Uncle Sal and the Unpredictable Uniform (Episode 77)

Uncle Sal removed the tortoiseshell glasses from the front of his Buffalo Braves Bob McAdoo jersey and looked at Alice's photos of her visit to Kazakhstan. "What's with all the heads cut off in these photos?"

"Oh, that's my girlfriend Ursula. She always manages to do that. Funny thing is, it's hard to keep the camera out of her hands. We try to keep her from taking photos, but she'll grab it out of someone's hand and tell us to pose so she can take the shot. You can see the results."

"Reminds me of a guy I knew in the police department, Alvis Streep. He was the son of the captain. I think that's the only reason he got the job."

Uncle Sal reached for a chocolate in the dish on the table, removed the foil and popped it into his mouth.

"Well, even the cap'n knew better than to put Alvis on the street. Guy mighta passed all his tests to make the force, or maybe he didn't, but cap'n put him in a position where he could do the least amount of harm. So he put Alvis in charge of fingerprints and mugshots. The fingerprints he did pretty well with. The mugshots were another story. He'd always find a way to get at least one mugshot where the suspect was out of the frame. It was amazing. Alvis'd cough or sneeze, or sump'n just as he was about to take the shot. Those suspects, as if they didn't have enough to worry about, they usually had to get six mugshots taken before Alvis got it completely right. It got to be a prime source of entertainment at the station. We got to where we'd watch and see how he'd goof it up. Or sometimes, we helped it along by calling his name right as he was about to take the photo. Boy, we sure had a lotta laughs watchin' Streep blunder the mug.

This epsiode featured
Frank Furter as Uncle Sal
Pearl Barley as Alice
and
Jellybean Merengue as the foil.

Tune in next week when Uncle Sal says, "Only one man would dare give me the raspberry."

Uncle Sal and the Careening Compact (Episode 76)

Uncle Sal and Alice entered Giacomo's place where they would have some cocktails before going to the lucha libre matches. "Uncle Sal, Alice, good to see you." He looked at Uncle Sal's Pittsburgh Pirates jersey and said, "Number twenty-seven? Don't tell me. Kent Tekulve, right?"

"You betcha. Not too many side-armers like him anymore."

Uncle Sal looked at the table and saw a travel brochure. "You plannin' a trip to Scotland?"

"Yeah, I've been thinking about it. It's just one of those places I feel like I need to see before I die."

"It's a great place. One time, I was driving over there. Rented myself a Volkswagen Golf. They like cars a lot smaller there than we do in the States. don't use as much fuel and they're easy to park. Well, I was driving this Golf along a winding road with a moor on either side, when this red deer jumps right in front of the car. Now, I'm gonna tell ya sump'n. A deer jumps in front of your car, you just hit the gas. They ain't gonna tell ya that in any travel brochure, I can tell ya that. Do less damage to yer car that way."

Alice cringed. "Don't tell me you hit the gas and killed that poor deer."

"No, I didn't. But I shoulda. I swerved to avoid the deer, but the ground was wet and there ain't no shoulder on the road. Well, that car skidded off the road and I couldn't get no traction to get back on the road. Car went around one and a half times and mighta just kept on goin'. I fought the wheel and tried to steer the car straight. Of course, when you're skidding that ain't gonna work."

"So what did you do?" Giacomo asked as he shook some martinis.

"I pulled the emergency brake, that's what I did. Stopped just in time too. It was all I could do to keep the Golf from the moor."

This episode featured:
Curt D. Meaner as Uncle Sal
Lola Flannela as Alice
Dickie Splotkins as Giacomo
and
Jellybean Merengue as the Scotland brochure.

Tune in next week when Uncle Sal says, "Taffeta, sweetheart."

Uncle Sal and the Wasted Washtub (Episode 75)

Uncle Sal browsed the tables of the BPOE (Brotherhood of Purple Onion Eaters) rummage sale. He came to the table manned by his pinochle partner Joe and saw a battered guitar right next to an Al Gore action figure.

"This was actually good enough to make the rummage sale?" Sal asked as he picked up the guitar.

"Sure, it's a little worn, but so is Willie Nelson's guitar and he still plays it. You restring this thing and it's good as new."

Uncle Sal brushed some dust from his Vancouver Grizzlies Bryant Reeves jersey and said, "I dunno. Plus, ten bucks seems like a lot for sump'n as beat up as this. This reminds me of a guy I knew, Cade Flappensraum. Played the gutbucket bass in this old-timey rockabilly band. The way he took care of that thing, you'd have thought it was made of platinum or sump'n. Anyway, one night he pulls his car, was a forty-seven Studebaker pickup truck, into the garage after a night of drinkin'. Well, he came in a little hotter than he wanted and he hit the brake a little too late. Next thing you know, he hears this loud crunch sound. He gets out of the truck and sees he's crushed that ol' gutbucket between the grill of the truck and the wall of the garage. This here guitar is nearly as jacked as that bass of Cade's."

This episode featured:
Seymour Beard as Joe
Homer Sapien as Uncle Sal
and
Jellybean Merengue as the Al Gore action figure.

Tune in next week when Uncle Sal says, "Your cousin's on Cops."

Longhorns 24, Buckeyes 21

Has anyone else sworn that they won't bother watching the Buckeyes next season? It's like when your friend says he's giving up smoking. You want to believe he'll do it, but you know deep down he won't. Really, it's more akin to the film Trainspotting, when Mark Renton announces that he's "off the skag" and you know for a fact that it's more likely you'll find a three-legged bellydancing gopher than to see that come to fruition. You all know that I have a harder time churning this stuff out when the Buckeyes lose, so I'll probably keep this brief.

The Good
Beanie in the first half was incredible. (Funny, we seem to say that after every bowl game). The defense was nails, allowing only 3 points in the first half. Boeckman had some good throws. TP definitely had some good runs. Robiskie had as good a game as he has all season. Anderson Russell had a big interception. Nathan Williams had some very good defensive plays. The kicking game was solid, with two field goals of 50 yards or more. The defense got some good pressure on Colt McCoy.

The Bad
UT's first drive of the second half seemed to take a lot out of the Buckeyes. The Bucks responded to that by having two three and outs in the third quarter, and trailing the Longhorns by 11. TP, as good as he is now and may be in the future showed he is still a freshman with two plays in particular. The first was when he had clear sailing down the sideline and went out of bounds three yards before the marker. Instead of a first down, the Buckeyes had a 3rd and 3 which naturally, they did not convert. The other play was right before the Buckeyes first field goal. TP should have launched the ball into the the stands instead of taking the sack and making for a longer field goal attempt.

The Ugly
Thaddeus Gibson had three penalties called against him, two of which were for 15 yards. Penalties in general destroyed the Buckeyes. Some of them were even legitimate, although the refs really seemed to take over the early part of the third quarter. The Buckeyes "offense" in the third quarter was pathetic at best. The offensive line on some plays barely gave TP half a second to survey the field. On some of those plays, I couldn't tell if they were designed to be QB runs or if TP was merely running for his life because of the ineffectiveness of the offensive line.

Under the Radar Player of the Game
I can't really say anyone earned this. I had some good candidates...if the Buckeyes had won.

Here's the bottom line. The Buckeyes have played 13 games and I don't think anyone can say for sure what this team is. If the Buckeyes were to play another game next week, I wouldn't know if I should expect the team that smoked UM, MSU and Northwestern, the team that fought (for most of the game) against Texas, or the team that cowered in fear against USC. One question that keeps popping into my mind is "Would AJ Hawk and his defensive teammates have allowed Texas to score with 16 seconds to play?" Just think about that. The Bucks were about 20 seconds away from a big bowl win and just let it slip away. Which is why of course, I'm not going to bother to watch the Buckeyes next season. Yeah right, the Buckeyes are our drug. We think we can walk away, maybe we even want to, but they always seem to draw us back.

Uncle Sal and the Conniving Collector (Episode 74)

Giacomo climbed into Uncle Sal's Dodge Dart and said, "Is that a Hartford Whalers jersey?"

"You bet it is. Number eleven, Kevin Dineen, the last captain of the Whalers."

"Sweet. I'm telling you, I'm looking forward to this flea market. I hear there's one booth where you can get old dartboards and foosball tables."

As Uncle Sal moved the 8-ball gearshift and pulled away from the curb, Giacomo said, "This magazine has some quizzes in it. They ought to keep us entertained on our way."

Giacomo leafed through a couple pages and cursed the subscription card that fell out of the magazine. As he turned toward one of the quizzes, he said, "Would you look at that?"

"I can't. I'm driving."

"There's picture of a Wilfredo Young baseball card in here. You know who that is, right?"

"Course I do. He's the guy spent twenny years in the minor leagues, then finally made it to the majors and pitched a perfect game. Then he hurt his arm celebrating after the game and never played again."

"But that's not all. Rumor has it, he was out of his mind on opium when he pitched that game. So, now there is kind of this novelty collector's market for Young's cards. I used to have one, actually. But I had this friend Matt Spatulasky, he was a couple years older than me. He saw that I had this Wilfredo Young card and he seemed really interested in it, even though he told me it would never be worth anything because the guy would never play again."

"And you believed him?"

"I didn't know what a perfect game was. I sure didn't know what opium was. So Matt convinced me to sell it to him for the card of some utility infielder and a dollar twenty-five in quarters. Me, I was happy to have the quarters because then I could buy five more packs of cards. Now these Wilfredo Young cards'll go for five hundred bucks or more."

"And now you're out at least five hunnerd bucks cuz Matt bought your Young."

This episode featured:
Charlie Ferngravel as Giacomo
Albert "Switch" Blades as Uncle Sal
and
Jellybean Merengue as the subscription card.

Tune in next week when Uncle Sal says, "Not that motherscratcher!"

USC is the best...blah blah blah

Thanks a lot, Penn State. Thanks for once again subjecting us to the question "Is USC the best team in the country?" Check any sports site, and I bet you'll find an article with this theme? Don't believe me? Ask Josh Peter of Yahoo! Sports or anyone that covers college football for ESPN. Now, I realize that they do this partially because they have so much time and space to fill. However, I have real beef with it for purely logical reasons.

I do know that it's a very good team, but I don't know for sure if USC is the best team in the country. Here's the deal though. Every year, the college football "experts" tell us that the Big 10 is a subpar conference with no great teams. They put the Big 10 maybe slightly ahead of the Big (L)East, or even the ACC. Then, come January, the same experts rave that USC is the best team in the country after the Trojans beat the Big 10 champion.

It's utterly fallacious to say on the one hand that the Big 10 is a poor conference and on the other hand that a win over the Big 10 champion conclusively proves that USC is the best team in the country. Either way, the message these "experts" really send is that we should put no credence in their opinions. (Props to Dennis Dodd of CBS Sportsline for not falling into line with the rest of the slavering Pete Carroll sycophants). Frankly, that's probably the best advice any of us can take on the whole matter.