We were going to give you a rundown of the best and worst of the best and worst lists of 2013 but then thought better of it. Who still remembers 2013? Or in any case dares or cares to remember? Certainly not our grand winner for 2013, the certified native Hawaiian who continues to list 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as his permanent address, even though he does little golfing there, not even any putting around, so far as NSA surveillance has determined or Edward Snowden has divulged.
Even worse, he’s living proof that the more the years change, the more he stays the same. Consider the photographs we’ve seen of him from his Hawaiian Holiday vacation. Notice anything peculiar? Yes, they all show him doing the one thing he does, golfing. And on top of that he continues to wear those same funny shorts, the ones that make him look like a bona fide member of the LPGA. Could his obsessive exercise of executive power derive from a commensurate lack of leg power?
You’ll notice too that we never hear anything about numbers he may have accumulated on the golf course. Back in the day Bill Clinton was always breaking 80 by the time he turned 50. President Obama must be the only golfer in the world to invoke executive privilege when it comes to recording and reporting his scores. And if he signs his scorecard, he for all intents vetoes the round he just played, necessitating another 18 hole outing the next day. Just doing his constitutional duty, he’ll say.
Or maybe it’s simple politics — he makes sure to keep his rounds as high in count as the numbers of those signing up for so-called Obamacare. At any rate, in the Obama household two can play the numbers game. In case you missed getting clubbed with it, post-Christmas news coverage informed one and all that Mrs. Obama will turn 50 this month. Once the official mourning phase is over, prepare for a festival of festivals, a pageant of pageants, a reenactment of Cleopatra cruising up and down the Nile. Everyone is invited, except the prime minister of Denmark, for reasons currently being adjudicated at the World Divorce Court at The Hague.
The sporting life continues to affect America in many ways. The National Football League has gone through many breakups of its own. Since last we huddled at least five NFL coaches were sent packing, even though in most of these cases there was no one lined up to replace them. As always, the saga surrounding the Washington, D.C. team (name withheld) was most instructive. This past season, the Redskins (name cleared for onetime use) finished 3-13 under Mike Shanahan. According to reports yesterday, a possible successor is Jim Caldwell. Makes sense, Beltway wise. In his last season as a head coach, Caldwell’s Indianapolis team went 2-14. Applications are now being taken from any 1-15 coach hoping to succeed him. A perfect season is within reach. Don’t call it failing upward when failing downward will do just fine.
You’ll notice too, once a coach is axed score-settling really gets going. Chris Kluwe, a punter cut loose by the Minnesota Vikings early this past season, has now horse-collared that team’s newly fired coach as a coward for not defending his views on same-sex marriage. Apparently the coach in question wouldn’t allow players to hold hands in the huddle.
But the deadliest blow was struck by Jay Cutler, less than a week after he again proved he’ll never be mistaken for Aaron Rodgers, as the Chicago Bears lost yet again to the Green Bay Packers in the Big Game. Cutler has signed on for another 7 years with the Bears, a contract that guarantees him $50 million, which is more than even a community organizer earns in the Second City. What we don’t know is how many interceptions Cutler has guaranteed to throw over his contract’s lifetime. One reason he said he’s staying on is that his wife, Kristin Cavallari, desires to remain in Chicago. Now everyone is wondering if she’s related to the Cavalleri character in Love Story famously played by Ms. Ali McGraw.
Luckily, life doesn’t have to mimic a movie. A rock concert will do. Has anyone anywhere seen what’s come down in the First City? As we know, the Clintons were our first Rock Star presidential couple, and so naturally they highlighted the rock inauguration of Moscow on the Hudson’s first Marxist mayor since Joey Stalin. “Gone was the more solemn air of inaugurations past, replaced by the booming strains of disco, soul, and dance music by the Commodores, Marvin Gaye and Daft Punk, spun by a local D.J. stationed high above the audience,” the New York Times intoned on its front page, adding devilishly: “Even Hillary Rodham Clinton, seated onstage, swayed with the music.”
But will that sway voters?
For now, let’s just get into the swing of things. One of the event’s featured hits was Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind.” We’d cite its lyrics but they’re even raunchier than anything Obamacare wants to insure, and that’s not including NBA-style variations on the N-word. New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney was nonetheless swayed too. “This music” (she “exclaimed happily,” according to the Times) — “You’d never hear this with Giuliani or Bloomberg.”
Nor would you hear real poetry under those two big gulpers. Not the kind recited by Ramya Ramana, New York’s Youth Poet Laureate, presumably a lifetime sinecure. Our fave lines: “…We brown, we black, we yellow, we white, we young;/ We collage of creatures stomping to be reminded of the mammal in us.” Which reminds us: here’s hoping our newly inaugurated EOW Bill de Blasio spends the first monies he steals from the rich to buy that needy young poet some verbs.
