A Load of Hooey (9 page)

Famous Quotations—Unabridged

“
Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened
. You won the frickin' lottery, man. You're rich! It wasn't even that fun to ‘play'—all you did was buy a stupid ticket!”

—Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)

BASEBALL PLAYERS' POEMS ABOUT SPORTSWRITERS AND SPORTSWRITING

“ELEGIAC”

What does the word

“elegiac” mean?

What about “pastoral”?

And “contemplative”?

Why do you

Keep calling

Baseball all these weird French names?

Stop it.

Douchebag.

THE BLANK PAGE

Fat fingers dance across

the clattering keyboard

Grinding out meaning

Ennobling the actions

Of real men doing something tangible

for a living

And not sitting on their asses

“analyzing” shit.

Pathetic.

SPRING TRAINING

A gin and tonic for breakfast,

plenty of sunscreen,

a note pad.

A hot dog.

Fat ass

Planted in the stands.

Taking it all in,

gorging yourself.

SPRING TRAINING pt. II

Later, alone

in a motel room,

farting.

INSTANT ANALYSIS

We played hard

We lost

End of story.

You, however,

are the real loser.

Famous Quotations—Unabridged

“
The Buck stops here
. Seriously, I will not give you even one buck, this one stays right here, in my hand. I don't care if you're a girl scout and I already ate half the cookies, I'm the president, I can eat any cookies I want and I DO NOT PAY.” —Harry S. Truman

THE ORIGIN OF “BLACKBIRD”

P
aul McCartney was generally seen as the generous, “upbeat” Beatle. However, some claim he had a well-hidden dark side: envious, resentful, belittling. If that's true, it rarely showed. Evidence of this tendency in McCartney can be found in abundance on the day he premiered the song “Blackbird” to the other three Beatles. Unarguably a masterpiece, it was also written and arranged by McCartney alone. Legend has it that “Blackbird” came to “Macca” fairly easily and completely, with almost no conscious effort on his part. Despite being a solo creation, “Blackbird,” like all Beatles songs, is attributed to “Lennon/McCartney.” This shared-credit situation has been known to irk McCartney, and yet even that tension doesn't explain the unbridled assault of sarcasm and peeve that issued from “the cute Beatle” on this singular occasion.

August 18, 1968, Abbey Road Studios, Studio 4, 11:15 a.m. Engineer's notes:

Band members came in fairly early (and fairly shagged-out) from another night of “creams and ales and whatnot.” Mini jam session. Lennon kept asking Starkey to “play quieter” and finally to “Stop! The drums in me head are all I need.” After a tea-and-jam-butties break,
McCartley
[sic]
grabbed an acoustic and said, “Here's something, see what you think,” then played a song called “Blackbird” in its entirety. Excellent song. Excellent, excellent song. Unbelievable song. Like God humming. When he finished, he suddenly became vituperative
…

Transcript from the audio tape:

McCARTNEY [
As the final notes of “Blackbird” ring out
]: Well? What do you think? Anything to it? “Ugh,” right? Don't say anything! I know. I'm sorry. Get the trash bin out! I'll reimburse for the studio time. Please forgive me…