March Madness

It’s Monday, I’m sick and I’m staying home from work. Having nothing better to do to pass the time - other than blowing my nose and guessing which shade of green will appear next on my handkerchief - I’m writing.

(Oh, that’s just lovely, Jim. Make the reader puke during your first paragraph. Is that what you were taught in journalism school? I mean, if you had gone? No, of course not! Too late now, though, so you may as well just move on and try to make the best of it.)

Let’s talk basketball.

(Wow. Good segue.)

It’s March Madness. Hmmm. Should “March Madness” be capitalized? I know “March” should, but what about “Madness?”

(Oh, who gives a damn, you idiot!)

Shouldn’t that be a question mark after “idiot” instead of an exclamation point?

(Nobody cares, Jim! You’re getting bogged down in minutiae. Get yourself out of this, quick, before you lose the readers who didn’t already puke following the first paragraph.)

Hah! That’s the second time “puke” has been mentioned, and this is the third! And snot! Well, actually, we didn’t say “snot” before, but now we have, twice!

(Get back on the subject NOW, you dimwit, before you turn your blog into a virtual ghost town!)

So, basketball. Yeah. Did you play any pools? How are your brackets doing?

[Mine are doing just fine, as you can see.]

(Typography jokes, Jim? Is that the best you could come up with? Give these people some meat to chew on or they’re going to be out of here faster than the sneak preview audience for Ishtar.)

Ishtar? OK, maybe, like, three people remember that movie. If you’re going to make topical references, at least make them somewhat current. Here, let me try one.

Who’s slimy and green and heals sick people?

(Oh, no…)

Give up? Mucus Welby!

(You moron! Even fewer people will get that reference! AND you mentioned bodily fluids again! You may as well have asked them who was greenish yellow and won the gold medal for figure skating in 1968.)

Who was greenish yellow and won the gold medal for figure skating in 1968?

(Cripes, he did it.)

Peggy Phlegm!

(Marvelous. The only reader you have left now is a six-year-old who is breathlessly waiting for you to trot out the poop jokes.)

What’s brown and smelly, comes from Massachusetts, and is running for president?

Shit Romney!

(What?!? That’s not even slightly clever. And now the six-year-old is gone, because he doesn’t know who Mitt Romney is, anyway. This is sad, Jim, just sad. Can you possibly sink any lower?)

Who won the Stanley Cup in 1970 and makes you pay for sex?

(Whuthfuh?)

Bobby Whore!

(Oh... My... God. You write a Boston blog and you make a crummy joke about Bobby Orr? You just committed regional sacrilege, you dope. You can’t joke about Bobby Orr; not even a little tiny bit. There’s no recovering now. You’re dead. Dead!)

Well, enough of that. Back to basketball, OK? My bracket will be in good shape if UNLV beats Oregon and a meteor hits the Ohio State team bus.

(Fair. It would have made a nice throwaway line near the beginning, but it’s far too late for it to do any good now.)

I never do well at these things. I pick way too many underdogs. I can’t help it. It’s in my blood. My grandfather picked Liechtenstein in World War Two.

(Now THAT’S a decent joke! Still too late to do you any good, but not bad. It’s somewhat in the style of that famous director… what’s his name again? He stands about six inches tall, writes excellent screenplays and loves it if you shake him until he pukes.)

Huh?

(WOODY Allen! How do you like it, wise guy?)

Oh, man, I’m sicker than I thought. I’ve totally lost track. Am I the one in the parentheses or is that my conscience?

(Never mind. It doesn’t matter at this point. Just say good-bye. They’ll all go away and then you can start fresh again tomorrow.)

Yeah, you’re right. OK.

Soon, with more better stuff.

(Hey, now that they’re gone, I’ll be honest with you. The Bobby Orr joke wasn’t as horrible as I made it out to be. That Mitt Romney thing, though. Yuck! You couldn’t have come up with something better than that? I mean, really, you could have made it the past tense and said something like “Mike Do Cucka!” With a little bit of effort, you even could have said “John Kerry” without changing his name in the least and made it an Irish joke, to boot! THAT would have pleased the imbecilic cretins who read you.)

We’re still on.

(Crap.)