Beauty is all around us.
Hoffstrocity brings up a good point, even though he was just beat up by some fake slam pig in Chelsea last weekend. Anyone can make a mistake... even a $25, 35 minute, four Kleenex mistake in a back alley. "I didn't realize it was an asshole until I finished and then I felt I had reasonable cause to refrain from the full payment agreed upon during the initial negotiation phase, which I held while talking on the phone with my grief counselor," he told me earlier today from the waiting room of his local clinic.

As I said though, he advanced a facinating point of interest: the Philadelphia Eagles lost a game Sunday on a 61-yard-fieldgoal by the Tampa Bay Bucs. They lost and the defense only gave up six points the entire day. They lost after Donovan and the offense scored with less than a minute left in the fourth quarter. They lost after the defesnse held a Tampa kicker who hadn't hit anything from more than 30 yards out all season to a 61-yard attempt.

I've been sucker punched a couple of times in the past, knocked senseless by a wild roundhouse to the teeth. The uncertain feeling after a brain jaring blow to the head is remarkably similiar to the way I felt when I saw that little brown football streak powerfully through the uprights. For just a second I thought it could still fall short. It couldn't be going that strong. The NFL record field goal is 62 yards... no. I was struck numb when I saw the refs signal, both hands up straight.

This is unbelievable and I friends will no longer stand for it. I'm drafting a letter that will be mailed TUESDAY offering my services to the Philadelphia football franchise. I need to get involved here, sitting on the sidelines watching the team self destruct is not an option. We could end up a six win team again real quick, and I don't have the stamina for that.

Until the Eagles get back to me, I need something to keep the spirits up. And so does everyone else. I fully believe in the healing powers of stiff spirits.

Thanks for the positive feedback folks. I agree with Big Daddy, I do need an editor, every good writer does. A common lament of many of the journalists I'm learning from now is that they can't spell and constantly battle copy problems. It's an issue, but they say it with a nod and a wink that seems to suggest, there's more to story telling than clean copy. You need style, charisma, power. And besides, we've got to give the copy editors something to do. So I'll continue to chant my mantra: endeavorrrrrr to cleannnneeehhh zhhhhhe copyyyyy...at least until I find the right editor and leave the trivialities to the trivial. Man, that might not be the best note to start out my future relationship with my future copy editor. Shit, I have to apologize to a person I've never even met to convince them to take a job I can't even offer. Oh, well...they'll have to have a thick skin anyhow.But I think we should all keep in mind that this blog is designed specifically for firing from the hip, usually from the folds of a nice mellow six beer belly buzz. (Maybe I should stick with free form poetry, that would avoid further copy critiques.) But even so, I think I'll start writing these entries in Word and importing them.Maybe this will allow me to live up to the standards of one Drew Mangione. Ahhh, there you are peering out from the shadows…A little snarky aren’t we Mr. Mangione? I’ve never needed anything “desperately” since I was 18 (I’ll explain what I needed at that age when you’re older). Calling me desperate is a grossly erroneous characterization and you know it. Mean spirited? Juvenile? Self centered? Sure, all those descriptions fit, but desperate... No, desperation is your bag DGM, and don’t try to pawn that rancid shit off on me.

More football? Another frenetic day of blurred thrusts and parries? Last weekend I told this girl I met after the bars closed that although Dianna was a good wife, every once in a while, not frequently, maybe once a week, she'd...push me down the stairs. Or maybe, she'd crack a rib with a stiff elbow to the mid section.
"She put gasoline in your gin and tonic?" she asked, wide eyed with slam pig innocence. "That's terrible. No, if she's doing that I think you're wrong. I really don't think she loves you. No, it's not your fault. No you really can do better I don't care what your mother says."
Now, I can only assume that as I said this I thought she knew how ridiculous the proposition of Dianna tossing my underwear with lye was. I pointed out D$ when she stumbled into the room, a can of High Life clutched in a hand that would have better served as a support beam off the couch.
"That's the wife who abuses you?" she asked.
"Does what? Oh, yes...in fact I still have a smudge on my back from where she touched me with the belt sander Sunday night. You've got to admit, she's cute."
"She's insane. I'm going over there and saying something..."
She was serious. And, she was the only person in the room dead cold sober. A scary kind of sobriety lurked around her eyes -- focused-- corrupt -- Christian. She probably votes anti abortion, pro death penalty every year. Shit, she even had a cross tattooed on her throat. The shadow must have obscured it earlier.
She got up and set a course for D$. Intersting, I thought. I wonder how Dianna will react to this? Not well, might even say I'm a psycho.
"Miss, girl, woman with the blond hair...I know you're Christian and I'll admit I'm terrified of making you look like a joyless idiot, but my wife has never sodomized me with the grip nob of a rolling pin...or otherwise abused me. She's a sweet kid..."
"You...you... asshole!" she screamed at me.
Time to make peace. Get her to quiet down. Maybe even encourage her to forget the whole incident.
"WHORE!!!!!" I yelled. "She told me her pussy tastes like strawberry ice cream with only light undertones of fresh water salmon," I yelled to the roomfull of people. "'As good as it gets,' I recall her saying."
Well, my friends took my side and her friends hers, but I think that really it would have broken down on social lines no matter what and at least this way I was on the offensive. Push a little further and I bet I could have gotten her back to the dark times -- high school -- the eating disorder -- mom and dad yelling all the time -- her boy friend mechanically pumping away as she cried softly in the dark.
Oh, jeeze...is that what I have in store for me again this weekend? Is my life really my fault? I blame Dianna.

I'M STARTING TO RECONSIDER MY OPPOSITION TO COLLEGE FOOTBALL.
I'm just kidding, but certain fans make a compelling argument for the game. It's a fool's gold though. The bubblegum charm of college ball loses it's appeal when chewed too long and then your'e left searching for a place to spit out an unedible, rubbery wad of pink caulking.

FLYING DOGS INVADE EAST COAST: THOUSANDS FLEE IN TERROR

This is the rugged sort of individual you'd want with ya if the whole world went to shit. A key individual for any Plan Appalachia operations.

CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT:
Uhh, so I have a story about the last stage of my time travel attempt. But that's not for right now.
We're talking contest with super big surpise prizes! I'm looking for any West Chester cronies to submit slang, lingo, word choice, bullshit that we have ever used in common conversation. I am especially interested in the West Chester verbage, but I will take applications for other regions as well, upstate New York, New Jersey...France. That is to say there will be a separate regional surprise prize.
The first place west Chester submission will win a happy fun surprise complete with crab comb. The second, third, fourth and fifth places will also receive a prize, but without the crab comb.
Area award winners outside of West Chester have the oportunity to host me, Michael Pell, for at least one night of drunken nonesense in your town and a giant, expensive prizes.
Awards will be announced in mid December.
Jerk Stores not required.

TIME TRAVEL
Necessity is the low-rent, welfare, bitch-mother of invention. And I the limp-membered father who barely managed to shoot off my seed. But like my fore-fathers, Capt. James T. Kirk, Doctor Emmet Brown, William Preston Esq., and Theodore Logan I have achieved climax -- meaning success.
Today I had to work at the Missourian during the Eagles/Cowboys game. All week I schemed to get out of the shift. I even dressed up like a pirate ghost and haunted the newsroom in a bid to shutdown the place for at least the Sunday night game.
"I do remember the day you dressed up like a pirate," Matt Harris, an undergraduate said as he was reading this over my shoulder.
But a few meddling kids got in the way so I came up with a better plan. I was watching Superman, the original, when I realized that if I turned back time after my shift, I could watch the game and fulfill my responsibilities at the paper. Pretty simple solution really. First, I isolated myself during the game. I taped up posters in the newsroom demanding people not talk to me about the game and then I went back home to where Dianna was in seclusion in the east wing and popped in a tape of the game. Not as daring as Doc Brown or as rocking as Bill and Ted, but it's a workable plan.

Dr. Emmett "Doc" L. Brown: I'm sure in 1985, plutonium is available at every corner drugstore, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by!

Biff Tannen: I have your car towed all the way to your house and all you've got for me is LIGHT beer?

One of the best 21st birthday quotes ever:
"I got kissed by a woman who smelled like cigarettes and Tanqueray." -- Matt Harris
He also got taken to bed by a 250 pound face-breaking goon. Matt had a good time.