No shortage of fools, firearms and fish

Plaxico Burress (second from right) indicates where he's going next. Anthony Causi/Icon SMI

"I don't want to sanction stupidity as our national sport, but I have to admire this little man's dogged nerve and rubber determination."
-- The Firesign Theatre's reporter Pat Hat in Everything You Know Is Wrong

Yes, sir. These are the times that make you think twice about forcing your little children to do without their biter biscuits so you can devote your last moist dime (for the foreseeable future) to watching millionaire dunderheads like Plaxico Burress and Pacman Jones and Stephon Marbury and ... and ... and ... in action. With the world's economy resting comfortably in a handbasket bound for the nether reaches of Hades, it's only natural to bask in a little heartfelt resentment of folks who are blessed with otherworldy gifts and set for life ten times over but who lack the sense to do even the most basic sensible things to protect and preserve what they've got or just give you a teensy-weensy sense that they appreciate it.

Best line to come out of the Big Bang Burress incident: His laywer saying, "He's not going to run from this."

Well, of course he's not going to run from it. He just shot himself in the leg.

Einstein must have been watching sports when he said, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Yes, there's a reason so many athletes keep getting nailed for doping. Dope is in their blood. But that's what makes a Plax Plax, right?

Infuriating nitwits who give all athletes a bad name are like teenagers this space knows quite well. They wanna do what they wanna do when they wanna do it and they don't give a good gourd damn if the mansion burns down around their bling-laden ears if they do it. Call it idiocy, but idiocy has many fathers -- being insulated from the real world and its rules from the moment a coach gets all hot and bothered by those mad skills; a big ego; bigger arrogance; a wallet plump enough to comfortably absorb fines and legal fees that reduce mere mortals to quivering beggary; and being given a bazillion last chances to queer a team's chemistry and curdle its chances of winning.

The basic definition of insanity: doing the same thing again and again while expecting a different result. In this case, the insanity belongs to anyone who pays these repeat muttonheads millions, or pays through the front facial vents to watch them, while expecting even a shred of semi-reasonable behavior, say, like a married man staying home with his wife and kid instead of roaming a gin mill after midnight while awash in jewelry and trailing long green with a frosty chardonnay in his hand and a loaded piece in his drawers.

But then again, Plax was only dancing to the modern athlete's theme song, number one with a bullet.

A Can't-Miss Idea

France's prez gets the point. Malingering athletes likely will, too, before long.

It's worth noting the recent flap in France that involved the marketing of voodoo dolls in the likeness of President Nicolas Sarkozy. I'm not a bettin' man, but I'd be willing to lay serious scratch that it's only a matter of time before needle-cushion likenesses of certain sports stars will be widely available here in the good ol U.S. of A. Lord knows, there's plenty of 'em to choose from these days. If the Giants juggernaut is ultimately brought down on the field because of all the recent firearms fooferaw, I can think of at least one gangly wideout who will be a big seller in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area. And even among athletes themselves, these babies could be wildly popular. In the NHL ranks, a certain Mr. Avery would likely fly off the shelves not only in Dallas, but in towns and cites across North America. Why, these little babies may just be the next great economic engine this country sorely needs.

Pistol Packin' Soccer Mama

Quite the brouhaha and impassioned Second Amendment debate in Lebanon, PA, where a woman is suing the cops for a cool million for yanking her concealed weapons permit after she brought her roscoe to her daughter's soccer game. Unlike Dead-Thigh Burress, though, Melanie Hain had a holster and a constitutionally-protected right to scare the livin' she-yot out of everyone in Pennsylvania if that's what it takes to feel safer in a land where heaters are flying off the shelves amid a growing concern about our newly-elected government's insidious plan to take them away, as captured on this grainy black and white video. This space won't quibble with anyone's right to lawfully pack a rod, but given the way adults often behave at kids' sports events, this space don't think it'd feel particularly secure if it were in any proximity to someone who had one while the tots were tusslin' on the field and the damn fool ref was playing fast and loose with the off-sides calls.

Even the economy's shot

One of the leading economic indicators showed a surprising uptick on the aptly-named Black Friday, but despite this surge in consumer confidence, overall profit margins are expected to be flat this holiday season, so you might as well keep your tin cup, sandwich board or barrel and suspenders handy. It looks like Super Bowl commercials will take a hit and there's even talk of scaling back the 2012 London Olympics. This space suggests holding the Games on the back lawn of Buckingham Palace, laying off 10 percent of the countries that wish to compete, bestowing chocolate coins wrapped in gold, silver or bronze foil in lieu of real medals, and using a drum fire as the torch, so athletes can huddle around it for warmth after the heat is turned off in the Olympic Village. Mr. Rogge, feel free to pick and choose.

Good news at last

Let us take heart, though, that $400 milliom of Citi Bank's $45 billion in bailout dough will help keep the conglomerate's name on the Mets' new ballpark, which some local pols suggested be re-named Citi/Taxpayer Field. Apparently, maintaining name recognition is the key to the Citi in these perilous times, although this space tends to recognize the name as synonymous with mismanagment and waste and maybe even fraud. "They're an ongoing business," Mets COO Jeff Wilpon has insisted. Certainly, sir. Likely ongoing the way of Enron.

Fish heads

Captain Beefheart sports a trout mask.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown is all well and good, but this space's main complaint is the absence of lemon wedges -- although there is a Bob Lemon. But where's the tartar sauce? Well, by golly, it's way up in Grand Maran, New Brunswick at The Sardine Museum and Herring Hall of Fame. Founded by the late eccentric Michael Zimmer, the hall is the place for fish heads to savor the remains of another, simpler and gentler time, when the herring industry was king, little kids put sardine cans in the spokes of their bikes and merely taking the plastic wrapper off a wooden fish trap wouldn't immediately sink its value on the collectables and memorabilia market. To enhance the Herring Hall's athletic aroma, this space hereby nominates for induction Matt Herring, Kevin Bass, Dizzy Trout, Bob Kipper, Chico Salmon, Catfish Hunter and anyone who ever played for the long-gone Hartford Whalers.

No gas in Gang Green

It seems a certain amount of chicken-counting or over-eggsuberant anticipation occurred in these parts after the New York Jets dusted the previously unbeaten Tennessee Titans a couple Sundays back. Certain local publications engaged in several days worth of goo-goo-eyed speculating about a Jets - Giants Super Bowl in February. But the don't call 'em Gang Green for nothing and like the flesh-eating disease the nickname suggests, their long-held reputation as the NFL's cruelest teases remains intact. That 34-17 waxing by the Broncos last Sunday basically cooled the media's jets.

Another reason to be glad you don't live in New York

Stuff like this is in the daily papers. A main reason why you find so many local canaries, parakeets and parrots guzzling Pepto-Bismol.

Unfounded Rumor of the Week

Hey, we love hearsay as much as the next jury member, so we're jazzed to report that the cop in our woodpile says New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will seek the death penalty in the Burress nightclub self-shooting case. "I think it would be an outrage if we didn't prosecute to the fullest extent of the law," Hizzoner indignantly proclaimed in the wake of that breathlessly executed, so to speak, shotgun formation, hidden pistola trick and end-around in the wee hours of Saturday mornin'. The fullest extent of the law, our source reminds us, is Old Sparky. As DA Robert Morgenthau cackled while dismissing the possibility of a plea bargain, "We get meaner all the time."

The Epistle Portal

Want to lob a comment, complaint or mouldering cabbage at the unfortunate soul who compiles this compendium that so cruelly robs you of time you can't have back? Well, fire away! By using this handy mailbag contraption, you can sleep soundly at night in the knowledge that your rotten tomato went into the little window on the right and came out of a screen in New York City, landing squarely on the author's pasty face. Best of all, it's free. And it times of economic dexterity, that deal's hard to beat.