I heartily endorse the following advice: “This morning you are feeling kind of low. Your head hurts and your thoughts are fuzzy. Your nostrils are filled with the scent of burnt fire powder and charcoal. Your stomach is staging a rebellion. It tastes like a cat slept in your mouth and died there. You regret things you don’t quite remember. In short, you are hungover. Fortunately, I know exactly what you need to do.”

New York City’s greatest administrator, Parks & Rec Commish Adrian Benepe, has folded or wadded in the face of the bizarre Coney Island toilet-paper rationing disaster. (Workers or their superiors took it upon themselves to ration out toilet-paper.) Today Benepe comes out swinging: “It’s our business to help New Yorkers do theirs.” THAT’S GOOD STUFF. As we have noted before at length, Benepe is responsible for much of the recent beautification of New York City. For instance, did you go down to the Hudson last night for the fireworks? (Surely you did, because apparently everyone was there, it looked like Cloverfield on the way home, with people scrambling over barricades on the closed-off West Side Highway.) Perhaps you passed a bucolic, flower-crammed scene such as this one, spotted in the low west 90s. You can thank Adrian Benepe! No, go on, you selfish schmuck, thank him.

Productivity is expected to plummet at offices nationwide today as men spend their mornings measuring their fingers: “Dr. Tae Beom Kim, a urologist at Gachon University in Incheon, Korea, and his colleagues studied 144 men over the age of 20 who were undergoing urological surgery for conditions that do not affect the length of the penis. One member of the team carefully measured the lengths of the index and ring fingers on the subject’s right hand before surgery — left hands are thought to be more variable. A second team member then measured penis length immediately after the subject had been anesthetized. The length was measured both when the penis was flaccid and when it had been stretched as much as possible. Stretched length is thought to correlate to erect length, the team wrote. The team found that, in general, the lower the ratio of the lengths of the two fingers, the longer the stretched length of the penis.”

Ugh, it’s gonna be hot today. And tomorrow. Later in the week there will be rain. It is summer. I hope you’ve put powder on all the necessary parts. (In an abundance of caution I overcompensated, and now my equipment looks like a French mime who is terrible at juggling.) Anyway, welcome back! How was your weekend?

Who needs a three-day weekend? Who? I’m guessing ALL OF US. Well, you’re in luck! Because of America’s birthday, you get one.* And while you’re doing whatever you do to celebrate the greatest country in the history of the world, there will come a point when you want something to read. Here are a few suggestions. Print and save! Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America. We are so out of here.

• Julie Taymor Was Always The Wrong Superhero For ‘Spider-Man’

• My Two Days as a Russian Tabloid Sensation

• The Shocking True Tale Of The Mad Genius Who Invented Sea-Monkeys

• A Lost E.E. Cummings Poem Discovered

• James O’Keefe: “I’m Just Getting Started, OK?”

• Life After Zionist Summer Camp

• Male Muses And Inner Dicks

• The Monstrous Lies of “The World’s Largest Dinosaurs”

• Publishing School: Four Writers Tell All About Titles

• The End Of The Rodeo For The World’s Greatest Cowboy

Photo by Anthony Quintano

*Unless you don’t, in which case I’m sorry, that sucks.

by Olivia LaVecchia

As much as New York City has its own peculiar history, it’s well mixed-up with America’s, too: The Battle of Brooklyn was the largest of the Revolutionary War, and there was that one glorious year when the city was the nation’s capital. You can visit Lady Liberty, of course, but if you’d prefer something more off-the-beaten track, here are three patriotic, NYC-based relics you could pilgrimage to this weekend For America.

Hair And Dentures Of George Washington, Fraunces Tavern

Walking up to Fraunces Tavern causes a sort of temporal vertigo: You turn the corner of a sleek skyscraper; you push past the financial-district suits; and there’s a wood-and-brick building with stories that can be measured in the single digits, waving an American flag with only 13 stars. The building (or, at least, a building on this spot) was first built in 1719 as a private residence, but, the area having grown unfashionable, the wealthy family who owned it sold it to a tavern-keeper in 1762. The tavern’s claim to fame came on Dec. 4, 1783, when George Washington sat down in its Long Room and delivered a farewell address to his officers.

Today, after eating at the restaurant on the first floor, you can head upstairs to a two-level museum and visit that same Long Room. Better for our purposes, you can view a lock of Washington’s hair, a chip of his original wooden coffin and a sliver from his dentures.

This isn’t a full tooth, mind you. I was expecting a molar, maybe even a canine (perhaps because those are the only tooth names I know — incisor?), but was pleasantly un-disappointed by the actual fragment: a toothpick-like bit displayed behind a large magnifying glass, the apparatus of the glass somehow adding a nice note of gravity to the viewing experience. An identification plaque includes some handy dental-presidential lore, e.g. “Contrary to American legend, Washington’s dentures were composed of animal and human teeth, not wood. Dr. John Greenwood made five separate sets for Washington, who seems to have been in a constant search for more comfortable dentures.” (Did GW have an on-call dentist the way celebrities today have stylists? Big questions.) For this visitor, though, the lock of Washington’s hair was the more exciting specimen, both because of its luster (why would you cover up that chestnut with powder?) and because it’s been DNA tested and found to be 100-percent Founding Father.

The Remains Of Frances Xavier Cabrini, First American Saint
Fifteen years after the Patroness of Immigrants’s death, nuns transferring her remains into a chapel found them remarkably well preserved, and not in the wink-wink, nip-tuck sense. As the nuns reported, parts of Cabrini’s body had resisted decay, catapulting her into a class of “incorruptibles” — Catholics whose frames don’t deteriorate on schedule.

Mother Cabrini was nearly 40 when she first arrived in New York from Italy, but she didn’t let that stop her from founding 67 immigrants’ help organizations, criss-crossing back and forth across the Atlantic and picking up a U.S. citizenship along the way. Which meant that, when the Pope canonized her in 1944, she became the first American saint.

When Cabrini was beatified, those famous remains were placed in a glass-paneled coffin, and later moved to a specially designated shrine. To visit, catch the A to 190th, take an elevator to the top of Fort Tryon Park, stare at the Hudson for a second (it looks so blue high up), and walk a half-block to the St. Frances Cabrini Shrine, where she’s on view underneath a semi-transparent altar. Her display outfit is a full-coverage habit, but wax masks cover her face and hands, which makes the whole viewing experience a bit eerie and also causes the viewer (okay, maybe just me) to double-take at first, thinking that “well preserved” is Catholic-speak for “turned into a Saint action figure.”

Train Car Emblem From Lincoln’s Funeral Procession, McSorley’s Ale House
This stop is less credentialed than the other two, but its place of display helps its reputation: Behind the bar at McSorley’s Old Ale House. This East Village pub opened its doors in 1854, served “Near Beer” through Prohibition, only allowed women inside under court order, etc. Along the way, an artist presented his “McSorley’s Bar” painting at the 1913 Armory show; e.e. cummings wrote “I was sitting in mcsorley’s.” So yeah! Kind of an American institution! But since we’re talking about relics, back to this crest.

Just below the tap (read: in a place of prime importance) is a cabinet with Lincoln’s profile and a horseshoe on the right, and on the left, an emblem with the letters B&O; under the Capitol Dome — the symbol of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The emblem is reputed to have come from Lincoln’s funeral train. B&O; was tasked with transporting the president’s body from D.C. to Springfield, Ill., post-assassination, a 13-day, 1,700-mile tour that included processions and open-casket viewings in 11 U.S. cities (not until Chicago, penultimate stop, had the body significantly deteriorated). (Sorry, sorry for the second decomposing-corpse mention, but admit it, you were curious.)

I have no pope certificates or DNA-type tests to confirm this one, just the good authority of the McSorley’s bartender who was there on a recent Wednesday afternoon, handing out beers and kicking around the fresh sawdust. He’s been working at the place “on and off” since the early ’70s. His other decor favorites are an invitation to the opening ceremonies of the Brooklyn Bridge and a weathered, black-and-white shot of four Civil War soldiers re-uniting, 50 or so years later — so if you’re skeptical about the origins of the train car emblem, McSorley’s has other relics to which you can pay your respects.

Olivia LaVecchia is an Awl summer reporter.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

The Adolescent’s “Amoeba” I wake up typing letters
Alphabet, alphabet — though not to anyone in particular
To the circus To Fluoride Beelzebub or Beelzebubba
It’s impossible to say for sure It’s impossible to say anything
for sure, and this remains a fundamental dilemma
Intellectual, spiritual All men are mortal, including
all women and children and dogs I almost feel saddest
for the latter, but children run a close second snaring the rabbit
Today’s the resurrection Agnes is playing a recorder,
little song How to grow and grow along without turning
into a devil/red giant Or if one must, how also to be
a sequoia One thing’s certain: I won’t do it typing
The sun a sort of burning white hole in my pocket
Better to spend life spending one’s life, shouting
and rocketing, blasting the igloo Nature awaits us,
and Nature’s got fire I’ve been cool for too many
summers Temperature is rising Joe Strummer

* * *

To live we keep living Some minutes
The instructions You read and you weep
Or you act and then curtain I can’t stand
the suffering, so give ’em enough rope,
then occupy my life with anthemic meander,
interstate interchanges, images images…
There’s a feeling one gets doing logic
in the trenches A new tattoo of a soldier
on a horse Birds in his throat and a swarm
in his heart “John Clare” by Jon Anderson
The Keatses, John and Ezra Jack Sparkling
with atmosphere David Bowie’s “Sound and Vision”
When the snowball melts, the fight melts with it
We stomp through the puddles, getting wet
to our gill slits The sun beams down The earth
shoots up How weird to be a blade of grass,
a living breathing stripe of green I see a place of rest
in the not too distant present, but whether we can make it
will depend on whose embankment What
feathers What seating, an aisle or a window Cross-
word puzzle or Scrabble tray table I love
the word escarpment, but can’t much ever use it
The thing to do is dig a ditch Always accompany
the elderly dog One can hide out One can
fill up on joy One can stay the night
in the fire by the hearth What’s inside us
Lots of worms This is your reminder
of the life after this one

* * *

Help me, my construction site
No doubt somebody will hate it, the sentiment Some
drainage ditch, the sediment What can I say,
I’m a romantic and a runt I’ve always loved the noisome junk,
a warthog where I hide myself Lion alert in the happy,
morning grasses What to reveal and what to keep hidden
Once, on tour, some kid in Virginia hit me in the face
with the mic while I was singing I’d love to say
I kicked his ass, but he was drunk, so I kicked him in the head
It was sunny Now, somehow it’s fields of wheat
and lectures on things I can barely understand A house
in Cincinnati, a walk with my dog Little daughter full of grace
All the me I want to be, but better with plethora, both
impossible and endless Thank goodness, her mother
In hell or in heaven Two paths diverge, one out of tune
and the other surely dissonant Always take
what shakes you apart and out of yourself to find
yourself You can’t be out of control in control
All the wrong turns turning out the most definitive
I stop to read Milton, but it’s never any use
Water comes out of my face
it just happens

Matt Hart is the author of the poetry collections Who’s Who Vivid (Slope Editions, 2006), Wolf Face (H_NGM_N BKS 2010) and Light-Headed (BlazeVOX, 2011). A fourth collection, Sermons and Lectures Both Blank and Relentless, will be published by Typecast in 2012. He lives in Cincinnati, where he is a co-founder and editor of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety and the Poet-in-Resistance at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

State Slogans: Ranked And Saluted

by Victoria Johnson and John Wenz

51. Washington — “SayWa!”
The worst part of “Take Your Kid to Work” day is that this came out of it.

50. Maryland — “Maryland of Opportunity”
Maryland of Awful Puns.

49. Rhode Island — “Unwind”
Sounds suspiciously like a chance to nap. See also: Things this slogan will make you do.

48. Nevada — “The Battle Born State”
This slogan is only cool if it refers to Harry Reid’s career as a boxer.

47. Wisconsin — “Live like you mean it”
A bad inspirational mini-poster from a Wheaties box. It would be on a shelf next to the 1992 Olympic Basketball Dream Team cups from McDonalds, but even John Stockton and Scottie Pippen would eye it suspiciously.

46. Arizona — “The Grand Canyon State”
If Missouri is the Show Me State, Arizona is the Phoning It In State.

45. Iowa — “Life Changing”
A trip to Iowa can’t repair low self-esteem and crippling anxiety problems. Sorry, Iowa.

43. South Carolina — “Smiling Faces. Beautiful Places.” (tie)
South Carolina, are you really that comfortable with being mistaken for South Dakota?
43. South Dakota — “Great Faces. Great Places.” (tie)
South Dakota, are you really that comfortable with being mistaken for South Carolina?

42. Oklahoma — “Oklahoma is OK”
The nation’s ambivalent shrug.

41. Hawaii — “The Islands of Aloha”
No bye, no aloha.

40. New Jersey — “Come see for yourself”
Way to do nothing to dispel the notion that everyone in Jersey is lazy, Jersey.

39. Vermont — “Vermont, Naturally”
Serving dickishness right up on a platter. Does it come with a side of snootiness?

38. Virginia — “Virginia is for Lovers”
North Virginia, however, is for motherfuckers.

37. Massachusetts — “The Spirit of America”
This one feels lazy, sort of phoning it in, as if it was asleep through most of the Slogan Making Meeting and then popped up when called on and this was the first thing out of its mouth.

36. California — “Find Yourself Here”
“I went on this journey of self-discovery and all I got was this lousy sunburn” is a bumper sticker idea for them.

35. Georgia — “Georgia on My Mind”
“Midnight Train to Georgia” was robbed.

34. Kansas — “As Big As You Think”
“When Frat Boys Make Slogans: The Kansas Story”

33. Arkansas — “The Natural State”
Arkansas: Taking its slogans from Doctor Bronner’s bottles since 1836.

32. Maine — “There’s more to Maine”
This one opens more questions than it answers. More than what? More than there is to Nova Scotia? More to Maine than lobster?

31. Pennsylvania — “State of Independence “
Feels a bit like Ohio putting moon stuff on their quarter.

30. Louisiana — “Pick Your Passion”
Almost as lazy as Jersey’s slogan. Almost.

29. Tennessee — “America at its best “
It just feels like they have something to prove.

28. Texas — “It’s like a whole other country.”
And it’s tried to be, many times.

27. Florida — “Sunshine State”
Lazy and uninspired. They might as well just have their slogan be “ORANGES” in all caps.

26. Connecticut — “Full of Surprises”
It’s not bad. There are at least 25 slogans worse than this. But that still leaves 25 better. Cue your Jimmy Eat World CD, New Haven.

25. West Virginia — “Wild and Wonderful”
You say “wild,” we say “feral.”

24. Alabama — “Share the Wonder”
You’re a state, not a bag of Skittles.

23. Oregon — “We love dreamers”
And homeless crusties.

22. New York — “I Love New York.”
The perfect t-shirt slogan for tourists who spent their entire trip to New York waiting to get robbed at gunpoint.

21. Delaware — “It’s Good Being First”
It’s pretty cocksure. Like “yeah, I know what’s up.” Delaware’s slogan probably wears sunglasses and gets served at that bar where all the bartenders are total jerks.

20. Illinois — “Mile after Magnificent Mile”
Illinois is trying to upsell you.

19. Utah — “Life Elevated”
This slogan is Tom Petty. No one hates it, but it’s no one’s favorite.

18. Mississippi — “Feels Like Coming Home”
Aww, that’s so nice of you, Mississippi. As long as that home isn’t the house from Poltergeist we should be ok.

17. North Carolina — “A Better Place to Be”
It makes North Carolina sound so inviting, like it’ll have cookies ready when you get there.

16. Minnesota — “Explore Minnesota”
Simple, yet effective. It beckons you a little. Maybe offers you a pull of its flask before sending you on your journey.

15. New Hampshire — “You’re going to love it here.”
Live free or die is, sadly, only the motto. However, if you let the disembodied voice of Tim Gunn read this to you, you almost instantly want to go there.

14. Alaska — “Beyond Your Dreams, Within Your Reach”
Is that a Replacements reference?

13. Missouri — “Close to Home. Far from Ordinary.”
It seems like each state is going for absolute exceptionalism, like they’re trying to out-weird each other. But have you ever had a weird out contest with your friends? Somebody always ends up with a picture of themselves naked except for a well placed puppet and no chance of ever seeking public office.

12. Colorado — “Enter a Higher State”
Man, it’s no wonder Boulder is littered with hippies whose dads own real estate in Colorado Springs.

11. Kentucky — “Unbridled Spirit”
DID YOU KNOW THAT KENTUCKY HAS LOTS OF HORSE RACING? But whatever, Animal Kingdom paid out, like, $200 for a win ticket.

10. Nebraska — “The Good Life “
One of us is Nebraskan. We recuse ourselves.

9. New Mexico — “Land of Enchantment”
America’s number one destination for alien spacecraft crashes and spiritual journeys of college sophomores who just read Thoreau.

8. Ohio — “So Much to Discover”
Go on …

7. Wyoming — “Like No Place on Earth”
Wyoming telling it like it is. Also, the second best state to never deal with people ever.

6. Indiana — “Restart Your Engines”
There are just so many ways to take this, but we find that we don’t find any of them necessary.

5. North Dakota — “Legendary”
Forget that you forgot about North Dakota. This motto is just so brazen, so forward … you can’t help but feel that now you have to know about North Dakota.

4. District of Columbia — “Taxation Without Representation”
The biggest middle-finger slogan. Also, by including DC, we were allowed to put Washington at an even lower ranking

3. Michigan — “Say Yes to Michigan”
If you insist.

2. Idaho — “Great Potatoes. Tasty Destinations.”
You had us at “potatoes.”

1. Montana — “The Last Best Place”
The First Best Slogan.

Victoria Johnson and John Wenz love America.

This morning, after what seemed to be a long meeting and discussion, the membership of the Village Voice union unanimously approved a new contract that was hashed out last night. The outrageous demands by the union included continuing the staff healthcare. Our congratulations to everyone involved.

by David Roth and David Raposa

David Roth: Hello! I am watching the suddenly unstoppable Mets offense bludgeon the Tigers bullpen.

David Raposa: I saw! It looked like every button Leyland tried to push turned out to be either the dashboard lighter or the ejector seat.

David Roth: I don’t even know how to act when the Mets are playing like this. It’s not helping the unreality factor that everyone in the Tigers pen has a name out of a Pynchon novel. Charles Furbush and Al Albuquerque, debating quantum physics in a punny way or whatever.

David Roth: Also for some reason, every Tigers game I watch features really audible hecklers. Some guy just gave a loud, Gob Bluth style “COME ON” after a walk to Jason Bay.

David Raposa: I wonder how many times a game Dave Dombrowski thinks about that Dontrelle Willis contract and says, “I’ve made a huge mistake.”

David Roth: “You’re going to tell a guy in a $5000 suit how to walk a gaunt, extravagantly mis-compensated Canadian ex-slugger?”

David Roth: (Come on.) This game will be like two days old when this finally runs, but I still feel the need to get this down for posterity. So let it be known that Angel Pagan is 8-for-7 in this game with 13 RBIs. And the Tigers just brought in outfielder Don Kelly to pitch.

David Raposa: That’s unpossible! Both of those things! I hope Don’s dad/former Yankee great Pat is watching.

David Roth: Fifth outfielders with knuckleballs make me glad. You know Mitch Maier has a circle-change and Endy Chavez has a deceptive motion and can throw four pitches for strikes.

David Raposa: I’m waiting for the Powers That Be to make a rule change that outlaws hitters pitching. They can paint it on the backstop next to the NO PEPPER ALLOWED text. SHENANIGANS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.

David Roth: I’m kind of in a positive way with Selig at the moment, as dude is going to war with Entourage-grade L.A. nightmare Frank McCourt. But that could all change if you suddenly couldn’t bring 2B/OF types in to pitch when you’re down seven runs.

David Raposa: If the Jose Cansecos of the world don’t have the opportunity to ruin their careers throwing Pony League curveballs, then the terrorists have won.

David Roth: So, if we’d done one of these last week, I would’ve probably stuck up for interleague play. I’m pretty well over it, though.

David Raposa: Welcome back to the land of indoor plumbing. What made you rejoin the good guys?

David Roth: Too much of a not-that-great thing, I guess. I’ll pretty much watch any game, obviously. And I don’t mind seeing some AL teams. The DH’s are funny. They all look like guys whose frat brothers at Clemson nicknamed them Der Belchmeister or Barfus Maximus. Not like the lithe, Wes Helms-ian athletes you see in the NL. But this feels like it has been going on for a month.

David Raposa: That might be because it’s been about a month. It’s just a shame those gosh darn intraleague series have to get in the way of the good times.

David Roth: Also I mean, I know how this works, but Mariners/Nats is not a good look, even if I understand how it happened.

David Raposa: Never mind that, despite the claims that these games are the spice of baseball life, you know the Fox Game Of The Week will invariably be Mets/Yankees. Or Yankees/Mets. Or Mets/Mets.

David Roth: Every Mets game is Mets versus Mets. Always nice to hear Joe Buck sound glum about doing his job, though.

David Raposa: To be fair to Buck, I guess he has some sort of persistent throat ailment that makes him sound disinterested and hoarse.

David Roth: That’s interesting, because I have a neurological condition that gives me screeching headaches and what doctors have diagnosed as “bile sweats” whenever I hear Buck talk. We’re medical oddities!

David Raposa: So, speaking of things that suck, is it too late to get on the STATS ARE ALL RIGHT bandwagon that Grantland inadvertently kickstarted?

David Roth: Let’s ride. I have actually liked Jonah Lehrer’s writing in general. But man do I feel disdain for sports people who are that scared of numbers. And I’m a writer! Not just that, a ridiculously over-verbose adjective-humping writer whose math skills top out at calculating tips. But for fuck’s sake, enough with the idea that somehow non-counting-stats are preventing people from enjoying baseball.

David Raposa: Just the idea that stats are the problem is sad. All together now: information isn’t the problem; it’s what’s done with the information that causes problems.

David Roth: That NYT article about Simmo mentioned that Simmons doesn’t like baseball anymore because he hates nu-stats. Which is amazing!

David Raposa: Yeah, I understand how seeing OBP next to the Triple Crown stats can kick up the bile sweats.

David Roth: I also don’t like sports anymore, and it’s because the guys on Around the Horn talk too loud, and even though I don’t have to watch that show — and lord knows I couldn’t actually watch that shrieking Men’s Warehouse commercial unless I had Clockwork Orange eyelid-clamps on — just knowing that they’re doing it makes me so mad. I am a grown-up and I am standing on principle.

David Raposa: I know you’re joking but let’s let the record show that I’ve been perilously close to just giving up on the world of sports because of assclowns of the Plaschke/Simers persuasion. Randy Newman should rewrite “I Love LA” to pay tribute to those two shits. Or maybe pen “Short Bald Bitter-Ass Fucks That Are People.” Cars 3 is going to need a theme, after all.

David Raposa: Granted, I think fearing/hating new things is just a byproduct of getting older and losing touch with what’s going on. So I’ll probably be shitting bricks once the kids are jamming the new Britney Spears Jr. mind transmission on their iMplants.

David Roth: I get that, and I get the wariness towards heavy acronymics. But I’d like to think — and lord knows that you, for your Pitchfork work, have to actually live this shit — that even when kids today are Kids Today-ing it up, an actual adult can at least fall back on the fact that things change and so on. The idea that somehow people critiquing the RBI is making Charlie Gehringer cry dead-guy tears is just ridiculous to me.

David Raposa: True — there’s a way to be nostalgic and stick-in-the-muddy without being a complete charmless turd about it. I mean, I wouldn’t want to hear Vin Scully’s thoughts on WAR vs WARP, but he wouldn’t break out the stat KKK hood and talk up Productive Outs.

David Roth: I just feel like aimless sentimental revanchism is the bummer-est way to be a baseball fan. Just hating everything because they don’t make ’em like Fred Lynn anymore. Nice pastime. Way to have fun with it.

David Raposa: “Jack Morris should be in the Hall of Fame because he pitched to the score and also fuck your ERA+.”

David Roth: Ralph Kiner, I should mention, likes OPS. He is also my favorite imaginary uncle. (He moved all the way into first with the death of Peter Falk.)

David Raposa: God Bless Ralph — he lost his fastball about ten wars ago, but I’m happy he’s still around.

David Roth: It hasn’t stopped him from showing up a weekend or so a month to tell ribald stories about serving in the Pacific Theater and drinking heavily with Harvey Kuenn and Johnny Vander Meer. I’ll take that for as long as he’s giving it.

David Raposa: The best part about all this fear: most stat-haters are shitting on basic math. That’s what really kills me. It’s like long division is the gateway to socialism and civil liberties for cat/dog unions.

David Roth: Yeah, just because you can’t effectively quantify grittiness doesn’t mean it is somehow beautiful or ineluctably significant, or that it is not beautiful or ineluctably significant.

David Raposa: I’m waiting for some Elias-loving luddite to cook up Days Played Hurt to measure that stuff. “Cliff Pennington leads the league with 24 DPH, with a Pine Tar Index of .543”

David Roth: /Receives fifth-place MVP vote from Boston Herald writer.

David Raposa: Should we plug your amazing and wondrous Vice column debut by shitting on Frank McCourt for another 20 lines or so?

David Roth: Does the fact that he nearly bought the Sox make you terrified retroactively?

David Raposa: Why, no, I wouldn’t have had any problem with him trading Jon Lester and Jacoby Ellsbury for Omar Vizquel. To McCourt’s credit, it does take a lot of hard work to make Jeffrey Loria look like a bunny-loving philanthropist. Any other right-wing fuckwits you can compare him to?

David Roth: He’s like Sean Hannity with a really nice pool? Laura Ingraham with more convincing hair? Ann Coulter with a smaller Adam’s apple?

David Raposa: Alan Colmes wants to be him when he grows up.

David Roth: Colmes doesn’t agree with his methods, but respects his results.

David Raposa: And on the subject of respecting results, we didn’t even touch on the Riggleman Maneuver! Like a reverse Heimlich!

David Roth: Riggs! I almost declared an emergency Yakkin’ after he quit.

David Raposa: I was waiting by my commemorative Sports Illustrated phone for your call!

David Roth: “The football phone! A mediocre manager must’ve quit under ridiculous circumstances!” Of all the guys to do it, too. Some dude with a .445 winning percentage in 12 years on the job being like “I want to get paid for what I’ve accomplished.”

David Raposa: What does he think he is, an investment banker?

David Roth: Yeah, really. Fuck up enough that the IMF has to get involved if you really want to get that long money. Anyone in DC could’ve told him that.

David Raposa: So how is it that Jack McKeon at 80 looks younger than Sparky Anderson did in his 50s?

David Roth: Cigars: anti-aging method of the stars. It is kind of amazing that a guy who pencils Emilio Bonifacio into a lineup a few times a week looks so healthy. Centrum needs to sign a deal with that dude.

David Raposa: “When I want to tell Joe West when and where to eat his own dick, I can’t just take any multivitamin.” He truly is the Helen Mirren of baseball. With Bobby Valentine being the Nicole Kidman.

David Roth: Taut, peculiarly anxiety-inducing, still a critical favorite in some quarters. I like that comparison.

David Roth: While we’re doing this: Larry Bowa = Oliver Reed?

David Raposa: Yes!

David Roth: Although Oliver Reed is dead.

David Raposa: And Larry Bowa is pickled. Six of one, two fingers of the other.

David Roth: The logical comparison is to someone hard-living and irascible and cult-figure-ish. Who was also in Ken Russell movies.

David Raposa: The idea of Vanessa Redgrave getting herself off with L-Bow’s charred femur is actually not arousing at all, though.

David Roth: NO IT IS NOT.

David Roth co-writes the Wall Street Journal’s Daily Fix, contributes to the sports blog Can’t Stop the Bleeding and has his own little website. And he tweets!

David Raposa writes about music for Pitchfork and other places. He used to write about baseball for the blog formerly known as Yard Work. He occasionally blogs for himself, and he also tweets way too much.

Photo by Keith Allison.