Murphy's Law

Children are supposed to aim high and pick up where their parents left off, moving the ball farther down the field, or finding new ways to contribute to society, or –in the instances where their parents have seen fit that they never have any financial burden whatsoever– be sufficiently humbled that they give up something to the greater good, and share the proverbial love. Naturally, in the upside-down world that is Cheney, Inc., it’s all about sharing the hate. And that is neither surprising nor particularly disappointing; I mean, would we expect anything less from this clan? (Slightly less famous daughter Mary, in the epitome of self-loathing battling money-grubbing, pimped for Coors beer, a notoriously gay and minority unfriendly franchise: a quick Google search will provide more than a little back story; be forewarned, it’s revolting.) Little needs to be said of the literally shameless Dick Cheney, but his daughter Liz has seen her star rise in ’09, helped in no small part by the Fox lies factory, but also typically timid MSM outlets who allow her smile n’ smear tactics to go entirely unchallenged.

Nothing new under the sun, right? Well, at some point, people in semi-prominent places need to say enough. That she (along with her father, who is suddenly more visible out of office where he spent most of his time safely sequestered in his undisclosed rat hole) is now appearing in public as often as possible, spewing demonstrably false venom is…typical. That she (along with her five deferment seeking father) is now suddenly the self-appointed voice of reason regarding foreign policy (in general) and wars of choice her chickenhawk pops helped embroil America in, is also typical, expected, and insufferable. And it’s not going to stop, so people interested in truth (and this should include many military folk who actually have to fight and die in the battles instigated by others) need to not only call her out, but encourage her to keep exposing the pathetic and self-serving bile she spews every time a camera is close by. Keep inviting her to debate and actually have to attempt to defend her demonstrably false rhetoric. Certain types of Republicans continue to profit from literally inventing an opposite reality (hello Orwell!) and since we should neither hope nor expect that to change, let’s encourage them to hoist themselves with their own petard.

We can hope that a handful of so-called reporters follow Lawrence O’Donnell’s lead:

Think that’s scary?

You want to know what’s really scary? The fact that our beloved Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), in the midst of discussing some things that scare him, has more balls and is more eloquent than most of our elected officials. Look at him go:

Normally, I embrace fear. I traffic in fear. Fear has been good to yours truly.

But if there’s anything scaring me these days, it’s the blatant misuse of fear in regards to health care reform. I am appalled at the brazen lies being propagated by opponents of reform specifically to scare the elderly and other vulnerable segments of our society. Pushing untruths about “death panels” and “pulling the plug on Grandma” are not helping the debate.

You go, Freddy. And this ain’t too shabby, either:

I also fear that kids themselves are losing the spirit of adventure that I grew up with. Thanks to a culture of instant gratification and constant connectivity an entire generation is growing up online. Instead of opening up their horizons to travel and new cultures, they spend their time communicating via text on cell phones (even when they’re standing next to each other), socializing from afar on Facebook and downloading their entertainment from the internet. The technologies of convenience are making our sphere of exploration and experience smaller.

Check out the rest here.

(He also gives props to one of the best movies from this past year, Let The Right One In –a Swedish movie that is about to be remade in America. Now that is truly something to be terrified about…)

This really is one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time. Perfect time of the year to check it out if you have not already done so.

What an incredible site.

Little explanation necessary.

Be prepared to stop and savor some old (and ancient) school slices of heaven.

A few, chosen at random:

That last one (above) is great enough, but the fact that instead of a beer, he is rocking the Diet Coke is just…genius.

Last but not least, my own submission of awesome:

Back in 2006, I recall reading many intriguing reviews of Daniel J. Levitin’s book This Is Your Brain On Music. It’s been on my Amazon wish list ever since, and writing about music as much as I do, I occasionally have friends ask me if I’ve read it, or tell me I should read it. The latest reminder came from my good friend (and music lover, high school English teacher and soccer coach) Marc Cascio, who wrote the following email to me and a few of our mutual (music loving) friends:

In his brilliant book…Levitin relates the tale of how an elderly colleague and he used to dine every Wednesday and discuss music. During one of these dinners the colleague, an octogenarian, confessed that he did not understand rock music but wanted to be able to. He asked Levitin to choose six songs that would capture “all that was important to know about rock and roll music.” Levitin chose the following songs:

“Long Tall Sally” (Little Richard), “Roll Over Beethoven” (The Beatles), “All Along The Watchtower” (Jimi Hendrix), “Wonderful Tonight” (Eric Clapton), “Little Red Corvette” (Prince), “Anarchy in the UK” (Sex Pistols).

What would you guys choose, and why?

(Before I share Marc’s list, and my own, I’ll make a few comments about Levitin’s. It manages to underwhelm because it is at once too safe and yet also too…ambitious? Not sure if that’s the right word, but in my opinion, Levitin fell into the same inevitable trap most music aficionados will have difficulty avoiding. Trust me, once you try, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Levitin does an admirable job of trying to span time and genre: he includes the obligatory pre-Elvis rock staple; in this case, a seminal tune by Little Richard, the main who, along with Chuck Berry, arguably did more than anyone else to invent rock and roll, or at least provide the blueprint for the type of music that became rock and roll when people like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and a billion other British white boys tried their damndest to evoke and imitate that distinctive sound. Sure enough, he picks one from The Beatles, and he happens to pick one of the worst songs by the Fab Four: a rather limp cover of the great Chuck Berry. Why not just list Berry’s version? That would seem to at once to give Berry his well-warranted props and also avoid embarrassing how lame The Beatles sound by comparison…particularly when there are many dozen essential, inimitable songs The Beatles would go on to create, all of which, in their own ways, did as much to define and expand the possibilities of rock music as anyone who has ever picked up an instrument. So two issues: are we properly concerned with the stepping stones and giving adequate acknowledgment to the forefathers? After all, without their guidance the British invasion would have never made it across the pond. But if we go down that road, we would certainly be obliged to include at least a song apiece by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Fats Domino. Not to mention Jerry Lee Lewis. So, if we are trying to distinguish between the blueprints as opposed to the archetypes, shouldn’t we focus purely on the six songs –recorded by whoever, whenever– that “capture all that was important to know about rock and roll music.” Returning to Levitin’s list, his desire to include different genres is laudable, but that brings up myriad issues: he goes after punk (Sex Pistols) and synthesized pop-funk (Prince) and…well, hard to say what ground he’s covering with Clapton (mawkish soft rock?) and it’s difficult to find fault with any list that ever includes Jimi Hendrix. But what about country-rock? Or heavy metal? Or folk? Or blues, which is like the oxygen without with the primitive rock amoeba could never have oozed onto shore. Or…you get the picture. The only way I can see avoiding this dilemma is by copping out and constructing multiple lists that address the prototypes (Chuck Berry et al.), the genre-spanning mavericks (The Rolling Stones, Neil Young and Led Zeppelin, just to name a few) and the various incarnations that incorporated the fads of the time (from prog-rock to death metal). And that would be a worthwhile exercise, but the task at hand is to, as accurately and with as much integrity as possible, identify the six songs that best define rock and roll. Pretty simple, huh? Simple and impossible).

Here is Marc’s list:

“Rock and Roll Music” (Chuck Berry), “Think” (Aretha Franklin), “Eleanor Rigby” (The Beatles), “Meeting Across The River” (Bruce Springsteen), “May This Be Love” (Jimi Hendrix) and “Kashmir” (Led Zeppelin).

That is a pretty solid list. It is, in many ways, more satisfying, in my estimation, than Levitin’s. But even Marc (understandably) attempts to cover the basics (with Berry), the essential soul element (Aretha) and the heavyweights (The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, and while those are two of the more influential songs by either band, perhaps the ultimate dilemma is paring down both of those band’s catalogs to pick just one song: the best Beatles song? The most important Led Zeppelin tune? The one song by either band that most satisfactorily speaks for what rock music can be? Good luck with that).

But as anyone who has read Utopian literature can attest, (or anyone who has a favorite sports team or preferred religion, for that matter), one person’s nirvana is another person’s perdition. So perhaps any list will say more about the person making it, and the person responding to it, than the actual songs themselves. Plus, it’s not as though there is any truly objective mechanism to determine which songs signify the sine qua non of rock and roll. Plus, how rock and roll is it to agonize over what songs actually define rock and roll? Perhaps the ultimate point (at least for the types of dorks who enjoy making and comparing lists like this in the first place) is to react and respond; there is no Aristotlean list, or any type of Platonic ideal. Rock, after all, is dirty, imperfect and immutable. The only thing that counts, in the end, is authenticity.

And with that, here is my imperfect, dirty, but very authentic list:

(I can’t even begin without a caveat: my first list included John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen”, because to me, this one has all the elements; this is the primal DNA, bringing in boogie-woogie, jazz, blues, and folk element: this is the sound so many early rockers hoped to imitate, even the ones who didn’t realize it. But anything that is not purely rock and roll simply cannot be included on this particular list…)

1. “Maybellene” (Chuck Berry)

Despite what was said above, any list of essential rock songs simply cannot fail to include Chuck Berry. End of story. Plus, of all the early Berry hits, this one brings in some serious backwoods country elements, a healthy dose of jazzed up style and the unmistakably gritty blues guitar –a signature sound, in short. Also, and importantly, the combination of cars and girls, a formula perfected by Berry, is in full effect here: this is not a rock and roll song, this is rock and roll.

2. “Fortunate Son” (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

Yeah boy. Creedence had already dragged folks and blues through the bayou and paid their obligatory dues at the altar of psychedelic inspiration, and once that was out of their system, John Fogerty locked in and began writing tight, compact, perfect rock songs. He is firing on every cylinder here: the piss and vinegar of the chorus, the sociopolitical import of the lyrics (same –and true– as it ever was, more than four decades later) and the irresistible groove: it is angry, indignant and indelible — and it’s all over in two minutes and nineteen seconds.

3. “Rocks Off” (The Rolling Stones)

It was a down-to-the-wire decision to pick this one or the runner-up, “Brown Sugar”. Either one would suffice, but this one (almost impossible when considering “Brown Sugar”) actually does rock more…and it has “rock” in its title. “Brown Sugar” is a bit dirtier (sonically and lyrically) and has one of the ultimate rock and roll riffs of all time, but “Rocks Off” has every element of what makes The Stones the consummate rock band: the whole history of music is crammed into virtually everything they recorded between ’68 and ’72, and it’s all on ugly, beautiful display here. You really could offer this one up to someone who has never listened to rock music and simply say “Here you go”. There is no guarantee that they’ll like it, but there is no question that after only one listen, they’ll get it.

4. “Thunder Road” (Bruce Springsteen)

Kind of like Beethoven emulated Bach and ended up, in many ways, being better, Bruce Springsteen wanted to sound like Roy Orbison (including name-checking him a few lines into this, the first song on his masterpiece Born To Run), and wound up transcending him. This is the complete package: the harmonica, piano, guitar and glockenspiel (!), this song is an entire lifetime in under five minutes. It also has one of the best beginnings and endings of any song, ever. And if Chuck Berry was singing to hopeful sock hoppers just getting their driver’s licenses, The Boss was talking to young adults who had already graduated but were still capable of dreaming.

5. “London Calling” (The Clash)

Punk? Please. The Clash always represented the melting pot that rock music, at its best, can be. Joe Strummer is God. The Clash was the only band that mattered. Any further questions?

6. “Tattooed Love Boys” (The Pretenders)

In part because it was impossible to pick between “My City Was Gone” and “Middle of the Road” (or “Back on the Chain Gang” for that matter…holy shit, was Learning To Crawl a fantastic album or what?), but also because of the many, many songs that kick much ass by the great Pretenders, it’s hard to top “Tattooed Love Boys”. While Chrissie Hynde was undoubtedly the baddest bitch on the block, she is also an uncommonly gifted writer and her vocals go toe-to-toe with anyone (male or female) who has ever stepped up to a mic.

Anyone who knows me can guess that I’m already disappointed with my own list. How could I not be? The inherent limitation of picking only six songs is infuriating. It also, I reckon, is the point. It would be less interesting, or perhaps less fun, to have more flexibility. And then: how much easier would this task actually be if you had ten songs? Twenty? In some ways, it might be even more difficult because then the (unavoidable) omissions would seem even more glaring. (What, no Sabbath? No Skynyrd? No Halen? No Who? No Beatles? No Doors?  No Floyd?  No Zep? No Heart? No Boys? No Neil? No Rush? No R.E.M.? No Smiths?  No Brains? No SK? No LC? I know…)

So: the only way this exercise is worthwhile is to share it. And see what other people think. I’ve shown you mine; show me yours.

Pretty remarkable story in yesterday’s NYT about AP reporter Michael Graczyk, whose not necessarily enviable beat has been covering executions. Some excerpts, below. There is something so 20th Century about lethal injections (although, the electric chair could only have been invented in the same brutal century). All things being equal, it’s arguably the most humane option available. But of course all things are never equal.

What makes his record all the more extraordinary is that often, Mr. Graczyk’s has been the only account of the execution given to the world at large. Covering executions was once considered an obligatory — if often ghoulish — part of what a newspaper did, like writing up school board meetings and printing box scores, but one by one, such dutiful traditions have fallen away.

Seeing inmates in the death chamber, strapped to a gurney and moments away from lethal injections, he has heard them greet him by name, confess to their crimes for the first time, sing, pray and, once, spit out a concealed handcuff key. He has stood shoulder to shoulder with other witnesses who stared, wept, fainted, turned their backs or, in one case, exchanged high-fives.

No reporter, warden, chaplain or guard has seen nearly as many executions as Mr. Graczyk, 59, Texas prison officials say. In fact, he has probably witnessed more than any other American.

“The act is very clinical, almost anticlimactic,” Mr. Graczyk said. “When we get into the chamber here in Texas, the inmate has already been strapped to the gurney and the needle is already in his arm.”

They stand on the other side of a barrier of plexiglass and bars, able to hear the prisoner through speakers. And the only sound regularly heard during the execution itself, is of all things, snoring. A three-drug cocktail puts the inmate to sleep within seconds, while death takes a few minutes. Victims’ family members often remark that the killer’s death seems too peaceful.

But before the drugs flow, the inmate is allowed to make a last statement, giving Mr. Graczyk what even he acknowledges are some lasting, eerie memories.

One inmate “sang ‘Silent Night,’ even though it wasn’t anywhere near Christmas,” Mr. Graczyk said. “I can’t hear that song without thinking about it. That one really stuck with me.”

The good news: George W. Bush is no longer running Washington.

The bad news: He is now running the Washington Redskins.

No, not literally.

However: the comparisons go beyond simple simile and inexorably, enter into metaphor.

Daniel Snyder is George W. Bush.

I know.

The only thing more played out and passé than blindly bashing (or praising) Barack Obama is blindly bashing Bush.

He was the sine qua non for polarizing political certitude. And he is likely to remain the heavyweight champion for the foreseeable future. He is, not to put too fine a point on it, our country’s Asshole Emeritus. Like those wizened professors put out to pasture and summoned only at graduation ceremonies, Bush earned that status; he put in the time and we do him and ourselves a disservice if we ever forget how incredibly, and uniquely awful he was. This most untalented and incurious man had to experiment often to eventually understand—to the world’s chagrin—that his one true talent was being a moron. He was a genius at incompetence.

But everyone knows that.

So what is the point, where is the originality, not only engaging in the gratuitous name-checking of he-who-should-never-be-named, but using him as a basis of comparison for anyone? Logically, the rationale does not sustain itself; employing such a singular entity as a metaphor is a crime against grammar and sustained thought. But still, it is, in the end, inevitable. It was not a rhetorical flourish easily arrived at, and it was not for considerable lack of effort hoping to avoid it. Ultimately, it was as T.S. Eliot once wrote: We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

I knew that place for the first time when I—along with a loyal and long-suffering fan base—watched the Washington Redskins go from being a disappointment to an enigma to disgrace to, finally, an outright caricature. This once-successful (I can’t quite say once-proud because the name has always been Redskins which is slightly worse than unconscionable by any reasonable standard) franchise has now become a veritable case study for how not to run a professional sports organization.

Let’s get the unspeakable out of the way as quickly as possible. Here is something I never thought I would say: Al Davis is not the worst owner in sports. And, for anyone who does not know, Al Davis is the gold standard for over-the-top, meddlesome, megalomaniacal team cancers. But, at this point, he’s got one thing going for him: he’s not Daniel Snyder.

Seriously, at least at one point Al Davis was a legend. At one point Al Davis did put in the time and build a respectable (and winning) franchise. Snyder, on the other hand, knows less than a little about the actual nuts and bolts of evaluating talent or inspiring confidence. He is literally a nerd who happened to get filthy rich, so he bought a team. Put another way, Al Davis got old and senile and has slowly but steadily sucked the life out of his organization; he is a sports version of King Lear and his is a straight-up tragic story. But Raiders fans can hold their noses and hang in there until he eventually goes to that big pirate ship in the sky.

It would be tempting, and too simple to decree Snyder a sports version of Macbeth, (or better yet the conniving, deeply evil Lady Macbeth) but that sells these great Shakespearean figures short. Better off turning to an earlier, less significant work: perhaps Danny Boy, with all the failed plots and burned bodies in his wake, could be considered a sports version of Titus Andronicus. But no. Snyder simply does not have the heft to be tragic; he is little more than a bit player in a minor comedy. And yet, the team he has ruined is still the second most profitable franchise in all sports: the stakes are substantial and the ultimate carnage is infinitely larger than the man creating it. Looking at a tragedy and finding comedy, Daniel Snyder is the Pigskin Polonius. 

This is a serious charge, not made lightly. So let’s consider this with the carefulness it warrants and examine the case before us before we feel we can render a verdict without reservation.

The first step is diagnosing the subject and determining certain inviolable symptoms. So, for starters, let’s confirm that some or all of the obvious ingredients, shared by any bad owner, are firmly in place.

Owner never actually played the sport at a competitive level: Check.

Owner’s wealth has obliterated any sense of perspective that might allow him to relate—with anything approximating authenticity—to the fan base: Check.

Owner is petty: Check.

Owner is a bully who insists on surrounding himself with craven and sycophantic lackeys: Check.

Owner, despite unimaginable net worth, is consistently cheap and will cut corners every time: Check.

Owner has the worst sort of interpersonal skills: Check.

Owner takes rabid and historically solid fan base largely for granted? Check.

Owner confident in powers of perception and intelligence that do not remotely exist: Check.

Owner alienates people who do—or have—worked as employees: Check.

Owner can’t find anyone not on the payroll to offer support, solidarity, or utter any sentiment that could be construed as positive: Check.

You get the picture.

But for a fair and accurate rendering of what an impossibly tone-deaf, cocky and self-immolating imbecile Daniel Snyder is, one act stands out (above and beyond the coaches who have turned the front office into a not-so-merry-go-round, the abrupt firing of a successful and respected GM, the cycle of signing increasingly outrageous and irresponsible “big name” free agents—often at the expense of high draft picks, the firing of a coach who had managed to wrestle the key away from the inmates only to hire the head lunatic, the unwarranted promotion to VP of Football Operations of the most singularly and spectacularly unqualified buffoon who happens to be his racquetball buddy) above all others: having owned the team for little more than a year—and on the heels of yet another in a series of mind-numbingly stupid free agent signings (Bruce Smith? Deion Sanders?! Jeff George?!?!)—had the temerity, nay the audacity, nay the chutzpah to charge fans admission to watch the team practice in training camp. If ever there was a moment where prescient people should have taken to the streets with torches and pitchforks (or, short of anything truly dramatic, just refused to show up at that dump called Fed-Ex Field—of which more shortly), this was it. Everything we needed to know about the man, and where he was coming from (hint: it rhymes with $), was abundantly revealed in all its non-glory. Practically everything that has happened since has grown out of that indelible desecration.

Anyone who follows the team knows the sordid details, so no need to rehash each and every awful decision, underperforming free agent, abandoned draft pick and stadium-related outrage. But speaking of that abortion called FedEx Field (how many rotations per minute do you think Jack Kent Cooke is doing in his coffin, by the way? Dude owned the Skins during the glory years, and paid for the new –albeit awful– stadium, which was appropriately named after him, only to be sold, literally, to the highest bidder, so Snyder could wrangle every stinking penny he possibly could out of his investment: file under: soul, sold), that is just a matter of terrible timing that JKC was in the process of building a new palace for his franchise (which never, ever should have left RFK –the best home field advantage in sports during the ’80s along with the also dearly departed Boston Garden) when most baseball and football stadiums were wisely following the excellent example of Camden Yards and incorporating old school aesthetics with modern amenities.

Suffice it to say, FedEx Field is old school in the awful sense of the word: it has every deficiency of those ancient concrete monstrosities from the ’60s and ’70s with none of the charm. It’s oversized yet underwhelming, it has an utter absence of character and it’s conveniently located in the middle of nowhere, with no hope of utilizing that new-fangled concept of public transportation that most major cities use as a prerequisite before construction on a new stadium is undertaken.

In fairness, it’s important to point out that Snyder inherited this mess. So he gets a mulligan for buying a team that happened to have a brand new, terrible stadium. But, in his inimitable fashion, he has not only done nothing to improve the situation, he has actually exacerbated it. The parking lot was a disaster in 1997; it remains a clusterfuck in 2009. The concessions are the worst in the world (this is coming from a person who had the misfortune of eating cinderblock pretzels and dirty-sponge hot dogs at the old Shea Stadium), and they are expensive. No doubt, concessions are expensive everywhere these days, but at least in the new stadiums you get quality food and drink. Case in point: it costs a pretty penny to get a snack at Verizon Center but the food is consistently good (and hot) and you have options beyond plastic bottles of Bud or Bud Light. Speaking of bang for your buck, ever seen that monitor? You’d have a better chance watching replays via a Time Machine. And those graphics (DEFENSE!) are pretty cutting edge. Way to enhance the experience there, Danny Boy. Having sat in the upper, upper decks multiple times, I can propose with some degree of certainty that the PC speakers I had in 1995 were capable of producing louder sound with better fidelity. Think I’m piling on or being petty? Try tacking an hour onto the experience (especially after a loss!)  battling the catastrophe masquerading as a parking lot. Ernest Shackleton had an easier time navigating his ship through ice in the South Pole. But at least the parking is free. Just kidding.

Many Skins fans have gone through the familiar stages of grief over the past several years. Once Spurrier spurned Snyder, that seemed like a low point of sorts: the clown prince of college football couldn’t hack it as a pro coach and left many millions on the table to walk away from the team. Joe Gibbs seemed to represent an overdue oasis, but he too finally decided he could not get back to Nascar fast enough. He did try and anoint the controversial, but undeniably talented, Gregg Williams as the heir to his throne. Needless to say, Snyder (and his half-witted consigliere, Cerrato) put their clown shoes through that plan. Besides, who needed a proven veteran coach when untested, inexperienced and underwhelming Jim Zorn was waiting in the wings? (Hiring him was ridiculous enough; the Bataan Death March he is now being made to endure is…typical. Everyone knows Zorn is gone, it’s not a matter of when he’s fired, it’s how much meat will be left on his bones by the time his body is taken off the spit. The recent indignity of bringing in the Bingo-playing Sherm Lewis to call the shots is…typical. But if, as seems likely based on his track record and lack of character, Snyder is stringing the emasculated Zorn along in the hopes of inciting a resignation so he doesn’t have to pay him in full, well he is officially beneath contempt –not just as a scumbag businessman, but as a human being.)

Riggo speaks big truths.

Here’s the thing: it’s not the quarterback, it’s not the coach, it’s not even the useless GM (though it’s impossible to overstate the wreckage he has left in his wake); the reason this fish stinks is because it’s rotting at the head. And that head is Snyder. The only hope is for the owner to hire an accomplished (or merely adequate, if need be) individual to run the operations and step quickly and quietly out of the way. And stay out of the way. (Use some of that impulsive energy constructing a new stadium, in D.C.; or better yet, invest some money into revamping the cathedral otherwise known as RFK Stadium and get the team playing where it never should have left.)

One can only wonder what Snyder sees when he looks in the mirror.

Here is what the rest of us see:

  +  =

Presumably, disgracing a franchise and a fanbase was not the mission he wanted to accomplish.

In conclusion, it’s obvious what Snyder needs to do, and only he can do it. That’s the answer.

The question is, will he do it? Can he?

You down with Stephin Merritt?

This guy makes Bob Mould look like Marge Simpson.

He makes Ben Stein sound like Gilbert Gottfried.

And he just made instant Internet history today (big hat tip to my boy Meatbull for making sure I saw this slice of heaven):

There’s not much that needs to be (or can be) said about the genius that just unfolded. Except, possibly, this: Is that anchor the same guy who gave us this historic moment?

Okay. This is genius.

The truth hurts.

And the fact of the matter is: 2004 was sweet enough to soften enough pain for another hundred years. Though I doubt we’ll have to wait that long (just as we only had to wait three years for the second title this decade). That’s two more than the Yankees have, just in case anyone is keeping count.