Yankees Order Young Pitchers to Take Country Singer Cure

NEW YORK.  Concerned by the failure of their young pitchers to deliver this spring, New York Yankees’ manager Joe Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland have agreed on a novel therapy–romantic liaisons with teenage country singers of the sort that fueled the Hall of Fame career of hard-throwing right-hander Roger Clemens.

Mindy McCready:  Guaranteed to lower your ERA

“We checked with the Elias Sports Bureau,” said Eiland, whose young ace Phil Hughes is 0-4 on the season with a 9.00 earned run average.  “They have confirmed that an affair with a teenage country singer increases a pitcher’s ground-ball outs and first-pitch strikes, so we’re gonna go with that.”

Clemens:  “I know where you live, and I’m comin’ after your Shania Twain CD’s!”

Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, allegedly began an illicit sexual relationship with country singer Mindy McCready when he was 28 and she was 15.  McCready is a country singer whose biggest hit was “Guys Do It All the Time”, which Clemens interpreted as an overture upon hearing it on the clubhouse stereo system after a game against the Texas Rangers in 1996.

McCready:  “Okay, let’s get your running in, then some long toss, then a glass of white zinfandel with Mindy.”

Clemens had been declared to be in the “twilight of his career” by then-Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette at the end of the season, but he went on to win 162 games with the Toronto Blue Jays, the Yankees and the Houston Astros.  “I may have confused ‘twilight’ with ‘dawn’ or maybe ‘high noon’,” Duquette later explained.

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Biden in Position to Take Dems’ Nod as Hair-Plug Compromise

WASHINGTON, D.C.  As the race for the Democratic presidential nomination winds down in a bloody finish like the last rounds of an Ali-Frazier slugfest, Senator Joseph Biden is working quietly behind the scenes to position himself as a compromise candidate able to unite a deadlocked convention.

“I have a lot more hair plugs than any other candidate.”

“We’re here as an alternative for delegates who can’t make up their minds, or who have lost their minds,” says Biden senior advisor Wendell Hagerty.  “What with Clinton and Obama tearing each other’s hair out, isn’t it refreshing to have a candidate whose hair is held firmly in place by follicular micrografting?”

Sort of like a doll’s hair.

Biden dropped out of the race after failing to establish himself as a front-runner in the early primaries.  He has formed an exploratory committee to consider a run for the presidency of The Hair Club for Men, a non-governmental international body similar to the United Nations that sends wigs and hair transplants to war-torn areas of the globe.

Neil Kinnock

The 2008 campaign was Biden’s second attempt to win his party’s presidential nomination.  His first, in 1988, ended in embarassment when John Sasso, campaign manager for eventual nominee Michael Dukakis, released videotapes that caught Biden plagiarizing speeches by Neil Kinnock, a British politician who is largely bald.  “I don’t have a problem with Biden lifting phrases from me,” Kinnock said at the time, “as long as he doesn’t ask to borrow any of my hair.”

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Lawyers Without Borders Bring Aid, Strife to Third World

MALCZW, Freedonia.  In this land-locked, vowel-starved country, many residents have never even seen a lawyer, much less retained one.  “It is both a blessing and a curse,” says tribal chieftain Mzrz Glzorp.  “We do not have to listen to boring dweebzskis in wing tips, on the other hand I don’t understand the warranty on my glzblzxti,” a three-wheeled cart used to haul lumber and produce.

Mzrz Glzorp

When Matt Costro, a third-year associate at Lyle, Dewey LLP, a New York law firm, heard of the plight of the Freedonians, he decided to do something about it.  “I really challenged my firm,” he says with all the eagerness and optimism of the twenty-seven year-old that he is.  “I could sit here at my desk and just bill a bunch of hours, or I could try to make the world a better place.”

“We could do a leveraged buy-out for your cousin’s chickens . . .”

So Matt started Lawyers Without Borders, a non-profit modeled on Doctors Without Borders, the organization that sends physicians into remote and war-torn areas of the world to do good without regard to the national, cultural or political orientation of its patients.  “So many of these people are beyond the reach of regular pro bono activities,” Costro says, referring to legal services offered for free to the indigent.  “We had a chance to really distinguish ourselves.”

Victim of the “Evil Eye”

Matt and his colleague Bob Pernstein decided to take a two-month leave of absence to get the Freedonian program off the ground, going door-to-door in villages such as Malczw to find people with unmet legal needs.  “Hello,” Matt calls into a mud hut where tribal elders are smoking clay pipes while humming chlazrks, a type of folksong that combines tales of woe similar to African-American blues, but with a rapid beat that resembles a polka.  “Anybody need a leveraged buy-out in here?” says Pernstein, a corporate lawyer by trade.

Chmzzia, the guide and translator for the American lawyers, explains the transaction to the males within.  “It is a deal where you borrow a lot of money to buy a company, and you use the company’s assets as collateral for the loan to finance it,” he says, as several of the men nod in understanding.  One of the tribesmen speaks:  “So you double your money by folding it in half?” he says in his native tongue, and the others break out in hearty laughter while the two lawyers wait for the translation.  “Yes,” says Pernstein with a sheepish smile after the wisecrack is explained to him, “that about sums it up.”

Later Costro and Pernstein counsel a distraught widow who fears that a neighbor has put a curse–the “evil eye”–on her only daughter, Eliakrzi.  “You must protect her,” the old woman says.  “She is my only hope in this world.”  After a few hours of investigation and drafting, the two lawyers have put together a complaint for injunctive relief and have served the offender–a young woman who is competing for the attention of Zlkrstri Mzzlxkr, an eligible bachelor who owns twenty goats–with a temporary restraining order.  The suit throws the village into an uproar as families take sides for and against Eliakrzi and her rival, hurling insults and spitting at each other.

“Before the lawyers came, we were constantly running out of disputes.”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” says Costro, reflecting on the strife they have brought to this formerly peaceful village.  “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” Pernstein replies, “but this is a start.”

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Supreme Court Upholds Voter IDs, Sending Many to Blockbuster

CHICAGO.  Billy O’Coyne doesn’t usually following the Supreme Court, but yesterday’s 6-3 decision upholding Indiana’s voter ID law caught his attention.  “If the Supreme Court of the United States can make me produce a photo ID every time I exercise my right to vote,” he says angrily as he reads of the ruling in the Sun-Times, “I might as well go to Blockbuster, where the selection is better.”

“But how do I know you’re the Duchess of Windsor?”

Chicago is infamous for voter fraud, as are other older U.S. cities such as Boston, where Mayor James Michael Curley ran for office from jail and famously urged his supporters to “vote early and often.”  “I have a right to vote as many times as they’ll pay me to do so,” says Michael “Mickey” Farnam, who frequently serves as a “sign-holder” on “stand-outs” along busy streets, holding placards supporting various candidates for public office.  “At least at Blockbuster they have action films–all I ever get out of elections is comedy.”

The State Attorney General of Indiana persuaded the justices to uphold his state’s law by pointing to various commonplace transactions for which a photo ID was required, including movie rentals at Blockbuster:

INDIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL:  May it please the court–we should not elevate the right to rent a movie at Blockbuster Video over the sacred right to vote, enshrined in our Constitution . . .

JUSTICE SCALIA:  Councillor, if there are no more late fees at Blockbuster, why do they send you those annoying automated phone calls saying your movie is overdue?

ATTORNEY GENERAL:  Was it a two-day or a seven-day rental?

SCALIA:  Uh, let’s see.  It was “Prizzi’s Honor”, which has been out for a while.  Seven days I guess . .

ATTORNEY GENERAL:  Wasn’t Nicholson great in that?

JUSTICE GINSBURG:  I liked Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada”–

JUSTICE ROBERTS:  Oh, please–that was such a chick flick!

GINSBURG:  Uh, I am a woman.

ROBERTS:  The only one on the Court–and just barely.

GINSBURG:  You’re a stupid nimmy-not!

ROBERTS:  Am not!

GINSBURG:  Are too!

ATTORNEY GENERAL:  Late fees are a barbaric anachronism, a miscarriage of justice, a riddle wrapped up in an enigma and a slice of bacon.  Why don’t you just use Netflix?

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Grand Theft Auto: Massachusetts Hits Stores Today

NATICK, Mass.   Lines began to form outside The Gnarly Gamer, a store in this suburb west of Boston, at 4:30 this morning in anticipation of “Grand Theft Auto: Massachusetts”, the latest release of one of the most successful videogames in history.  “It’s gonna be wicked awesome,” said Kyle Gomes, a fifteen year-old from neighboring Framingham.  “We’re the car theft capital of America, and we’ve got the worst drivers!”

The mall.

Grand Theft Auto is a videogame produced by Take-Two Interactive Software in which players seek to steal cars and escape from police who pursue them.  “You want to turn right and head east down Route 9 as soon as you jack a car,” says Kyle’s friend Nathan Wingfield.  “All the cops are parked at Dunkin’ Donuts, and you can blow right by them.”

“Let’s ditch the car–I can’t afford the insurance!”

Prior editions of the game have been controversial among pediatricians, police and educators nationwide who say it encourages reckless driving by teenagers, a problem that will only be exacerbated by the latest release according to Edward Coburn, executive director of the National Council for Traffic Safety.  “Grand Theft Auto: Massachusetts sends the wrong message to kids,” he says with concern.  “Bad driving in the Bay State strikes people in all walks of life, especially jay-walking pedestrians.”

Made in Massachusetts!

Hard-core gamers says Take-Two could not afford to ignore Massachusetts if they wanted to maintain their credibility.  “Kids today can read the FBI crime statistics, or they can find an adult who can,” says Mike Dwyer, who reviews new releases for Video Thrillz magazine.  “They know Massachusetts is to car theft what Paris was to art, or France or Hilton.”

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Sources Say Walsh Has Nude Pix of Belichick

FOXBORO, Mass.  With the announcement yesterday that a meeting between NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Matt Walsh has been arranged, insiders have begun to speculate on what hard evidence the former New England Patriots’ video assistant has to back up his claim that the team engaged in illegal taping as far back as 2002.

Matt Walsh

“What he’s got on tape is disturbing,” said a former employee of the team who preferred to remain anonymous.  “Bill Belichick, in the shower, with soap on a rope.”

Brut Soap-on-a-Rope

Belichick became obsessed with soap-on-a-rope after the New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in 1969, when Belichick was 16.  Joe Namath, the Jets’ quarterback who brashly predicted the stunning upset, had been featured using Brut Soap-on-a-Rope in television commercials, and the two became linked in the aspiring coach’s mind.  Belichick asked his parents for Brut Soap-on-a-Rope as a birthday present three months later, and has used the product normally associated with adolescent boys ever since as a good luck charm.

Namath: “It’s impossible to fumble soap-on-a-rope in the shower, even when the other guys blitz you.”

Walsh, a minimum wage go-fer for the Patriots, fell out of favor with Belichick following a summer camp scrimmage in which Belichick shouted out “right guard” after a blown offensive assignment.  Walsh interpreted the coach’s command to refer to men’s toiletries, and subsequently gave Belichick a Gillette Right Guard boxed gift set that included deodorant, shaving cream and after-shave.  Walsh was dismissed from the team shortly thereafter, and grew resentful of the $10.95 he had spent for nought.

Negotiations between Walsh’s lawyer and the NFL had dragged on as the league initially refused to provide legal protection to Walsh for his evidence.  “There was a genuine concern that you’d expose your client to prosecution for pornography if you turned over a videotape of Belichick in the shower,” said Robert Bostrom, a professor of criminal law at Boston College Law School.  “He wears that hoodie thing for a reason.”

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Abstinence Ed Foes Find New Ally in Teenage Boys

WASHINGTON.  Health groups who appeared before Congress yesterday to testify against funding for abstinence-only sex education found themselves with new allies as they emerged into the spring sunlight on the steps of Capitol Hill–the American Association of Teenage Horndogs, a trade association whose members are composed largely of high school “makeout-artists” opposed to restrictions on heavy petting.

“I never had any problem getting boys to stop at first base.”

“The right to petition government for redress of grievances is right there in the Constitution, which we studied in eighth grade,” said Alan Wertheimer of Lou Brock High School in St. Louis.  “We support the American Academy of Pediatrics and other healthcare organizations who are the doing the heavy lifting on the crucial issue of backseat nookie.”

“Are you sure this is an approved senior project?”

The primary supporters of abstinence-only sex education classes are Republicans who have sex with their spouses less than once a week, according to Roll Call, a Washington publication that covers Congressional voting patterns. 

Washington Wizards Dance Team:  “You’re right, they do look like interns.” 

Democrats have failed to cut off funding for such programs because they frequently miss quorum calls due to illicit affairs with aides, constituents and the Washington Wizards dance team.  Young Republicans are required to take an oath of chastity when they join the organization, which seeks to restore a Nixon-Eisenhower monarchy in America.

David Eisenhower, Julie Nixon Eisonhower:  Heir and heiress to the throne.

Abstinence-only education is normally taught in four segments of increasing difficulty over the course of a student’s progress through high school.  One popular set of textbooks by the McGuire-Hillman Publishing Company features textbooks titled “Stopping at First!” for freshmen, “Also Stopping at Second!” for sophomores, “I Told You to Stop at Second!” for juniors, and “Whoa–Pull Out Now!” for seniors.

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Schoolkids Find Official State Designations Hard to Come By

BOSTON.  The golden dome of the Massachusetts State House has witnessed many a late-night debate over momentous legislation ranging from rights of workers to massive public works projects.  It has also been the scene of many an afternoon session featuring chocolate chip cookies which, under General Laws chapter 2, section 42, are the official cookie of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts State House

“Getting kids involved in the legislative process is a fun way to teach them about their civic responsibilites,” says fourth-grade teacher Lynn Nichols of the Tony Conigliaro Middle School in Swampscott, Mass.  “It’s also a good excuse for a field trip in the spring, when they can barely keep their fannies in the seats.”

“If you guys will vote for the Tokay gecko as the official nocturnal lizard of the Commonwealth, I can maybe get one of your relatives a job at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.”

But as demands on legislators’ time increase with a fiscal crisis looming and a recent universal healthcare law showing signs of stress, state senators and representatives have had to curtail schoolkids’ easy access to the legislative process and their time.

“Please make me the state cat–pretty please?”

“There’s only so much I can do for you kid,” Rep. Martin Flores of East Boston is saying to Tommy Racunas, who has come to the State House with his fifth grade class from Our Lady of Perpetual Airplane Noise in East Boston to petition for black-and-white bi-color cats–also known as “Tuxedo cats”–to be named the official cat of the Commonwealth.  “The tabbies got there first, and as soon as they hear about it, they’ll be all over me like a cheap suit, which I’m already wearing one,” he says.

“You want Jimmy Piersall to be the official bipolar outfielder of the Commonwealth?”

The kids begin to learn the ropes after a while, says Senate Clerk Ronald Giachetti.  “First thing you gotta know, is you never go direct to the legislator, you go to his or her lobbyist.  The lobbyist sets up a ‘time’,” a cocktail party fund-raiser, “and you buy a bunch of tickets.”

“Suggested contribution $150?  We took a vow of poverty!”

That presents a problem for both teachers, who usually only have subway fare in their budget for the trip to the State House, and for the students, who are not old enough to drink.  “If Senator di Presti could promise me action on my Frisbee as official aero-dynamically supported amusement device of the Commonwealth, maybe I could see it,” says Lloyd Knox, a sixth-grader from working-class Chelsea.  “At $150 a pop for a watered-down Coke, I think I’ll pass.”

“I want to thank youse kids for coming.  Please make your checks out to Committee to Re-Elect Brian McClary.”

As a result, it is kids from the wealthier suburbs who command legislators’ attention and are most successful in seeing their bills become law.  “I really like my mom’s new Range Rover,” says Amy Gerstner of affluent Wellesley.  “I think it should be the state’s official SUV!”

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Wisconsin State Police on Alert as Arbor Day Approaches

MADISON, Wisconsin.  On the heels of a U.S. government report that Wisconsin leads the nation in adult drunken drivers, state police began to assemble here early today to keep crowds forming for traditional Arbor Day festivities from spiraling out of control when beer drinkers celebrating the state’s number one status are added to the mix.

“When the cheese starts to fly, we start shooting–got it?”

“Wisconsinites will not tolerate lawlessness unless there’s a Green Bay Packers’ Super Bowl victory to go along with it,” said Governor Jim Doyle.  “Any attempt to turn over cheese delivery trucks will be met with swift and deadly force.”

“Hey, wait a minute.  That’s not a tree!”

Arbor Day is a holiday celebrated on the last Friday in April on which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant and care for trees.  It originated in Nebraska, but the locus was moved to Wisconsin after it was discovered that in Nebraska wheat is considered a tree.  The state song of Wisconsin is “In Heaven There is No Beer, That’s Why We Drink it Here.”

Packer fans tailgating:  “Let me give you my recipe for Bears’ Fan Flambe.”

The government report found the upper Midwest to have the worst drunken-driving record in the country, and Wisconsin leading the pack with 25% of adults having driven under the influence of alcohol.  “We’re number 1,” Appleton, Wisconsin residents chanted when the results were announced, pouring into the streets with pitchers of beer in their hands to set fire to grain silos and vacant parking lots. 

“Here’s one without any trees!”

Arbor Day celebrations tend to get out of hand if crowds of horticulturists are not contained according to Wisconsin State Trooper Jim Hampe.  “You give a guy a shovel, a bag of fertilizer and a can of Heileman’s Special Export Beer,” he says, shaking his head, “and anything can happen.”

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Couples Tell of Pain, Promise of Mixed WASP Marriages

WILTON, Connecticut.  In this leafy suburb of New York, it is possible to go for months without seeing one’s next-door neighbors, says A.J. “Tony” Ward, a long-time resident.  “That’s what two-and-a-half-acre zoning will do for you,” he says with a mixture of pride and chagrin.  “It does make it hard when you need to borrow a glass of white wine for a recipe.” 

“No animal sacrifice–just like you promised!”

That sense of privacy also leads to isolation, however, creating feelings of suspicion between members of different religious denominations.  “I really didn’t know many Presbyterians growing up,” says Emily Hawkins, an Episcopalian.  “Until I met my sweetie, I thought they had horns and cloven hooves,” she says with the easy laugh that won the heart of her fiance, Jed Montrose, an investment banker.

“We’re so tolerant–unlike our parents!”

But couples who cross the religious border line between Protestant denominations often find their lives complicated by doctrinal and social differences, says local marriage counselor Pamela Winthrop.  “Episcopalians tend to split their investments 60% stocks, 40% bonds,” she says.  “Presbyterians tend to be more conservative, and limit stocks to 55% of their portfolios, max.”

“He bought me a large-cap mutual fund for Valentine’s Day!”

That sort of fine distinction may seem trivial to an outsider, but to one inured to the folkways of a particular Protestant church, they can seem like a sea-change.  “When I was a little girl service started at 11:00 sharp, right after Sunday school,” says Melinda Hall, a Presbyterian who married a Methodist.  “Now we don’t start until 11:30, and my stomach growls so loud I have to suck on Mentos mints to make it to coffee hour!”

 

Religious leaders applaud the new willingness among young WASPs–white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants–to reach across denominational lines in search of romance, but caution that cultural differences can make the early years of marriage harder. 

Paddle tennis

“Presbyterians tend to prefer paddle tennis,” an outdoor game played with short-handled wooden paddles on heated courts during the winter, says Rev. Creighton Abrams of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Old Lyme, Connecticut, “while Episcopalians are more likely to play squash,” an indoor game played with long, badminton-like racquets.  “If you don’t get the eye-hand coordination of a mixed marriage right, you can end up giving your spouse a nasty shiner.”

Snake handling Baptists

One thing the three wealthiest Protestant denominations agree on, however–you don’t want to “go Baptist”, a reference to the Protestant sect favored by low-income Americans.  “It’s no wonder those people are so fat,” says Ellen Waldorf.  “All they ever do for exercise is snake-handling.”

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman