Olympic ephemera

• Watching the men's hockey has been tremendous, and it all culminates in today's gold metal game between the USA and Canada. Regardless of the outcome, you couldn't script a better scenario. However, after seeing the Canadian public's bout of clinical depression following the last loss to the USA, I have a feeling the country will go the route of Jonestown and drink the Kool-Aid if The United States wins again.


• Boner from Growing Pains is dead. While I'm going to refrain from any of the innumerable dick-jokes I could come up with and pay respects to the dead, I am going to question the producers of the show. How did they manage to name a character Boner on a wholesome family show? Was there no irony in the 80s? It would be akin to naming a character on a Disney show "Come-Shot" or "Dirty Sanchez," which happens to be the nickname many of us Patriots fans use for The Jet's quarterback Mark Sanchez.


• Mike Lowell really is a stand-up, articulate guy. Part of me is pulling for him to have a big spring and shake-up the squad. Doubtful, but I'd love to see it.


• While the Opening Ceremonies brought us Bryan Adams and ice dicks, I wonder if the Closing Ceremonies tonight will bring us The Barenaked Ladies singing "If I Had a Million Dollars" for all the endorsements the Olympic champions will have coming their way. Maybe they'll have giant ice boobs this time. Nice.


• Kevin Sampsell's A Common Pornography is one of the best memoirs I've read in years. If you haven't already, you should pick up a copy. Rock on, Kevin.


• It doesn't seem like Lyndsay Vonn and Julia Mancuso are going to resolve their dispute with a Sapphic kiss. Son of a bitch!


• On that note, I think I figured out, specifically, the male allure to watching female figure skating, and it has to do with having the complete, unobstructed view up their skirts. It's almost too easy. Almost.


• (above) Beckett and Lester and Lackey, oh my! Beckett and Lester and Lackey, oh my! Wake me up, Dorothy. I must be dreaming.


• Have you listened to Deer Tick? You should. They're a band from Rhode Island, and only good things come from Rhode Island. Think me and Pauly D.


• Let me amend that so I don't include the Central Falls superintendent and the State Education Commissioner. They suck.


• Baseball is right around the corner. Amen.


• Go Team USA! Kick some Canuck ass today.

My two cents on a two-cent mind.

Johnny Damon.

The amiable Red Sox caveman turned flitty ass-bag Judas has signed to become a Detroit Tiger (Woods). By the way, on a discursive note, did anyone else get a chuckle with Tiger using the Wade Boggs-defense? Yes, Tiger, you have a problem. It's called a Y-chromosome.

Johnny Damon. Right.

When he was with the Sox, I loved the guy, despite the fact that he made stringing together a coherent sentence seem like quantum physics. He was the original "idiot," an icon. And then.

While this next sentence will seem like a superfluous "no shit" to Sox fans, let me say this, for the record: If a Red Sox player, particularly a popular "face-of-the-franchise" guy like Johnny-boy, signs with the Spankees, they are officially, in my opinion, persona non grata in New England forever.

Now, some fans and writers have been intimating that Johnny might get a hero's welcome from the Fenway Faithful when he returns in a Tiger jersey. This prospect makes me want to puke up all the beers I consumed during the 2004 post-season, an estimated amount of brew that could fill a hot tub. To me, this is like embracing the man that was banging your wife because she dumped him.

Seriously?

When Johnny Damon returns this season, I, for one, will have the same sickened feeling I've had since he signed with pinstriped pricks five years ago. I'm a man who never lets a grudge slip through my fingers; it's part of what makes me such an infuriatingly simple-minded Sox fan. Johnny Damon---and his Brandon Walsh sideburns with his douche bag faux-spiked hair---can kiss my white ass. While at one time I considered him one of us, he has been dead to me for five years. I hate him like I hate A-Tard (take that one, Sarah Palin) and Joba the Slut and C.C. Cheeseburger and The Big B.J. Burnett, and I will always hate Johnny Damon. And to the Sox fans who are even thinking about cheering Jeter's former-bitch, I say, "Shame on you!"

Johnny Damon.

Seriously?

Big Bats

The 2010 Red Sox's problem is the same problem that has been harrowing men for centuries, the problem that has caused men to overcompensate out of fear that their weakness might become apparent. Yes, The Red Sox, like most males, lack the Big Bat.

Warning: the following onslaught of double-entendres might cause dizziness, shortness of breath, a realization of shortness of appendages, liver problems, or diarrhea.

While The Crypt-Keeper John Henry threw his cash at John Lackey like a housewife at a male stripper in a leopard-skin banana-hammock, the Sox still can't swagger into spring training this season like, say, the impressively-endowed (although very homosexual) Yankees. Granted, on paper, the Sox rotation reads as tight as a Hemingway line. Unflappable. But beware, while folks love to wield cliches like "Pitching wins pennants" and "It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion in the ocean," in our heart of hearts, we all know the truth.

Yes. Admittedly, the prospect of having Lester, Beckett, and Lackey in a short series arouses the imagination; however, when your deep in a tight game, Mike Cameron, Marcus Scutaro, or a less-than-sturdy Andre Beltre does little to ease the anxiety. And when you're looking for Youk to plug the Four-hole, forgive me, if I question the potential. Big Papi has become a Little Dribble of his former self, and V-Mart, a more than adequate hitter in the catcher slot, is not the monster with the wood we were looking for.

And J.D. Drew has always been limp and disappointing.

But we haven't begun spring training yet. There's always the chance of enhancement. And, you know what, sometimes the little guys win. Not often, but every now and then.

Ice Dicks and The Great Nothing

While I realize it's Valentine's Day, a holiday created by greeting card companies for guys trying to get laid, may I kindly remind everyone that March 14 is just around the corner. For those of you who don't know, March 14 is the guy's Valentine's Day, a holiday worthy of its own website. That's right, mark your calendars for Steak and BJ Day. Gentleman, pass the word. You deserve it.

This time of year, the gap between football and baseball season, is generally the most miserable time of the year for me. That's why we celebrate things like Truck Day in Red Sox Nation. Last Friday, a crowd actually gathered outside Fenway Park to watch the equipment truck leave for Fort Myers. Listen, I certainly take the Red Sox far more seriously than I should, but waiting in the freezing cold, in February, in New England, to watch a fucking truck drive off!

Get thee a life, sir!

This year, however, I have the Olympics to keep my attention. Now, I'm not necessarily the most patriotic guy on the block, but I'm pulling for our athletes. Whether it's curling or the two-man luge, which might be the most ostensibly gay sport outside of wrestling, I feel a pin-prick of pride when they're playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" with our countryman on the top tier of the platform; I feel like cracking a Bud and bombing the snot out of a random Middle East country. And figure skating, hell, it's only a small step down from softcore porn.

By the way, I was watching the Opening Game ceremonies on Friday night, which I now realize is just as pathetic as waiting for the truck on Truck Day, and was floored when Canada brought out Bryan Adams and a hot chick in a blue dress to sing a song specifically written for The Winter Games in Vancouver. Adams, dressed like a waiter, waves his arms and dances in front of ice sculptures shaped like giant phalluses. It was like watching an Albee play, for God's sake. And while I waited for Rush, The Bare Naked Ladies, and Celine Dion to complete the Canadian music experience for me, sadly, it was just Bryan Adams and the hot chick in the blue dress.

And the ice dicks.

Still, I wait in this great and barren block of nothingness on my calendar. I wait, not for a truck packed with bats and balls and jock straps, but for something of real significance, something to fill this existential hole, something like Thursday, when pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.

Baseball season, yo.

Winter blues.

I've had a bad bout of the winter blues the past two weeks, which is not uncommon in cold climates. I've made apathy a lifestyle, and each morning when I wake up, I can't wait to go to bed. But there's only one way, I know, to beat back these bitter winter days:

Get a pair of headphones, crank the volume as loud as it can go, and listen to Iron Maiden while you show the winter your pimp hand!