After Midnight

Cinderella is having a hard time fitting into her shoes this year...

will be back to normal next week, just lacking any time (or really creative ideas) this week.

What's your shoe size?

I apologize to my fans for not having posted in a few days. I have been very busy at work...Enjoy a post from an NCAA tourney pool (Grab em in the Biscuits) from last year.

As outgoing champion and one who has little to do at work right now, I thought it would be nice to compose a message. Of course, in drafting this message, I have nothing in particular to say. This is par for the course.

Two years ago, a family from humble roots began it accent to the top of the fantasy basketball world. Seth Kaye, long time apathetic sports fan, filled his brackets with ease and grace; undoubtedly supported by a little advice from the egomaniacal fat guy and his mad dog. By the time the smoke cleared, Mr. Kaye was dining with Colonel Sanders, not on his chicken, but instead, his biscuits. So delicious were biscuits he recommended his son try some. However, all the biscuits were gone, so it would not be until next year that his son would be afforded such an opportunity.

Next year came, and young Kaye, who his parents have told him refuses to listen to anyone, took to preparing his brackets with no help at all. However, according to a recent IQ test offered and taken on the internet, young Kaye is “gifted.” Therefore, there was little doubt that he was up to the task at hand. (Don’t doubt, you know it’s true because it was on the internet). By the end of the first week young Kaye found himself at or near the top of the standings. By the end of the second week, it was all but over. So, in the grand fashion that had become custom, young Kaye dined with the Colonel. Inasmuch as young Kaye does not eat fried chicken from KFC, his choice of sustenance was easy. Biscuits, biscuits and more biscuits.

Many questioned whether young Kaye was eating the biscuits because y’all just paid for his trip to London or because of his devotion to the most yummy of bread sources. Little matter, the butter soaked bisucits went down easy.

This brings us to 2006, where our Champion is a man who also loves biscuits. In fact, he likes them so much he named a fantasy league after them. I digress, given Mr. G’s (hey, isn’t that the weather guy) subscription to ESPNs excessive and self-promotional coverage of all college basketball games he should have won (is ESPN the MTV of the 21st Century?) . Congrats….

So now, we all look forward to the conclusion of the 2006 tournament and the start of the 2007 tourney. What will happen then?, will family Kaye re- capture the crown or will it capture the friedmans (wait, wasn’t that a movie?); perhaps the Royal Tennenbaums, and by that time there will be 2, will take the title; Maybe Evan “ice cream” Cohen will finally push through, who knows. Perhaps, Melissa “I need a” Dickman has it in her (1. no pun intended 2. is she even in our pool?) . Or will it be any of these people, Joe “Liberty” DeVito; Alec “aptly named” Grossman; Brian “I got” Steckloff “when I saw brokeback mountain”;

Needless to say, no one knows what will happen.

I can’t believe you read this far, it’s like when Ferris told you go home…so, I recommend you stop reading, I mean it, the essay is over…stop, stop!…jesus, go home, stop reading, etc, etc, etc…

A Woman Trapped

There are few men in our lives that we encounter that have the ability to shape our identities and define who we become. If we are lucky these men are our fathers or our political leaders. Other times we find these men in our sports arenas or on the screen. For me, Richard Jeni was one of thse men.

A self-described platypus man (I am unsure if he had webbed feet) Mr. Jeni first appeared in my life in the early 1990s and his 1.5 hour comedy special on HBO was no less than absolutely stellar. Indeed, Mr. Jeni is a man who worked in a woman's shoe store with hilarious results (one woman's foot is reported to have been a canoe), introduced us to Captain Obvious (getting tackled by a 300 pound man hurts), demonstrated to us what it is like to be a bachelor (we all knew macaroni and cheese was delicious, but who could imagine it was so funny?) and explained that he often felt he was a woman trapped in a man's body, but never had the proper outlet to express his entrapment (if only he was a real NFL referee!).

Perphaps it was Mr. Jeni's inability to be who he really was, or maybe it was his complete lack of any semblance of a sense of humor post Platypus Man (see "aristocrats" or most recent HBO special) but Mr. Jeni died today when he took a gun to himself blowing his face off. (omitted is tasteless joke regarding finding what remained of mr. jeni's sense of humor)

Depsite what may appear to be a callous attitude toward Mr. Jeni's apparent suicide, it does makes me sad. He brought me many an outstaindg afternoon with good friends and to this day I still quote "the routine."

Dear Mr. Jeni, you will be missed (although because we have your funny routine on video, not that much).

Caveat: absent exigent circumstances not known to the author at the time of publication (i.e., Mr. Jeni was an exitentialist who had outlived his usefulness), the author does not have much sympathy for people that committ suicide, although he does feel especially bad for those that loved and cared for the deceased.