Why? Because it’s on factcheck.org, a biased website. So …. the angle of attack? Obama is NOT visiting his ailing grandmother in Hawaii. He has gone back there to help fake his own birth certificate (again, apparently) so that he can produce yet another birth certificate which will quiet all the people (meaning these Republicans) who were not satisfied with the first faked birth certificate. By the way, they are intimating in advance that the next one will be fake, too. If you would like to delve further into this theory, please check it out.

Obligatory retarded post on freerepublic.com about this theory: “I question the timing too. Sick grandma? When did he ever care about her before? He’s going over there to get his newly-forged copy of his birth certificate — it was too dangerous to have it FED-EXED. He’s going to crease it up in a letterfold and bring it
back in a book he took with him on the plane.” — More fun like that one, right here.

TREMENDOUS ISSUE NO. 2: OMG! And you thought Rev. Jeremiah Wright was bad. Wait until you hear about this dude that Obama talked to and mentioned in his book authored a book about having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl. And get this — this book is totally autobiographical, too. Not fictional at all. This dude is a sick and twisted pervert, the kind we stomp into the ground and leave bloody on the curb of life. His association with Barack Obama serves only to illustrate exactly how un-American and pro-sex-with-13-year-olds Barack Obama really is. If Obama was any kind of man, he would step up right now and categorically deny that he enjoys making sweet love to pubescent girls. But he won’t do that so we are left to guess. Was Obama trained in pro-kid-sex viewpoints by this man whom he has spoken to in the past? Or did he reach his pro-kid-sex stance on his own, through years of kid-fucking experience? A website named Confederate Yankee has all the information you need.

Bonus fun quote about this theory: (The headline on Free Republic says it all: “OBAMA SEX PERV SCANDAL”. But quotes are not hard to find, either) “I got the distinct feeling from something I read recently, that his grandfather was a pervert, too. He introduced (Obama) to this dirtbag and apparently, they all sat around drinking together. Someone else pointed out something interesting; that Davis states he molested a 13-year-old girl named Ann. They speculated this could be (Obama’s) mother and that this loser fathered (Obama) — they do look alot more alike than BO Sr. Apparently, Davis also lived in Kansas for a while.”

You can’t teach this kind of creativity, folks. But I’m more partial to this succint reply: “So, if true, we could end up with a Pedophile in Chief.”

Nice. Very nice. More like that here.

TREMENDOUS ISSUE NO. 3: This one is not crazy just disingenuous, and it will undoubtedly be used at the first sign of stagnating poll numbers for Obama. If I were a McCain adviser, I would certainly suggest they use it as soon as McCain has a good day in the polls.

The narrative goes thusly: Why can’t Barack Obama close the deal? Why do his supporters balk when the finish line is in sight? He rolled to a huge lead over Clinton before almost letting her come back to catch him (things didn’t quite happen exactly like that, but it’s close enough to drive the story). He built up a big lead during the summer, only to let john McCain close the gap after the convention. Now he’s built a nearly-insurmountable advantage, and his supporters are backing away? What is it about Obama that makes voters get cold feet at the last minute? Is it his arrogance in assuming he has already won? Is it laziness on the part of his campaign? Or is it something else — something voters can’t put their finger on, but intuitively understand: Electing Obama as President would be a big step in the wrong direction. Voters know this in their hearts, even if they are bombarded with “facts” from the “media” telling them that Obama is “the One”.

This is the line of attack I am expecting. I think it would resonate with independents, who are hopeful but are also a little afraid. It would certainly fire up the base and it also manages to inject, without being too blatant about it, the “otherness” that the Republicans must hope scares voters away from Obama at the last minute.

That, or a they’ll pull out a busted terror cell that was planning to attack America on the night of the election if Barack Obama was elected. That fits much more with the action-thriller of danger and International intrigue that could swing voters towards McCain in a time of fear.

Those are the sort of things I am waiting for. And I know that something wicked this way comes. The spider-sense is tingling. Historic shit like this doesn’t just happen in a cakewalk. And if it does happen that way, it shouldn’t. What are we going to tell our grandchildren we did in the three weeks leading up to an historic occasion? “Oh, we sat around and watched the poll numbers stay steady. Obama held a few rallies, McCain said some stuff and then we voted.”

Where’s the thrill of a narrow victory for the Forces of Good in that? I want my damned epic narrative arc — not an overdone denouement masquerading as the climax of an epic tale. If I wanted that I’d just watch The Return of the King on DVD.

It’s not easy, sometimes, being a Red Wings fan.

Okay, I’m lying. A lot of the time it’s easy as hell; I get to watch elite players share the puck and play keepaway from lesser teams, the best management and scouting in North American sports continually drafts and develops all-stars, the finest captain in hockey history and the best defenceman since Bobby Orr both played their entire careers in the Winged Wheel and, every five or six years there’s a Stanley Cup banner heading to the rafters.

(Oh, and speaking of Bobby Orr, the iconic image came immediately to mind last night)

The only problem with being a Wings fan is the reckless hate that gets thrown around, forged in the fires of jealousy and spite, by the fans of other teams.

The Red Wings are not the Yankees of the National Hockey League — no matter how much the rest of the league may want to paint them that way. They draft and develop their elite talent, bring in only a couple of free agents to round out the picture and swing a small deadline deal to prepare to the team for playoff runs.

The Yankees buy their team. And, recently anyway, don’t even do that good a job of it.

But watching the collective meltdown by the Pittsburgh Penguins and their fans over the first two games of this Stanley Cup final has been highly entertaining — if only because it’s fun as all hell to watch an entire team, led by their coach, degenerate to the level of the average fan.

The Pens — especially head coach Michel Therrien — are whining about diving, complaining about the Refs, accusing Niklas Kornwall of dirty hits … in short, they’re acting like fans, and not even the most rational of fans at that.

How else can you explain these quotes from Therrien in the post-game press conference?

Between games, Penguins coach Michel Therrien radically altered his forward lines in the hopes of sparking something approaching offensive pressure. It didn’t work. After Game 2, he suggested the problem was that the Wings were cheating.

“It’s really tough to generate offense against that team,” Therrien said. “They’re good on obstruction. It’s going to be tough to generate any type of offense if the rules remain the same. So, it’s the first time we’re facing a team [where] the obstruction is there and we’re having a hard time skating to take away ice.”

Therrien also accused Osgood of diving on both of the goaltender interference penalties assessed against the Penguins in Game 2.

“I’ll tell you something, I reviewed those plays. He’s a good actor. He goes to players, and he’s diving.”

Yeah … if we could only somehow change the rules, maybe the Penguins would have a chance.

I won’t jinx this series by saying that it’s over. The Penguins haven’t lost at home in more than three months, and Sidney Crosby is the real deal, even if his buddy Evgeni Malkin looks a little bit lost these days.

I’m just pointing out that when a coach is reduced to talking about anything except the quality of his own team’s play, that’s because he knows his team is thoroughly humiliated and beaten down. The Penguins are beyond criticism from Therrien right now, and he knows it, so he lashes out.

The problem is that he’s lashing out at the most disciplined, effective and utterly professional NHL team I’ve ever had the fortune to watch. How do you think the Red Wings will react?

Well, first, they’ll ignore the bullshit.

“I’m not really concerned about it right now,” Osgood said. “The minute the buzzer goes, it’s out of my head. I don’t think about the past. I just played between the whistles; that’s all I do. I’m more concerned about next game than about this game.”

Then, they’ll answer with their play. If I were a Penguins fan (or player or coach, since right now they have all been reduced to the same spectator status) this quote would scare the living daylights out of me:

“We’re going to play better. We’ve been a good road team all year. We’re going to have a real good game in Pittsburgh. And we’re excited to get on the road. And sometimes at home, when you’re matching all the time, it disrupts your flow a little bit. We can get to Pittsburgh and let the guys just go, let them go out the door and play hard.

“And we feel we can be better. We thought when we got up 2‑0, we kind of got a little cautious, instead of staying and going after them. But we’ll be better next game.”

– Mike Babcock

Well … yikes.

Two to go, and should they go as planned, I’ll have a nice little essay up here shortly afterwards; an essay about the most effective NHL team I’ve ever seen play.

Two to go.