Friday, May 02, 2008

WBZ, Devils, Wizards, Crips, Whatever


MY WIFE is usually a reliable source, so I'm going to run with this. She told me that this morning, on the WBZ (Channel 4, Boston) news, they were decrying the fact that Barbara Walters told all in her new autobiography.

(The back story: Barbara Walters alleges to have had an affair with former Senator Edward Brooke [R - MA] in the 1970's. Thus far, Mr. Brooke [now 88] has declined comment.)

Anyway, the anchors at 'BZ had some issues with this revelation. They wondered aloud if anyone had any decorum these days, and whether Ms. Walters might have had just as good a book if she had stuck to speaking only about her news career. One of those doing the complaining said something to the effect of, "Well, I guess that's what sells these days."

Where do I even begin? With the obvious, I suppose...

If WBZ News reported only the news, their show would be about five minutes long. Every show is filled with scandal, supposition, scare mongering, and silly (yet still tremendously unfunny) banter. Even though this should be obvious, I'm going to say it, anyway: If they only reported "The News", then they wouldn't have been talking about Baba Wawa's book, or her extra-marital affairs, to begin with.

It's a good thing half of Bob & Ray is dead. They wouldn't be able to make a living these days. It seems to me there's little left that can be satirized beyond its own idiocy. I don't know. Maybe somebody dropped acid in my Cream Of Wheat and I'm just now realizing it. The world seems way too bizarre to be reality-based. For instance...

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays no longer exist. Oh, there's still a baseball team in Tampa, and they're owned by the same folks as they were last year. They play in the same hideous stadium. They even wear pretty much the same uniforms as they did a year ago. But they aren't the Tampa Bay DEVIL Rays. This year, they're just the RAYS.

Tampa owner Stuart Sternberg says the name change to just RAYS is because he wants the team to be identified with the Florida sunshine, "... a beacon that radiates throughout Tampa Bay and across the entire state of Florida."

Well, stick a toy surprise up my ass and call me Crackerjack! It didn't have anything to do with religious groups pressuring the ownership to drop a reference to Satan, did it? No, of course not.

(By the way, I'm all for dissing Satan. He's been an asshole for eons now. But when your team is actually truly named after a fish indigenous to your region, I see little reason to kowtow to paranoids. I suppose we should be happy that they didn't change their name to the Tampa Bay Born Again Rays.)

(Or, maybe I can just kid myself into thinking they changed their name to honor Ray Goulding, the deceased member of Bob & Ray. Yeah, that's what I'm going to go with. And let me have some more of that acid-laced Cream Of Wheat, please.)

Changing the name of a franchise is always a slippery slope. The Washington Bullets changed their name to The Washington Wizards, supposedly because they wished to de-glorify gun violence in DC. The natural assumption is that they concurrently wished to glorify the practice of sorcery, but perhaps they were just going for the alternate definition of great ability or adroitness in a pursuit of a goal. If so, it doesn't explain their logo:Somehow (although I'm too lazy to tell you how, exactly) this all ties in with Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics being fined for making a gang-related hand gesture.

NBA Commisioner David Stern has fined Pierce $25,000 for supposedly making a threatening gesture towards the Atlanta Hawks bench. Pierce comes from L.A., and he's black, so of course every time he does anything with his hands, it has some sort of hidden evil intent.


The fact that he runs a charitable organization with one of the stated purposes being that of keeping kids from joining gangs? Means nothing. He's black, he's from L.A., he was making a threatening gang-related hand gesture. He was telling The Crips to bust a cap in Zaza Pachulia's ass. No doubt about it.

I'd try to tie all of these idiotic threads together, but I don't have nearly enough intelligence. Maybe if I have a few more spoons of that Cream Of Wheat...

In other news, Crystal McKee is still a gargantuan writing talent. However, she still hasn't been signed up by some savvy literary agent. I've taken the liberty of ordering three books from the library on the subject, and I will be devouring them. If nobody else grabs her, I'll do so and try not to screw up her chances royally.

Let's see... Have we accomplished anything here today? No, not really. You've been saved from me running another re-print, but that's obviously just a temporary reprieve, as I ran out of original ideas ages ago.

See you soon.

(I'd say, "... with more better stuff", but I've already asked you to swallow an awful lot, and I wouldn't want you to choke.)

17 comments:

Rooster said...

Sul, my friend from "The Writer's Group" loves the work, has some great suggestions, and is trying to contact Crystal via email today. Hopefully, that will help.

Loved the post today, but I tweaked my hamstring trying to follow your twisting train of thought. I probably don't need to go on the DL - let's call it day-to-day. ;-)

Rooster said...

Oops, I meant to link there in case anyone else would find the group helpful...

The Writer's Group

Suldog said...

Rooster - Thanks very much for the help!

lime said...

suldog, i think it's the others who have been slurping up the acid ;ace cream of wheat. you sound reasonable to me....then again, maybe i ate from your bowl too....

Shrinky said...

Pass the creamed wheat, will 'ya? x

Buck said...

Let's see... Have we accomplished anything here today?

Ya, you did. You made ME laugh... but then again, that may be small beer in the Grand Scheme Of Things.

I'm with the rest of the crowd... got any of that Cream O' Wheat left?

Suldog said...

Lime, Shrinky, Buck - If you can make it over to my place, you can have all the Cream Of Wheat you want. I am currently at 22 Methane Windstorm Way, Red Spot, Jupiter. I'm in the big purple and orange house just past the Krispee Kreme. You can't miss it.

Melissa said...

That's interesting about the name change for the Tampa team. Where I grew up our school was known as the Blue Devils. I even had a devil on one side of my class ring, I didn't turn out to be a satanic follower or love Satan. The town we live in now is called the Red Devils. I guess it doesn't bother too many religious groups around here!

Stu said...

I lived in the DC area when they changed the name of The Bullets. At the time, I thought the idea of a name change was good, 'cause bullets can't really be spun - bullets are instruments of death. And DC had a really high murder rate back then.

But when a primarily African-American team started wearing the name Wizards, all I could think of was what they call the head of the KKK, the Grand Wizard - I mean, HELLO!

So I feel ya on the Devil Rays thing. I'm for changing things that represent atrocities in the real world - The Bullets, the mascot for The Cleveland Indians, The Washington Redskins, etc. But the team was named after a fish. Why didn't the right wing fundamentalists go after the scientists who named the fish?

Brian in Oxford said...

the first time I saw those new non-D-Rays uniforms, I thought...

Ray's Pizza.....

like softball uniforms.

Free pitchers and hot wings after every win!

John-Michael said...

DAMN!!! I LOVE You, You stink-stirring wizard or the words, You! I came over to ask what conflicts you see in the two terms "Tampa Bay Rays" ... and "First Place," since that seems t be what my wacky home team (who is now enjoying the "blessing" of the "Baseball Almighty" by being "born again" minus their prior affiliation. (stupid jerks!) I thought that the original name was lame from the beginning. But only because of its cumbersome bulkiness. Oh Well!

Looks like Fenway will have a somewhat interesting game this evening (God how I hate saying "evening" in relationship to Baseball ... the "Daytime" sport.) I detest "progress!" (Yes!! I am old! What of it?!?)

I hope that you will enjoy the game. (I am one of the rare remaining of the dying breed known as the "Rabbit Ears" generation of TV watchers. So I am stuck with whatever Fox (another name that I ... well, never mind.) broadcasts on 'the game' to begin soon.

Give 'em hell (oops ... stirring the "believers" again.) Give 'em Alternative Eternal Consequences, My Friend!

BurningSky said...

My high school team's name was the Blue Devils as well. I lived in a conservative town, so I'm surprised that got through...

You should check out this article if you want to hear some team names that really need a change. The Devil Rays was pretty shit in the first place, in my opinion, I was never a fan of names that were more than one word long...

Speedcat Hollydale said...

SULDOG!! I used to load up the USA Today page for news ... now I know to just stop here and get the low-down first.
If you want, I could be the official "Cream of Wheat" tester. Just thought I would offer.

Babba Wawa? Wewwy wewwy cwazy.

CapCity said...

LMAO @ "The world seems way too bizarre to be reality-based." AND "Well, stick a toy surprise up my ass and call me Crackerjack!"
Maybe they'll change the name of the Devil Ray fish soon, too!

As a Washingtonian - we figured the new name for the Bullets had something to do with Grand Wizards - but what do we know! I still wish they'd change some of these racist team names such as: RedSkins, Braves, etc. I'm not the only one who feels that way according to this article & this organization.

Good stuff as always, SulDog!

John-Michael said...

Red Sox 12/ Rays 4 ... Now THAT's "Reality Based!"

Cath said...

Er... share please. don't keep the creamed wheat to yourself.

I think the world has gone mad.

Oh! And I'm choking from swallowing this stuff...!
Great post again!

Janet said...

Keep the Cream of Wheat and send a few (dozen) Krispy Kreme's my way. My Southern college changed from Rebels to Bruins. But even my rabid fundamentalist Christian Prison camp, er, high school didn't object to team names. Of course, back then, no one cared. It was the 70s and all we worried about was walking around in those shoes and that hair.